《Heathens》


 Heathens

    The smaller corpses were the first to rise. They came in pairs, thirty-five in total, all mutilated and wrecked upon. Gashes, bites, bludgeoned skin and torn muscle. It would have made the Fisherman freeze had he seen them. But he did not, for the bodies were far off and away from the Fisherman who kept his side to his reel and whose tired face clocked the time spent with the extra black rings underneath his eyelids. Like a tree stump. He had been at Lake New Hope since five in the morning and had experienced the wasting away of hours since the turn of the millennium. An old man.


    He raised his hook and bait, not a single bite. Then he dropped it again in calm disappointment.


    News reports of the days of terror this last month had worn him down and he figured today, today at least he would relax, on the lake waters. Maybe he wanted to drown into the tepid waters, to wash away the news headlines from his memory, those of the abductions and of the murders. But the more he dozed, the more they came back up. Haunted.


    It was ten in the morning. Ten thirty-four to be exact when he got his first bite.


    He awoke. The Fisherman put his legs against the timber of the boat and brought up his heavy, whining reel. His tongue smacked against the roof of his mouth and he could not hold his bucket hat from falling atop the water and floating like a brown lily pad. His muscles were strained and he wished he was younger. The metal fishing line cut his palm and moved him, dragged him to the inner walls of the boat. He wrestled, he added new scars. His white hairs stuck past his wet skin, what a thrill.


    He fought against the bubbling waters, he fought against the rope and with one final yelp he fought against his strained heart. He collapsed on his back. Something went flying above him and landed in the boat.


    It was a shirt.


    Striped, a polo shirt. Torn to ribbons. His eyes opened and he felt stress wounding him again with a headache. He felt two more rings chiseled underneath his lids. His rod rolled away from him, on the seat of the boat. The Fisherman leaned back. He yelled into his hands. Yelling until his voice croaked.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    He looked up, tired as if coming out of a sleepy haze. His red face felt the cool sting of air. He narrowed his eyes to the spot where he had won the shirt, then past that to the blur of a object that floated on the horizon. It was off in the distance, a bump in his vision that interrupted the blinding morning sun. He rubbed his eyes as the mist and dew often guttered his vision. When he opened again, he saw more bumps. More specks. More black foreign bodies. His heart began to beat wildly. The Fisherman looked down the side of his boat and saw spurts. A collection that grew like cancer and swallowed the hull. Festering, alive almost, as it rattled his boat with white fizz. He looked beneath the depths of the dark waters. Was he in a cauldron? Spun in circles from the wooden spoon? No. There was no witch or alchemist. It was something worse, it was the vomit of the sea.


    Curiosity bit him as much as fear. He stuck his hand in the water. It felt warm, gassy. He brought it back inside and saw the pinkish red on his palm. It had a sticky viscosity to it. He stood, walked back and tripped over a cooler. He fumbled back to a seat. The violent sound had become all-encompassing, it sounded like an explosion underneath his small boat. He could felt it from his balls to his brains, the trembling roar of the lake. He was going to die. His face lost all color.


    ¡°Goddamnit.¡± He shouted. A geyser came out, a pillar of foaming white. It was erected fifteen, maybe twenty meters high before it shattered into small wet daggers. They struck him. The Fisherman put his hands on his face and against the spray and screamed for dear life as his boat rode the high tide. It jumped, it clapped down and struck water so fast that he could feel the wood break. His boat nearly capsized and he screamed, screamed at every crack and break of the wood. The Fisherman hesitated to stand up but did after a while. He felt bruises and a compression in his head. An eye, swollen. His body, pained all over. He had been thrown like a rag doll in the tempest storm.


    His body was still and cold at the ends of his limbs. And the waters returned to calm prosperity, all the noise and all the movement, dead. He stood. His body felt limp. He wiped the water from his face and looked out towards the horizon. His heart stopped, his pulse went faint. The color in his cheeks faded and his eyes turned to humble grey. He stood dead, staring westward. What did he see?


    Corpses. Corpses rising from their watery graves. In gentle rhythm. One, two, three, four, up and away towards the rising sun.

 Chapter 1 - Episode 1

    Vicars


    July 15th, 2017


    10:04 AM


    The most peculiar thing about the nineteen-ninety-four Volkswagon was not the two demon hunters driving it, Vicars as they¡¯re called. Nor was it the zooming eighty miles an hour pace they were working it to. Nor was it the incoming image of Havenbrook that superimposed itself on the front glass, that little gritty town sitting at the top of the little-itty mountain in the eastern parts of rural Colorado (yet somehow maintaining that new age industrial edge). No. The most peculiar thing about that car and about those inhuman men was the laptop sitting atop the passenger, Apollo. More than that, it was the images he scrolled through as he took lazy puffs of Camel gold-band cigarettes.


    They were images of a corpse. What the Havenbrook Report called ¡®The latest bite of the Vampire of Havenbrook¡¯. Apollo sifted through the images of the corpse, copied them, saved them.


    ¡°Do you really need to do that right now?¡± Dion said (the driver). He turned sharp, the whole car nearly derailed but Apollo sat, comfortable in the intense cloud of smoke he fumigated the car with. It was hard to believe he could look through the black screen and into the laptop. Dion steadied the car, put his hand in front of him and wafted away smoke. He looked to the passenger, to Apollo, and stared at his eyes. It looked like he (Apollo) hadn¡¯t slept for weeks and Dion suspected that perhaps he was the vampire spoken of.


    The car bumped. Both of their tall heads hit the roof of the car.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Dion half-smiled at Apollo.


    ¡°Keep your eye on the road.¡± Apollo exhaled smog. Dion looked forward, gasped, turned his wheel, and made his brake screech as he came around the bend. Apollo didn¡¯t flinch.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t apologize.¡± He closed his laptop with a ceremonious clap. ¡°We¡¯ll be there in thirty minutes.¡±


    ¡°Was that article important?¡± Dion asked, more out of nervousness than curiosity. He was taking glances at his partner to be, the intense fellow with the dark rings around his eyes and the brown skin and the unyielding gaze.


    ¡°It might be. It might not be. It¡¯s just something to read to catch up on the recent history of the city.¡± Apollo said.


    Dion looked ahead, both his arms were straightened out on the wheel. It felt worse now without the cacophony of typing or the buzz of a computer fan to keep the attention away from Dion. Now it felt, at least to Dion, that all the attention was on him. On his driving, or rather, skidding around.


    ¡°So, uh, is this your first mission?¡± Dion scratched his neck.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not.¡±


    ¡°How long have you been in the game?¡±


    ¡°Thirteen years.¡±


    ¡°Wow, you were young when you started.¡± Dion said in a tone he reflected might have been too patronizing. He took glances to see if the man took offense. On further inspection, he began to wonder if Apollo was even here, for Apollo was looking elsewhere, maybe to the sky or the smog or at the sun, as his face looked scrunched and wrinkled.


    Dion licked his lips, fidgeted with his hair.


    ¡°A Vicar for thirteen years.¡± Dion said. ¡°So you¡¯ve seen them right? Creatures. Monsters. Demons?¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    ¡°How was it?¡± Dion¡¯s mouth was slack-jawed now in what looked like child-like curiosity. Well, as child-like as a twenty-two-year-old man could get.


    Apollo looked past Dion to the window, then to the forest that colored the mountain range a drab green like cancerous ocean algae. He looked closer, to the lake and closer still to people he saw on the water surface, swimming and dunking each other in their wisp-like white clothes.


    ¡°It¡¯s frightening.¡± Apollo answered.


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sure." Dion said. "How many times have ya fought?¡±


    ¡°Is this an interrogation?¡± Apollo drew his sharp eyes to Dion. Dion felt the sweat upon his forehead.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Dion went back into his seat. He waited a bit for the silence to pass. ¡°Right. I get it. It¡¯s rude to ask so much of you without introducing myself. Well, my name¡¯s Dion and I - ¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t care.¡± Apollo interrupted. ¡°I know everything I want to know about you. You were taken to an orphanage, a Japanese-American from Virginia. Poor and abandoned by your mother from birth. At the age of six, you were indoctrinated and spent the next twelve years training in that lonely hell you¡¯d call the Vatican. You had your operation four years ago and after adjusting to your new existence, well here you are. A real church boy, fresh out the fucking archways in what I assume you assume to be the holiest fucking mission you could ever undertake for the Lord himself.¡±


    Dion felt naked, exposed to a burning sun as it felt.


    ¡°Hey come on. You represent the church as well, don¡¯t insult it.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°They give me work. That¡¯s it.¡±


    ¡°What does that mean? If you weren¡¯t raised there then where¡¯d you get your training from?¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Everyone has a back story, come on.¡± Dion turned and swore he felt the car drop inches closer to the pavement.


    ¡°A man¡¯s origins are important to him and him alone. To strangers? It¡¯s just a good way for them to play armchair psychologist. And let me tell you something, that¡¯s the worst thing to be, in someone else''s small fucking box. I¡¯ve heard enough of that psycho-babble-injured-child bullshit to know I don¡¯t want it or need it.¡± He said with finality. Dion stared, confused as to why he had even bothered asking. That was the end of the conversation in that car. And both of them it seemed had decided unanimously, through wordless agreement, to stay silent for the rest of the ride. Idle silence, a jumping and wobbling idle silence.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    They passed a blemished sign, rust-red. Apollo turned his head to read it. ¡®Welcome to Havenbrook¡¯.


    They both turned then to the city now sprawling and unfolding itself upon their eyes. It looked like a city about to dissolve into the forest. The road was broken into cracks, black shards of asphalt. The stores were of worn stone and from the crevices and gaps of brick and concrete, you could see the wild grass and weed growing out serpentine-like. There was a pharmacy. A goodwill store. A candy store and all of it was so barren and lifeless as to be mistaken for a photograph of some grim Depression-era stock photo. It had the same wasted palette too, gray, brown, black. Apollo almost confused it for those ghost town tour props, like the walls would fall down after revealing themselves as being cardboard cutouts. But it was real. As they came along the sidewalk and looked out, it was all real; the broken turbulent road, the empty-eyed people wandering about like zombies, an old factory chimney towering over them with its shadow. It looked like a pipeline straight into the heavens, there to deliver the all the obfuscating grime the city had to offer.


    They stopped their car and got out. They stood in front of the pharmacy and looked across the street. There was a parking lot, the children were on the floor pulling out fistfuls of wild grass and driving their toy cars on uneven terrain. The adults were looking up to a man (a loud-mouthed man at that) and suckled on water bottles.


    ¡°Do you think we¡¯ve been punished without reason?¡± The man said to a speechless crowd. ¡°That this was some kind of cruel lottery we had the unfortunate pleasure of having won? Don¡¯t be a fool! It¡¯s all the Lord¡¯s design you see. This punishment, this sin. All a test! A test we have failed, I tell you! We have succumbed to that vanity of vanities, just look around yourselves!¡±


    ¡°Amen.¡± Some old soul said in the background. The younger parents wanted to speak but felt choked to answer.


    ¡°Our debauchery, our gluttony, our worship of these false idols known as money, known as lust, known as man! Known as man! For all worship not of God is not of good faith. So can you see now, why we have earned this punishment? What it is deserved?¡±


    ¡°Amen.¡± A few more voices said.


    The preacher rose and stood atop a turned over shopping cart. The wheels still spun and they pulled on his dirty vestment, a black robe botched with holes.


    ¡°You weep and moan for the freshly dead that litter the obituaries, I don¡¯t! I tell ye. For they had deserved it! They¡¯re sinners, sinners I tell ye! And I know! I know because I heard God, in the privacy of my lonely existence, I heard his voice. And what did you know? He reached out to me. To me! And he offered salvation. And it¡¯s on discount, I tell ye. It is for sale, clearance! So long as you heed my words and put your faith in God, you will have salvation. It¡¯s cheap, it¡¯s not easy, but it¡¯s cheap.¡± He licked his lips. ¡°And know this. Know this! That this plague of death is His machination and if you listen, you too can avoid it! Let me tell ye!¡± He was spitting with the excitement. ¡°He sends the trumpeters up and above the mountain, He sends the plague through the rivers! And the horrors, they live beneath us in want and wait like roots, there to tangle and strangle. So heed me, let me deliver you away from this evil. Let me tell ye. Amen!¡± The Preachers baritone voice seemed to ring with a sweet timbre and finally forced the rest of the crowd to cheer or gawk or leave.


    He fell (the Preacher) back to earth, nearly taking off into orbit with that throttle of blood-rushed screaming. He settled himself next to the shopping cart and began shaking hands, talking privately, mingling as they say and handing out small pamphlets with a pixelated picture of his face on the front and the words in comic sans font that read ¡®JIMMIES NEW CHURCH OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS¡¯. Most people, however, looked afraid and ashamed of being afraid.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s in the bible.¡± Dion closed the door of the car with a gentle tap. He began to feel cold for a moment before he realized it was sweat and the gust of air.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter what¡¯s in the bible. It¡¯s a brand and he¡¯s a smart salesman.¡± Apollo studied the Preacher. ¡°And honestly, if you ask me, that was one hell of a pitch. For idiots, at least. I¡¯m sure those poor fucks think he¡¯s the next messiah.¡±d.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so snarky, man.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t make me wrong.¡± Apollo watched as the people helped the preacher through the crowd and started throwing small coins from their light purses inside a fedora sitting on the floor.


    ¡°Look at ¡®em.¡± Apollo¡¯s eyes narrowed. ¡°I never expected to find any rocket scientists in this dump but this shit still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They¡¯re like monkeys.¡±


    ¡°Come on.¡± Dion bemoaned louder.


    ¡°What? They¡¯re rejects. The accumulative IQ of this city probably sinks into the single digits.¡± Apollo spat. Dion walked towards him, chest forward. He seemed transformed, completely different than the Dion in the car. Apollo made a mental note, a catalog he named Dion¡¯s range of emotions.


    ¡°I don¡¯t like bullies like you.¡± Dion frowned, in a dignified kind of way, with his chin up. ¡°A servant of God ought to be kinder, more sensitive to the troubles of the common man.¡±


    ¡°Get your head out of your ass.¡± Apollo looked back to the people still huddling. ¡°I¡¯m not a servant of God, just His child. And one with a good pair of eyes, for I foresee nothing that resembles any kind of future for this shit hole of a city.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I mean. They¡¯re just misguided and down on their luck is all.¡±


    ¡°Two hundred.¡± Apollo interrupted. ¡°This city has seen two hundred rapes since last year from a measly population of about three thousand four hundred. Wanna know the only thing that outperforms the rapes? The rate at which a motherfucker kills another motherfucker. Five hundred out of three thousand four hundred. Wanna know what outperforms the murderers? The junkies.¡± Dion walked back. He felt trepidation coming onto him like a hot flash across his cheeks. His high pumped chest deflated.


    ¡°All right. All right. I get it.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Most of these fucks can¡¯t even read. Read, Dion, read. Wouldn¡¯t be surprised if that Preacher carries around the holy book for show.¡± Apollo pointed to the false prophet (or honest one, to some circles) and the cart he drove with earnest excitement, the loose change was coming off him and the baskets sitting on the baby seat of the car. He stopped for a moment. Knelt down and picked up a quarter with shaking hands.. ¡°I¡¯ve made a fair judgment. These people, they¡¯re like Neanderthals. I¡¯m sure they¡¯d worship a fucking tree if you told them it¡¯d help.¡±


    A shoe-less man passed them, hair longer than his arms, who ate from a loose packet of raw hot dog sausages.


    ¡°Look at that? Some of them even look prehistoric. Like they came right out of the fucking wax museum.¡± Apollo laughed.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough.¡± Dion looked down at Apollo. Apollo looked up. Dion¡¯s shadow was wide across the floor yet looking closer into Dion he could see the innocence in his eyes and it made Apollo calm. He was a child in a man¡¯s body, he thought. A bit dafter than one though.


    ¡°These people need our help. With the recent killings, you could be a bit more sympathetic, ya know? Stop judging them. Only He has that right, after all.¡± Dion nodded his head, agreeing with himself.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care to be a hero and I don¡¯t care to be sympathetic. These people were already at the edge of self-destruction.¡± Apollo threw a sardonic laugh at Dion. ¡°This thing is probably a huge fucking joke anyways, the cities so shit they¡¯ve probably confused their problems for the work of a demon or anti-christ. I see this happen all the time.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t be serious.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I am. Nine times out of ten - from experience - these demon sightings tend to be false positives. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if this whole mission was a hoax.¡± He spat a cigarette and found another in his pocket. It was mechanical, the way Apollo lit and drew in his deep breaths and exhaled, like the giant industrial furnaces and chimneys towering over them. ¡°You see Dion, sometimes people see violence so palpable and so outrageous that the only excuse they can imagine is that it was the work of a demon. Sometimes that¡¯s right. Sometimes. But most of the time, most of the time¡­ it¡¯s just a man, just a regular ol¡¯ man, exercising the capacity of his cruelty. A tragedy, so to speak.¡±


    They both kind of stood there, existing but not exactly acknowledging each other. Dion¡¯s neck was craned, his eyes yielded away from Apollo and stared at the floor. Apollo looked up, to the sun and then to his dragging shadow. His face scrunched a bit and he walked away towards the noise of people, a crowd on the sidewalk. And Dion stood there, feeling jelly-like as if the concrete pillars inside of him (those of faith and of courage and of honesty) had been reduced some and all that was left was a worried man. Worried, annoyed, angry.


    He looked up, the sun was blinding and he mumbled to himself: "This is going to be terrible."

 Chapter 2

    Sophie


    July 15th, 2017


    12:34 PM


    Mr. Molyneaux heard the whimper of the door as it opened but saw no one come through. He sat behind the counter with his glazed eyes and adjusted his glasses to correct the confusion. No one walked through, he assured himself. But there was a thud. Somewhere in the many aisles of his small shop, he could hear the thudding and tapping like light rain. His face shifted direction to the sound of bags of discount razors falling and scraping the floor.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± Mr. Molyneaux said, hopeful to nothing. There was another thud on another aisle and he could feel the creeping sensation of fear tapping along his spine and playing music with the rapid tempo of his heartbeat. Things would not stop falling. Noises would not stop rising and he swore he could hear a crawling, distinct and low. The sound of a predator in the high grass.


    ¡°Who the hell is there?¡± He screamed out again and knocked over wooden shavings and miniature horses and blocks of half-carved wood. His used knife rolled on the counter as he stood up. His legs could not lock, age and fear both shaking him. They kept a wobbly right angle and teetered between failing and breaking.


    He heard the crawling again. Like mice or some centipede dancing along the floor. He tried calming down but remembered the newspaper and it fed his paranoia. He was remembering the words and pinching his legs for doing so, ¡®Vampire strikes again, man found dead. Stabbed three dozen times and left on top of a manhole¡¯. He started shaking and it looked as if he was going to break into seizure.


    Crawling noises, again. He walked back and bumped into his liquor cabinet. He was going to die, he felt it. Then silence overtook the store. There were only his palpitations as if someone had thrown a wrench inside of a broken engine and turned the key to hear it chug. He held his chest with his hand and pulled on his white hairs with the other. His breathing was uneven. His hand rubbed his scalp to fold the standing hairs back on his nape and balding head.


    That was when he felt the long breath. A cold breath that seemed to suck the heat out his body. He fell down onto the chair like a weight and gag dragged him down. His skull pulsed with rushing blood that fueled the frightening thoughts in his brain, I will die.


    He was in the jaws of the beast, he figured. All he could do was jump and give the illusion of putting up a fight. So in one swoop, he did all he could manage: cry, moan, beg, take his knife and push himself against the counter to a corner where he could huddle himself. He did it in such a quick succession that he tripped over himself and landed on the edge of the glass countertop, knife crying out as it scratched the surface.


    ¡°Don¡¯t kill me.¡± He pleaded with that muffled voice as his face pushed against the glass. ¡°Please, don¡¯t.¡±


    And all he could hear was a maniacal laugh.


    A snorting laugh.


    A stupid, childish laugh.


    He turned and saw his granddaughter on the floor, red and turning purple as she chortled and suffocated herself with humor. Mr. Molyneaux¡¯s shaking did not end rather, was transmuted. He no longer felt limp and oozing. His limbs felt like tree trunks. Heavy, full, filled with the sap of rage and he went up to her and grabbed her by the shirt.


    ¡°What the hell¡¯s the matter with you?¡± He screamed. She laughed. ¡°I¡¯m seventy-four, do you know how easy it would be to give me a heart attack?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry gran-paw.¡± She tried to say in the brief moments of calm.


    ¡°Sorry? You¡¯ve made a mess of me. Scared the soul right out of me, girl. Git damnit, Sophie. What the hells the matter with you?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. Nothing at all. I just thought you¡¯d be happy to see me.¡± She cleaned the spittle off her overalls and blue shirt. The old man looked at his grand daughter''s small face in surprise. He couldn''t believe the wide grin on her as if it didn¡¯t even belong to her, rather, stolen from a mad clown. She looked like a snake with an unhinged mouth.


    Mr. Molyneaux sighed again and relief filled his lungs as he breathed what he now realized was precious air. He sat back, laid the knife down and rubbed his temples.


    ¡°Why¡¯re you here? Shouldn¡¯t you be at school?¡± He said.


    ¡°Well, aren¡¯t you happy to see me.¡±


    ¡°I would be if you weren¡¯t skipping and weren¡¯t trying to kill me.¡±


    ¡°Well, gran-paw. If you must know, they canceled school. Must¡¯ve got scared by the news today. Another abduction. Don¡¯t you read the paper?¡±


    ¡°Are you lying Sophie?¡±


    ¡°The hell I¡¯m lying.¡± She lifted herself up to the counter and let her legs dangle.


    ¡°Don¡¯t curse.¡±


    ¡°Hell isn¡¯t a curse. It¡¯s just a place.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s both.¡± Mr. Molyneaux found his glasses on the floor. They looked bent to his eyes, felt bent on his nose. ¡°Well, what¡¯re you doing here anyway? Go play with your friends.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t like playing games. I¡¯m here for merchandise.¡±


    ¡°Merchandise?¡± He looked at her through crooked spectacles. ¡°You certainly have my blood in you. How long you been selling those candies?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re chocolates. The highest quality, processed and manufactured in Switzerland since nineteen-forty-seven.¡± She showed her gums with a wide grin. Her teeth looked like broken porcelain shards, all uneven and sharp.


    "Besides¡­ what are you, IRS?¡± She asked.


    ¡°What do you know of the IRS.¡± He reached for a half-finished block of wood and began carving again.


    ¡°Enough not to answer to you.¡± She took out a wad from her overalls. ¡°I sell enough that it might get me in trouble.¡±


    In her closed hands was a bundle of twenties.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    ¡°Let me see if they¡¯re real.¡± Mr. Molyneaux dragged his eyes to the money. Sophie reeled it back.


    ¡°Let me see the good stuff first.¡± Her tone became deeper and Mr. Molyneaux knew what the voice meant. Haggling.


    ¡°You want a box?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Two.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯ll be thirty bucks.¡±


    ¡°It was ten per box last time.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t have money last time. I pitied you, honestly.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t take anything short of fifteen dollars for both boxes.¡±


    ¡°God damn girl. First, you try to kill me and now you try to bankrupt me?¡±


    ¡°Fifteen.¡±


    ¡°Twenty-five for the two.¡±


    ¡°Fifteen.¡±


    ¡°Who the hell changed your diapers? Me. Who took care of you when you were sick? Me. Who lets you run amok in his store? Me.¡±


    ¡°Fifteen.¡± She did not blink, did not move. She looked like a blue wall. With her stern face, a real enduring face. They went at it in the battle of stares. The Old Man was the first to turn his cheek. He sighed, opened his counter and saw nothing. A depressing absence of green. He began to sweat again and felt the chill of another kind of death coming onto him.


    ¡°Twenty-two.¡±


    ¡°Fine. Twenty.¡±


    Mr. Molyneaux twitched a bit but ended up shaking her hand.


    ¡°I¡¯ll give them to you after I close shop.¡± He had to rip the bill from her hands. ¡°Stay on the counter and take up space. I want the store to look like it¡¯s busy.¡± Mr. Molyneaux said. She stood for a bit, it wasn''t long. Ten minutes, fifteen maybe and when he turned, she was gone. Disappeared into the back where she climbed the gondolas, a little monkey in her little metal jungle, searching and inspecting with that primate curiosity. He smiled. She was his granddaughter. Very small, though mentally too old for middle school. She resembled him more than his own daughter, Sophie¡¯s mother. For inside of Sophie was that stubbornness he found in himself. It was a likeness that vindicated Mr. Molyneaux and his failing bloodline, a collection of reprobates as he had told Sophie, lectured to her at least. He wondered if his genes must have played leap-frog for a generation. The thought made him chuckle and in the humor, he almost lost track of the door opening again. The creak, the bell ring.


    Sophie dropped. She stared from the back room where her gaze locked on to the counter space, it looked like she would burn a hole through the glass.


    Dion came forward first with a pumped chest and eager smile. Apollo was behind. While Dion wasted his time lurking the aisles with hungry eyes, Apollo made his way to the counter.


    ¡°I want a pack.¡± Apollo pointed down to a gold-branded box of cigarettes. He eyed a map of the town and put it on the counter too.


    ¡°You two new around here?¡± Mr. Molyneaux asked. Sophie felt pride from her grandfather''s stuff face. He reminded her of an old oak tree, or at least a slab left to dry and harden into a bulwark.


    ¡°Something like th- Put that back.¡± Apollo pointed to the bag of potato chips Dion came up with.


    ¡°Please, I¡¯m hungry.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll eat later. Put that back.¡±


    ¡°Come on.¡±


    ¡°Stop being obnoxious.¡± Apollo hissed.


    ¡°What?¡± Dion looked around for sympathy.


    ¡°It¡¯s rude.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°You of all people? Calling me rude?¡± Dion went over back to the wall of the many-colored plastic bags and almost knocked it down with his firm placing.


    ¡°That it?¡± Mr. Molyneaux rung up the number. Apollo looked at a silver wrist-watch hanging by the side and added it to the potpourri.


    ¡°Oh, but you¡¯ll buy that huh. A watch? Real important to tell the time. And the cigarettes.¡± Dion said. Apollo threw an annoyed stare at him.


    ¡°That it?¡± Mr. Molyneaux repeated.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Apollo said. He took out his wallet and set down some bills and when his eyes came up they met with the girl. Sophie felt cold as if the veins in her body had all stopped their transactions. He bore the markings of a violent man on his face, he looked dirty, like a human being who had spent his years bathing in the gutter, living and acting like gutter trash. She swore he would eat her, hurt her, kill her. Do something to her. She held her breath behind the wall though did not understand her fear. They were just people, weren¡¯t they? No. Maybe. They were odd, she knew it, felt it. It was enough to justify her shivering legs.


    ¡°No, actually. I¡¯d like some news if you don¡¯t mind.¡± Apollo redirected his eyes to the wood-carved horse on the counter.


    ¡°We don¡¯t sell the morning paper here.¡± Mr. Molyneaux said.


    ¡°Good thing you have a mouth and an ear, right?¡± Apollo could feel he had offended Mr. Molyneaux in some way. It was in the air like a kind of steam or mist. ¡°I just wanna know if anything strange has happened around here.¡±


    ¡°Besides you?¡± Mr. Molyneaux said. He did not like them and it was clear on his face. Maybe it was because of how tall they were or the color of their skin or Apollo''s rugged face, but they made him uncomfortable as if they were things pretending at being human and falling into uncanny valley.


    ¡°With that attitude, I¡¯m surprised you even have a business. I just want information.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°This is why no one likes you city people. Always insulting us.¡± Mr. Molyneaux mumbled. ¡°Why do you care about the news so much?¡±


    ¡°What business is it of yours.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°None. And since it ain¡¯t my business to know it ain''t my business to tell. Maybe you should try being a friend.¡± Mr. Molyneaux said.


    ¡°Right? Right! He''s not anyone''s friend.¡± Dion chimed. He walked up next to Apollo and donned his bright, piercing, smile. ¡°We¡¯re just with the church. Just here to help the people with a little faith, you see."


    ¡°Don¡¯t know what the bible can do.¡±


    ¡°About what?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°About the crazy weather we''ve been having lately. Or the strangeness of the city. Or the killings.¡±


    ¡°Anything you know about them?¡± Apollo pressed and they could all feel something drop. It was the sound of the little rapport they had, thrown away, into an echo-less pit. Mr. Molyneaux frowned again.


    ¡°No. I don¡¯t know anything. Go buy the paper elsewhere or turn on the tube.¡± Mr. Molyneaux opened the register, took the money and they both kind of floundered. They looked like fish breathing hopelessly on land. Sophie saw the wide frown on Apollo and laughed. She knocked over shelves onto herself. Then her fear came back. Everyone seemed to turn to her but only Dion ran to help. He extended his hand and she crawled away from his worried face.


    ¡°Are you hurt?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Of course she¡¯s not.¡± Apollo said from afar. Mr. Molyneaux looked helpless with his quaking hands. Dion lifted the shelf, he picked her up and stood her though she squirmed. He backed away from the flustered girl. He wanted to apologize, started on it but felt a tap on his shoulder. Apollo, who pointed to the door. They left with the plastic bag of things on their hands. Sophie looked at their shadows through the windows of the store and how they dragged along with the falling sun, she could not help but feel small. It was the smallest she had ever felt and it incited in her an anger. Anger grew into desperation, desperation for a relief she wanted from her frustration.


    She ran out. Zooming past aisles, knocking down things like a maddened miniature rhinoceros.


    She¡¯d give them a piece of her mind, especially the brown one with the rude mouth.


    Mr. Molyneaux called out for her, but she was too far ahead and hounding the men trying their way into the flow of pedestrians. She reached them almost, touched their sleeves. But something came from the sidelines. Darkness, temporary on her right eye, then darkness all across her face, smothering her. She looked up, rubbing her eyes and saw another pair. A different pair, not the Vicars, the strange men as she called them, but another kind of strangeness. A man looked down, disgusted. His face was like clay, cracked and dry and beginning to harden into the perfect figure of disgust he looked like. She stood up, tapped her faces and realized warmth on her nose. Warmth down her lips and on her chin. Her nose was bleeding and as the faces of strangers looked around to her she began to feel small again like a bug desperate to find the dirt mound or the flower bed to hide, to sleep.


    She ran to her grandfather and ran away from the disgusted man with the blood on his shirt. He wiped his shirt and by now everyone around them had begun gossiping and observing. The strangers, the Vicars, somewhere in the crowd watching too. The bloodied man looked back at Sophie. He too was feeling nervous and he too experienced a heaviness in his ankles. It was a strange thing, this moment, all four of them, Apollo, Dion, The Disgusted man, and Sophie. All looking at each other. All ignorant to the nature of the other. The players set, but blind to each other''s allegiance.


    And this is how it would go. Apollo and Dion who would kill the disgusted man. The disgusted man who would kill Sophie. Sophie who would die a lonely death. But that was for another day and not today. Today? Today they just looked at each other before splitting away from the nausea-inducing crowd.


    All terrified in some way, all taking their separate ways down the same labyrinth though they did not know it. But they would, soon. They would.

 Chapter 3

    Alestor


    July 15th, 2017


    3:15 PM


    It was only a few minutes into the murder and John Alestor was already interrupted. It was a knocking that came from his front door, a familiar tempo. He rose and stood in his dripping sweat, felt it collect on his collar. He set down the tender fish bone blade on a table adjacent to his seat and came down from the room, now in complete darkness. He skated across the wood floor, down the stairs with hustle and vigor. All of him was white, the boxers, the socks, the coat. All of it except for a particular red stain on his shirt. Realizing it, he started stripping. But the knocking was getting angrier.


    ¡°Hold on.¡± He moved button to button. Grunted. Ripped it, threw it inside of a closet to his rear to forget about it and walked towards the door.


    "Hold on." He screamed. It sounded like a battering ram was oppressing his walls.


    Alestor looked through the eye-hole and sighed.


    ¡°You¡¯re home early.¡± He opened a sliver of the door. His eyes spilled through the slit, they looked like two small black holes. His capillaries throbbed as if little red worms jumped into an abyss.


    ¡°I was studying.¡± The boy behind the door said.


    "Right, hold on." Alestor said.


    There were five locks in total, two chains, three dials that thumped and clanked as they hit the the wall and the floor. When they opened he couldn¡¯t help but fan himself dry, especially with his son in front of him.


    The look they gave each other was standoffish with their raised and stretched chins to give the appearance of an under bite. Their noses bloomed. It was a long look between the two. He was a slim boy, tall too but you would not have noticed with how low and bony his shoulders were. His clothes were too big for him and it made him seem like a mummy underneath ceremonial wrapping.


    ¡°Why are you naked?¡± The son asked.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Alestor looked down. ¡°Oh. Oh, some girl spilled her lunch on me. I didn¡¯t get too mad about it, she was already embarrassed enough. I took the clothes out, they¡¯re in the laundry now.¡± The boy responded with a dull look.


    ¡°Is that the truth?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Of course. What¡¯s the point in lying about something so small.¡± Alestor said.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, you tell me. What is the point?¡±


    By now he was getting nervous again like he had gotten earlier before. He looked around to see who else was outside, neighbors who watered their grass lazily with beers in their hands, another who backed his giant orange truck into a pole. That one was in a hurry. Moving houses, probably. His panorama gaze grew more intense, narrow and focused, and with it came a narcissistic paranoia. He wanted back inside his cove and yanked on his son¡¯s arm.


    ¡°Come on, get in. You¡¯ll catch a cold.¡± He said.


    ¡°It¡¯s summer.¡±


    It didn¡¯t matter. The son was dragged through the house and plopped down on the sofa.


    ¡°Are you hungry?¡± Alestor asked.


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°How was your day at school?¡±


    ¡°Fine. How was your day at the clinic?¡±


    ¡°Fine.¡± Alestor bit his lips and looked up the stairs. He brought his eyes back to his son.


    "Just fine?" He asked.


    ¡°I dealt with a young mother today, she left her husband and child. Didn¡¯t know why she left them, only knew they made her feel terrible.¡± Alestor said.


    ¡°Sounds like it was rough.¡± His son turned on the television.


    ¡°A little, for me. A lot, for her. I¡¯m just the man she talks to.¡±


    ¡°Rough, huh. Why not move on, start writing papers, doing research. That seems a lot easier than dealing with people.¡±


    ¡°Maybe.¡± Alestor began to climb up the stairs and hung by the rail. This is how it always was, his son sinking into his seat in defiance like the Tiananmen square, the man in front of the Chinese tank, calmly protesting. His son looked to his direction as he put another foot on a step. It felt like he was under a search light with the intense heat on top of his half naked body.


    ¡°I need to go find a shirt.¡± Alestor laughed. "Then some long forms and stuff. The day isn¡¯t done yet"


    ¡°Dad.¡± Isaac lifted himself.


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s move.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been looking into transferring credits. We can go anywhere.¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯d this come from?¡±


    ¡°A couple months of mulling it over. And the city.¡± His eyes narrowed. ¡°The city, mostly. It¡¯s draining having to listen and watch the nasty shit going on. They closed off half the cafeteria and half of the science labs the other day. There was graffiti all over the chem rooms. Crazy shit written. Junkies did it, the police think.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°I understand. If you want to go I can pay for it.¡± Alestor was leaning off the guard rail.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to go without you.¡± Isaac stood.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about me.¡±


    ¡°If mom was here I wouldn¡¯t have to, but I can¡¯t imagine leaving you alone. That stuffs unbearable, you know that...¡± He grabbed his elbows, hugging himself almost.


    ¡°I know it better than you.¡± Alestor gripped the wooden rail. He could feel his fingers digging deep and beginning to crack the wood into splinters. ¡°I study it, I live it.¡±


    ¡°I want us out of this city. It¡¯s not good. It¡¯s like a fucking dungeon in here, with the people, with the streets.¡± Isaac said.


    Alestor breathed out, his cheeks hollowed. ¡°I went out the other day to grab a burger. I saw some woman dragging around some flowers and a photo in the corner of the street, weeping, just fucking crying and walking and screaming ¡®Jane, Jane, Jane. My daughter Jane.¡¯ I turned and next thing you know, she almost threw herself in front of a semi.¡±


    He gave a desperate chuckle. ¡°Good thing there was a fucking red light.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t curse.¡±


    ¡°W-what? What about the sto- Wait? Don¡¯t curse? I¡¯m fucking nineteen.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care. You¡¯re in my house.¡± Alestor punched the wood. It bent.


    ¡°Alright. Alright, that¡¯s fine. That¡¯s fine¡­That¡¯s fine.¡± Isaac held his breath. His animated hands orchestrated some woeful plea. ¡°The point isn¡¯t the cursing or even the suicide. It¡¯s about the city and how bad it is for us. We have the money to move, so why not?¡±


    ¡°I know we have the money because I made the money. I started the business. Me and your mother. Both. We made an empire through all the shi¡ªcrap¡ª in our lives.¡±


    ¡°Empire? It¡¯s an therapists office. An office you can leave any time you want, like mom would have wanted. Don¡¯t confuse your crutch as honoring a dying wish. She would have wanted you to have moved on. Besides¡­¡± His eyes retreated to their corners and he looked away. ¡°You¡¯ve just been acting funny¡­you know¡­¡±


    ¡°Funny? Funny.¡± The wood broke under his grip. ¡°To hell with that.¡±


    It collapsed into shavings. Isaac fell back on the sofa, he could not speak.


    ¡°I will not fucking leave, I can¡¯t. You¡¯re young and brash and lacking in foresight, you don¡¯t know suffering. You don¡¯t know starvation, you live in the luxury of my spoils. With fucking food in the fridge. With fucking air conditioning.¡± He spoke soft and walked down.


    ¡°My work feeds you. It feeds me. It fed your mother and it would have fed my daughter. It was what made us. It was what we were good at, what we were meant to do until¡ª¡± His hoarse voice stung Isaac. Alestor was looking for the words. ¡°You don¡¯t think I want to leave this place? I do, but I can¡¯t. I don¡¯t have that stern stuff in me to weather a future without it.¡±


    ¡°And I¡¯m telling you that¡¯s a good thing. It¡¯s good to be afraid. That¡¯s part of change.¡± Isaac managed to say between a tone that was both pitiful and blunt.


    Alestor ran down and put both hands against his sons face and he would have maneuvered them to his neck had he lacked the little sanity left.


    ¡°Some people like the idea of moving on, and they like it because they think in their small brains that somehow, someway, things will get better. Let me tell you something: they don¡¯t, they never do, they never will.¡± Alestor shook his son. ¡°There¡¯s a hole in my heart and it''s frightening to look at, I¡¯m sure. It¡¯s the type of terror that makes people want to jump from the fifteenth floor. But I¡¯m a bit smarter? Wouldn¡¯t you agree? And I¡¯ve spent a lot of time learning how to walk around that hole. So don¡¯t you lecture me, don¡¯t you pretend you¡¯re better.¡± He let go of his sons face.


    ¡°What the fuck is wrong with you?¡± Isaac asked. He rubbed the red markings off his cheeks. What a smite those words were that drew Alestor back. He raised his finger to his son and bit his underlip.


    ¡°I told you not to fucking curse!¡± He shouted. At nothing, for Isaac was not listening as much as he was judging. He stared at his father like a concerned guest at a zoo, just watching the animals wander and rage and act out the small picture of their lives. And when was done watching his father, Alestor saw him stand, walk to the kitchen and sit. Confused, maybe scared at the table. After a while his son settled into a meditative pose best described as gargoyle-like, brooding and high above. Alestor turned on the television and raised the volume until the bass was ringing his ears into deafening buzzes.


    He left. A little angry, a little tense. And he saw from the corner of his eyes, his son, just staring. At it hurt him some, it felt like his heart was falling down to the pit of his stomach and melting in the acid.


    ¡°I need to get back to work.¡± Alestor walked away, he cleaned spit from his chin. "We''re not having this conversation again. You hear me?"


    The air was cool against his naked body. He walked up, past a hallway, past two rooms and to his study, then another door from within his study, to a corner of the house that seemed highest of all. There was a latch on the ceiling and he began working the lock. He looked back to the loud sounds. He couldn¡¯t hear his son. His chest depressed. And he shook his head before climbing up. The square door glided shut.


    He was in that dark room again where he heard a shingle of metal and shimmy of a man strapped in leather. Alestor moved his hand into the darkness of the room until he grazed a rope and pulled.


    In front of him was a gagged man. Masked, devoid of identity. He looked like cattle to Alestor, disgusted him like cattle would too.


    On the cattle¡¯s back were runes. They spelled out ¡®Bael¡¯ and filled out a layer of a circle. Further within was another circle and more long lines and more long runes, an alien language. Alestor spoke the strange tongue, the enunciation was experienced, eloquent even. He felt the geometrical designs on the branded back. The tattoo looked gray underneath the buzzing fluorescent light, his (the gagged man¡¯s) body looked gray. A stool sat to the rear of the gagged cattle. Above it a cup that smelled foul like something gamey and wild. It was a boiled mixture, it steamed. Alestor drank the muddy water and ran his fingers to the right of the cup where a ruined line of coke lay a top a shard of mirror glass. He brought up a piece, his hands shook. He sniffed, his nose bled. Like the girl he had bumped into earlier in the day. The thought tightened his face and he shut his mouth to enjoy a muffled scream. It gave him courage, anger did.


    ¡°He doesn¡¯t understand but he will. Won¡¯t he, master?¡± He said with a strained face. It was all hitting him like a diamond bullet through his brains and out his chest. Courage, faith, all coming through as a shining ray on his perforated body. He was glowing or at least felt like he was glowing. Alestor pushed down on the gagged mans back with his palm and inspected the canvas.


    ¡°You will too. Monster that you are. Rapist. Murderer. You will be redeemed in your sacrifice. Vindicated some.¡± He traced the seal again with his quaking hand. ¡°I¡¯ve saved you from a terrible fate.¡±


    He breathed, almost backed off before he took another sniff of coke.


    His heart would not stop slamming itself inside the cage of his chest. He could feel tingles up to his finger tips and at the touch of the blade felt his energy discharged, collapsing onto metal handle. The gagged man put up his greatest attempt of struggle then and there, he shook, like a broken washing machine, shook, hoping to wrestle himself off the leather straps. Nothing. Alestor held his hair. When the hand fell upon his scalp, the gagged man tried his second best attempt. He looked to Alestor from the corner of his eyes and wept, cried, sobbed. Pleading, please, please in a muffled voice. It didn¡¯t matter. Alestor gripped harder, nearly pulling hair out.


    ¡°Don''t weep. You won¡¯t be alone soon enough.¡± Alestor bit his tongue to strangle a cry out of his lungs.


    The blade rose high up. There was nothing for the gagged man but the comfort of their heavy breaths like bodies in heat. He could see his death coming, from the corner of his tired eyes where the metal reflected light from the bulb overhead. It was a strange thing to see, that blade. It looked like a lone star in the night sky but fell like a comet.

 Chapter 4

    Apollo


    July 15th, 2017


    5:12 PM


    "Does he have a name?" Dion asked.


    "It doesn''t matter. He''s just the Priest. Might be the only real one left too."


    Apollo took two steps into the church courtyard and already a shudder came upon his shoulders. It was the first time in a while since he had that visceral gut reaction like his belly had been punctured and everything acidic forced out. His pace was slow and he looked with close attention at the miserable expressions on the ruined statues around him. It was a mausoleum of pain, those statues of angels and of the Virgin Mary and of Christ. His shoulders twitched again as he heard the sound of the giant wooden doors open. There were clacks of firm bottomed shoes, then the stampede of attendees. Their faces were low and their voices were soft, afraid.


    ¡°Ah, we missed the sermon.¡± Dion said.


    "Good." Apollo said.


    They slithered past the crowd, coming to a small enclave on the side of the wall and the holy water fountain that rested inside. They dipped their hands. It burned, it tingled. It reminded them of what they were not. Human.


    The halls were large and arched. Their footsteps reverberated like a loud clap. They looked at the Gothic pillars and the way they converged into a dome and they looked at the feet of those pillars where the devout sat on their knees with locked hands. Past them was the Priest. He was smiling, for a moment only.


    He jingled the charity basket and bemoaned. His face changed to something sour.


    ¡°We¡¯re here.¡± Apollo said. The painted glass followed him with their neon eyes. He looked side to side and swore their dull faces dragged.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± The Priest was shaking his little basket.


    ¡°The Vicars?¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°Uh. Hmm. You sent for us? Right?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Mmm. Maybe.¡± The Priest looked up. ¡°Follow me.¡±


    Perhaps he played stupid, perhaps he was stupid. Either way, it didn¡¯t help Apollo from feeling that grating annoyance that made his eyes twitch.


    They headed to the graveyard, through doors upon doors. Doors into doors. Fences into doors. Just an endless stream of gates and stops that had Apollo twitch, twitch, twitch. They went to the chirping birds. It was relaxing, some of it. They walked upon the neat grass, then found themselves amongst graves. Apollo looked down to the piles of dirt, more doors. Entrances into the lives of the long dead who breathed into the two boys a sense of mortality. Some of the erected stones were slanted, aged, others tall and fresh. Dion put his hands to a particular stone, it read JAYNE CONRAD 2005-2017. He jerked away.


    Gust broke into the yard and following the wind, most peculiar, the sound of bells. An all-encompassing ringing. They were hollow tings all around them, coming from the graves and they noticed immediately the small silver bells that were strung up on the tops of small plastic poles. It looked like the water pipes had broken and stabbed through the dirt.


    ¡°What¡¯s up with the noise? Does a corpse need room service?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°What? Room service? Oh.¡± The Priest laughed. ¡°Oh! The bells?¡±


    ¡°No, just the sound, really.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Aha. Yes. We install those into every grave.¡±


    ¡°Into? Install? What the fuck?¡±


    ¡°It''s tradition mostly. Started out as a fear though.¡± The Priest raised his hands up and away like an eccentric conductor. ¡°We had an accident a few years back. We came around to move a body, Andrew Boyle - God rest his soul - and the oddest thing happened.¡± The Priest stopped. ¡°We found claw marks inside of his coffin.¡±


    ¡°Oh my days.¡± Dion said. ¡°Was it a dog?¡±


    ¡°In the coffin, you idiot.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Not on. In. The guy was obviously buried alive. What kind of fucking dog digs six feet under anyway?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it was very strange. Poor guy suffocated in his own coffin.¡± The Priest stopped at a worn grave, made a gross expression and moved on. ¡°You could see the stiff fear on his face. He looked like a statue. Like those poor souls in Pompeii who I¡¯m sure saw death the same way he did, harsh and slow.¡±Stolen novel; please report.


    "How bleak." Dion said.


    ¡°Should have made sure he was dead.¡± Apollo looked around to spit and decided better to do it on the path than the graves.


    ¡°Aha. Yeah. Well, it was a first for us and ever since then we''ve added a bell and rope to every hole. Just in case.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s some fucked up room service.¡± Apollo rubbed the dirt off of a plaque. A small karmic gesture. ¡°But if you use the bells to tell if someones dead, how would you be able to know under this terrible wind?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right. And such unnatural wind, I might add.¡± Dion raised his coat up to his face. ¡°It was so hot earlier too. Bizarre.¡±


    The Priest looked up. He closed his eyes and began scratching his head. That was all the answer the two needed to feel that sense of dread grow inside of them again.


    ¡°Why¡¯d you move the body anyway?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Weirdest thing. His wife wanted it moved.¡± He looked back and Dion could feel the Priest¡¯s grin pierce him as if nails had been hammered into the gaps inside his vertebrae. He hunched and cringed and then the Priest continued out of, what seemed like, joy. ¡°She said she had a dream about him, that he was drowning. She had it four days in a row before she finally got the urge to act and well¡­¡±


    ¡°And well.¡± Dion repeated. Sweat collected on his forehead.


    The Priest held the tension with his smile before he broke into a jovial gaff.


    ¡°Well, that was years ago. We¡¯re better now. You make mistakes, you learn. That kind of thing.¡± The Priest said.


    Out of fear, Dion laughed too.


    They didn¡¯t speak much the rest of the way and did more staring and gawking. Off at a distance, a dull-faced groundskeeper looked at them with his leaf blower aimed against the wind. He was driving grass shavings up into a tornado. The Priest noticed him, looked, and copied his boring face. An ape copying another ape.


    ¡°Who are you again?¡± The Priest said.


    ¡°Enough fucking around. We¡¯re the Vicars from the Vatican.¡± Apollo¡¯s loud voice straightened up Dion.


    ¡°How can I be sure of that?¡± The Priest said.


    ¡°On account of us being the only ones here and knowledgeable about the fact. You didn''t exactly post up the job offer in the yellow papers. We have a schedule, a text, a name. A role. We¡¯re demon hunters, alright? We¡¯re the two and with you, makes the three. The only three that know about this exchange and about the job. The Devils of Havenbrook, that was the report title, right?¡± Apollo wanted to add more than that but tempered the raunchy thoughts by biting his tongue.


    ¡°The Devils of Havenbrook.¡± The Priest¡¯s face turned away. ¡°Yes, I know that.¡±


    He meditated in silence for a bit, but shook his head and faced the two.


    ¡°You know, you have quite the mouth.¡± The Priest looked to Apollo. Apollo who was rolling and massaging his neck, trying to soften bulging veins. ¡°But when you''re right, you''re right. Right? I¡¯ve summoned you and for a reason. Come along.¡±


    The Priest dangled a key. They were in front of a small shed, with an overbearing musk of dirt and oil. The planks on the wall were half eaten by termites, the room was full of tools; scythes, hammers, nails mostly. The Priest lurked inside of the darkness of the shed where they could only see the small rays of light from the holed ceiling. It exposed the ancient dust that lived in the air, ephemeral and gentile.


    The Priest rustled with metal. He came out with two rusted shovels.


    ¡°I can¡¯t kill anything with a shovel.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°I can come up with a couple ways.¡± He mumbled, rubbing his temples.


    ¡°You need to think harder.¡± The Priest pointed to Dion. ¡°And you need to relax.¡± His finger shifted to Apollo. ¡°Your friends brought your stuff in a very strange way. They buried it, didn''t tell me where though."


    "Because they told us." Apollo said. "It''s under a ''Bill Kirby 1940-1997''"


    ¡°They didn''t tell me.¡± Dion said.


    "You''d probably forget it even if they did." Apollo said.


    Dion kicked dirt in Apollo¡¯s direction. Apollo walked away, neither angered nor amused. It was a denial that seemed to bitter Dion more.


    "Why''s it so elaborate?" The Priest asked. Apollo¡¯s spade dragged along the stony road and hit every bump along the curve up to the site.


    ¡°Because it''s too dangerous otherwise." Apollo said. "They used to have another system. One with a Retainer and the Host, the Retainer, of course, would be given the honor of handing the weapon and the Host, of course, would be the weapon user. At least for undisciplined low-level Vicars, like us.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not undisciplined.¡± Dion mumbled.


    ¡°Right. Anyways, that system used to work. But of course, there was an incident. A pretty bad one involving a rogue entity in the streets of London. This rogue entity not only killed the Retainer, a fisherman. Not only stole the weapon, a whip. But used it to kill the Vicar sent out in the first place. Real fucking character, that one. They sent a dozen hunters after her. Most of them never came back. Those that did, killed themselves after. All of them were tortured. She was never caught and the church never made that mistake again, never accepted either. Wanted to save face, I guess. They just sort of swept it under the rug.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Now they only let a select few Apostles and church-hands handle the sanctioning and divvy of weapons. And of course, they have to make it as complicated as fucking possible.¡±


    "What was the name?" Dion asked.


    "Of the victims or of the murderer?¡±


    ¡°The killer, of course.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Justiciar L¨¦ona." Apollo looked back to Dion. "Don''t worry, this was a hundred and fifty years ago. I¡¯m sure the hourglass turned her over long ago."


    Dion could not close his eyes as he imagined it. Apollo looked at him, hoping to see a reaction. A frown, maybe juvenile false-courage. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Dion, Dion who was still facing the ground. And to Apollo¡¯s surprise, he saw Dion¡¯s face contort. It changed to something of a sneer. He was smiling, smiling from the story.


    ¡°She must have been a strong warrior, huh?¡± Dion ran up the hill behind Apollo.


    There was something drab about it, about the Priest, about that odd look on Dion, about the groundskeeper and about the crows. The air was raw and heavy and all around Apollo, he felt terrible. Like he had just put his signature down the papyrus, a signature for a bad deal, a deal whose consequences he was only beginning to think about. This invisible contract, not read nor shown to him, that only existed in whispers and in fate. A contract that promised suffering.


    He looked at that odd, giddy Dion. He shook his head, it was nothing, he hoped. But as he pushed his thighs up and put his shovel behind his neck he felt in his belly that acidic tingling as if, instinctively, he knew that the day would only get worse.

 Chapter 5

    Jeremiah


    July 15th, 2017


    9:37 PM


    Officer Jeremiah came out of the house holding his pants and trying to finish the belt around his waist. He was smiling. Nearly glowing and behind him you could see a young woman with her hair still messy from a supposed wild ten minutes that really were, just seven. Jeremiah was a thin man, and he still had those juvenile marks of youth, acne, a confidant stride, an innocent smile. And here was Officer Heinz in the police car waiting for him, some old and saggy sack who melted into his seat. He would have been bitter had it not been for the vicarious nature of their partnership. For no matter how much Officer Heinz complained, he could not help but feel a second wind of youth through Jeremiah.


    ¡°You said you had something important to do. I thought it was a family emergency. A death, a fight, something like that.¡± Heinz started the car.


    ¡°It was a family emergency," He put the seat belt around his heaving chest. "We were discussing the future of our children."


    ¡°I''m sure she wants kids.¡±


    ¡°Twins.¡±


    ¡°And you want another girl.¡± Heinz pulled into the street. "This is the fourth one in the last two months. That''s not good."


    ¡°This ones a keeper, I''m done doing rash things.¡±


    ¡°All you do is rash things.¡± Heinz said. "Boy, you didn''t even last ten minutes. That''s rash."


    ¡°Ten? I thought it was fifteen.¡± Jeremiah began to laugh.


    ¡°You¡¯re young. You¡¯ll get better. Trust me.¡± Heinz said.


    ¡°How do you know? Does your cock even work anymore?¡±


    ¡°Longer than yours.¡± Heinz said. He couldn¡¯t say he wasn¡¯t impressed with the little exchange. He smirked, Jeremiah laughed again. At fifty he was double Jeremiah¡¯s age and it felt good to talk to a young man, he couldn¡¯t deny that.


    They drove their banter around the town but after a while, even the comedy died with the rhythm of their job. They were police officers, policing nothing. Driving corner to corner, for nothing. They began to collect things. Half a dozen coffee cups, burger wrappers strewn on the floor like carpet, so many paper bags they could have polluted the whole western shoreline. That was the job in the nice cut of town where the fences were white and the lawns were trim and proper. Mundane, tiresome. It was such an anesthetic job that they did not realize the rosy sky falling into night. All the cars and people went with it. At least the sane ones.


    It was nearing the last hour of their shift and their yawning became an epidemic.


    ¡°Want some coffee?¡± Jeremiah asked.


    ¡°Yeah, anything hot .¡± Heinz said. They pulled up to a sidewalk. Across from them was a shop, The Colonel Weiner and a construction site was across from it, to the left You could see the sulking crane and how it covered the moon and stars. It looked rusted, lonely.


    ¡°It was supposed to be a mall. They had to stop work a few weeks back though,¡± Jeremiah said. ¡°Someone killed himself from the third floor. Workers couldn''t work after that, too real for ''em."


    They stopped the engine.


    ¡°You just gonna watch or are you going to go get some coffee?¡± Heinz asked. Jeremiah looked at the front of the Colonel Weiner where the window was being used. A young man stood there, his hair spiked like a porcupine and shaved at the sides. He wore a denim jacket, ripped and punctured like it had been put in an iron maiden. There were pins all around him. Bands, musicians Jeremiah had never seen or heard of, words that made him giggle a bit, pictures that made him angry. He was what Jeremiah referred to as, a punk. And he seemed to be flirting with the girl in the front of the window with more piercings on her face than hair. Their phones were out and the flash of their screens highlighted the smiles they wore.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong? We can go somewhere else.¡± Heinz said.


    ¡°I¡¯m watching.¡±


    ¡°Oh, fuck off. Let ¡®em flirt.¡±


    ¡°But he¡¯s loitering. Flash your lights at him.¡± Jeremiah was beginning to turn in his seat.


    ¡°Oh, for fucks sake. Leave ¡®em alone.¡± Heinz groaned.


    ¡°If you wont, I will.¡± Jeremiah rolled the window down and with his light began to pulse it towards the couple.


    ¡°It¡¯s a little late, isn¡¯t it?¡± He screamed from across the street. Heinz shook his head. ¡°Why don¡¯t you head home.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    The two looked back. The boy processed the red and blue colors of the car in his head and immediately, off instinct, began to grow more feral. A kind of negative conditioning caused him to tighten up. His frown manifested, his teeth showed like fangs and at last, he rose his skinny middle finger up in the air.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you go fuck off, pigs?¡± The punk said.


    ¡°What the fuck did you say?¡±


    ¡°Oh let it go, you started it.¡± Heinz started the car hoping the noise would interrupt them.


    ¡°He¡¯s obstructing the law. Right?¡± Jeremiah said to Heinz. He brought his head out the window ¡°Hey, you¡¯re obstructing the law!¡±


    It was an arrogance born out of boredom. A boredom born out of the hours of nothingness. Heinz only shook his head, he was young, he thought. Both of them were. That was why he was not surprised when the punk began to walk away, further into the street where he found a nice dumpster and wall to urinate on and a nice alley to run into. It bled into the construction site.


    ¡°That¡¯s illegal.¡± Jeremiah could not contain his smile and grating teeth. He gained scent of the crime.


    ¡°You love causing problems.¡± Heinz moaned.


    ¡°Me?¡± He slapped his chest. ¡°The fuck did I do? He''s the one who defamed that dumpster.¡±


    ¡°You can''t defame a fucking dumpster, it''s already defamed. Damnit, Jeremy.¡± Heinz said.


    "It''s Jeremiah."


    "Fuck, kid." He rolled the car up next to the alley. "I just wanted some fucking coffee."


    Both came out of the car to the bite of cold and although the heat of the argument was still warm in them, it was difficult to move.


    "Middle of summer and it''s this cold." Heinz said. "This is unnatural."


    Jeremiah touched his belt and tried to remind himself where everything was.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about using your gun.¡± Heinz said.


    ¡°I¡¯m not, man.¡± He responded. He flashed his light into Heinz face who put his hand against it and pushed it down.


    ¡°I know you¡¯re new but here¡¯s a good lesson to remember. We¡¯re here to solve problems, not to cause them. Just for future fucking references.¡± He said. Jeremiah nodded and they both began walking loud through the muddled alley water. It seemed like a covert river, this black bough with its oppressive walls. It was Havenbrook''s urinary tract for all around were toxins and trash. The blue tarps, cut and ruined into ribbons. The fence broken, leering over them. Trash upon trash, mattresses, littered diapers, used needles. They looked to the walls. Graffiti overlapped graffiti, in a kind of artisan warfare amongst the ghettos strongest painters. They saw a large eye in purple paint, a crown in yellow. They must have meant something but they were hieroglyphics to the two police. The names, the style, it all confused them as if they had entered a foreign land and they desperately looked for the instructions out.


    They were lost. They began to blame the gallery. A turn lead to another which lead to another and here they were, unsure whether they were inside the alley or the construction site or if they were even near the city at all. All they saw was the tarp and the torn fence link and they looked at each other.


    ¡°Fuck it. We¡¯re going back.¡± Heinz said.


    ¡°Coward must have ran.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t start again.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m talking about that attitu-¡±


    The silence broke. There was a cry in the air. Man? Woman? It was too shrill to tell.


    ¡°What was that?¡± Jeremiah said. He firmed his grip on his flashlight.


    ¡°Let¡¯s call it in.¡± Heinz began speaking into his shoulder radio. They muttered things to that broken processed voice who distinctly told them, ¡®Stand By¡¯.


    ¡°We¡¯ll wait then.¡± Jeremiah said. They heard another scream. It sounded like something broke. Wood? Metal? Bone. The thump bounced off the narrow walls, into their brain like a hammer strike. It sounded rhythmic. Like a beating, they thought. It was a noise that froze Jeremiah and that summoned Heinz who began climbing the fence.


    ¡°They told us to wait, man.¡± Jeremiah said. Heinz ignored it and fell over the other side. He took out his gun and perhaps it was then that Jeremiah realized how terrible things were.


    He looked around and saw his partner run off. Dumb and brash, he thought. With courage, he felt. He was alone then with nothing to him but a fading sanity. He heard a hiss. It drew him mad and he climbed. He fell. He ripped his jacket and started chasing after his partner who stood on the wooden ramp up. They were both sweating and adjusting to the obscurity of night.


    It was strange to have so many tripods and lamps around them, none of them turned of any use. All that was left to them was the flashlight, a shield, and the gun, a sword.


    The darkness was thick. They could not see past an inch ahead of themselves and often Jeremiah had to hold onto the metal poles and concrete pillars as he followed the sound of foosteps. A touch of tarp made him jump, the cold metal made him shriek. They were torture devices, they felt like it.


    ¡°Calm down.¡± His partner told him and grabbed his shoulder. ¡°Don¡¯t point your light where I¡¯m pointing. We¡¯re trying to get as much coverage as we can.¡± He said.


    Jeremiah shook. They heard sound. It was something wet, something dripping, something masticated.


    ¡°Lets go back.¡± Jeremiah said. Heinz went forward. It was a floor above them, on the third, and Jeremiah was taking inches forward. They came up a bend and up the ramp, up, up, inch by inch they made their way to the open area that tapered at the end to an unfinished hall. There they saw the outline of something, hunched over, vesicular, decorated with terrible boils, running with venation all across its body. They could only see its back but it was enough.


    Heinz readied his pistol forward. It clicked. So did Jeremiah¡¯s and the sound seemed to attract the thing that looked up. It turned and they saw it.


    Nothing had made them feel worse in their lives than the image of the creature.


    It felt like a hook had grabbed their spines and tore them out. It was a nightmare. It looked at them. Bird eyed. They were large dark circles hued with a sickly yellow, as if two dying lanterns dragged and dissipated into the caves of its eyes. It was moving. Not like anything normal, more like a frenzied schizophrenic. Bath salts? Heinz tried reasoning. But those were mortal reasons and this was something worse. These spasms were not of human ownership.


    Its face drew forward even more and all the courage in their hearts shattered into a thousand flaws. For from its mouth they could see two legs dangling, kicking away in the air, kicking from a beak that would not stop chewing. A rude eater.


    In its belly, the thin membrane hung out. From inside the full stomach, they saw a form. A human hand pushing out.


    They broke then and there.


    They shot. Shot. Shot. Shot. Shot at the light, shot at the dark. Shot until they were out, shot even when they were out. They were in the deafening buzz. Light flashed on their faces. Jeremiah turned for a second to see his partner.


    Someone was there. But his partner was further behind.


    Screaming. Spitting. Holding onto a stake that pinned him and clung to his bleeding stomach. Jeremiah heard the sound of falling blood, he heard the sound of drool. He looked up to the figure next to him and ran.

 Chapter 6

    Apollo


    July 15th, 2017


    9:02 PM


    They had worked well into the day. A woman and her child stopped to look at the pile of ever growing dirt and the two men whose rolled sleeves showed their sweaty skin. One Hispanic, the other Asian. Her eyes narrowed. She had always considered herself one to not assume but this was too wrong, the grave, the Priest who stood from above and the two men who dug with ferocity. The Priest turned and looked at the pair. He was sweating though he did not work, nervous though he was innocent.


    ¡°Hello ma''am, just an inspecting.¡± The Priest said.


    ¡°What¡¯s there to inspect about a corpse?¡± She said.


    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised.¡± The loud clank of shovel hitting wood alarmed the woman to put her hand over the child''s face. Within moments the coffin shot up by Dion who leveled it by one side of the pit. The woman gasped and ran, shaking her head as the child looked back with a dumb, toothless smile.


    ¡°It¡¯s pretty light.¡± He said.


    ¡°There¡¯s no corpse in there, you know that, right?¡± Apollo opened it. Dion put his hand over his eyes out of reaction. A box came rolling out, without any particular flourishes. A simple red box that looked like a drawer ripped out and glued together with loose planks. They threw it over and rested the coffin back on the floor. Dion leapt up, grabbed the edge of the pit and lifted himself. Apollo walked up the slanted coffin with the box. The Priest looked at them.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to fill that?¡± He said.


    ¡°That¡¯s not our job.¡± Apollo shook the box and put his ear against it.


    ¡°I¡¯ll do it later, I swear.¡± Dion smiled. And he was being honest.


    They headed inside, the Priest taking the lead with his angry wide stride. He slammed the doors, scratched the floor with a chair and sat. To his right was the basket of money. It was the only thing that comforted him. He tapped his hand against the surface of the box hoping to hear something mysterious. Hollow. The Priest snatched it from their hands.


    ¡°You don¡¯t get this yet. I need to tell you your job first.¡± The Priest started. Dion straightened out and put his hands on his knees. It was a tight grip that got worse as they sank deeper into the conversation with the buzzwords that inspired Dion; job, duty, honor.


    Apollo slacked in his seat.


    ¡°You''re here by my demand - ."


    "Gerosa Branch, Alpha Omicron Phi. Reporting, sir." Dion blurted. Apollo put his head away to the side where he tried counting the tiles on the floor to distract himself. He couldn''t. He felt too embarrassed.


    "Thank you, Dion." The Priest said. "As I was saying, I wouldn¡¯t have called you if I didn¡¯t need you but things, well, they¡¯re bad. Unpredictable is the best way I can put it.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Dion leaned closer, he looked like an eagle with his neck pushing outward. ¡°How can we help?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s about the state of the police and their terrible relationship with the press.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s very, very, unique. Go on a fucking talk show, we¡¯re not politicians.¡± Apollo said. The Priest frowned.


    ¡°They¡¯ve been sabotaging evidence, hiding corpses for God¡¯s sake.¡± The Priest said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t use the lord''s name in vain.¡± Dion interrupted.


    ¡°Yes, of course.¡± The Priest looked at the table. ¡°They¡¯ve been getting rid of bodies, forcing cremations and well, hiding them. The pieces of corpses at least.¡±


    ¡°Do you have any evidence to support this claim?¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°No. I knew the man though.¡± The Priest said. ¡°He came to me for advice, he was a regular. I told him to commit to the truth. The next day, he was dead. The tapes don¡¯t exist anymore. He doesn¡¯t exist anymore. Shot in the head, claimed to have been mugged. Poor Geoffrey.¡±If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°How much corruption is there? Give me a percentage.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, ten percent? Five? It¡¯s a small group I figure, I don¡¯t think they could maneuver as a giant body. It might just be a few heads on the police force and a few men. You don''t need many to cause trouble.¡± He said.


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s terrible.¡± Apollo searched inside his pocket for a cigarette. He lit. He puffed. He folded his arms. ¡°But we can¡¯t fix corruption.¡±


    ¡°I don''t expect you to, but the nature of the crimes, the few that make it through at least, seem strange. They¡¯re obscene, cruel, almost irresistible for diseased minds. The victims were bled like pigs, cut up like dog meat. Random too. Ex convicts, homeless, prostitutes, college kids. I¡¯m afraid of them branching out.¡±


    ¡°We''re not here to solve homicide cases either.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you shut up and listen?¡± The Priest said. Dion smirked. ¡°They¡¯ll call it homicide but I call it ritual. The way they¡¯re killed, like offerings almost. Bodies burned behind rings of salt, cut with a careful design, tattooed in strange ways. Whoever is doing this has a kind of faith behind their craftsmanship. Satanic, probably."


    ¡°Don¡¯t assume their monolith.¡± Apollo broke his stiffness. ¡°I¡¯ve dealt with people like this but they were just that, people. No demons, no anything. Just people. Misguided, dumb, people¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s why you¡¯re here right? To find out what they are.¡± The Priest put both hands on the table. He seemed ready to pray and the desperation in his quivering eyes worried them both. ¡°It¡¯s getting bad. It feels like I can''t even breathe the air without tasting copper in my mouth. You need to help and do so with extreme prejudice. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s any saving this lot.¡± They breathed in the tension in the air and filled their lungs with it. Their chests felt heavy like lead was inside of them, weighing them to seats they felt could break at any moment.


    "That''s very spiteful for a Priest." Apollo said.


    "There are limits to anyone''s patience. Besides I¡¯m Catholic, not Buddhist."


    They heard a snap. The box opened and their first contract was here. There were two suit jackets out for them, a pair of gloves, and two long threads of what seemed like yarn. Apollo began to strip.


    ¡°Why do we need to change?¡± Dion said.


    ¡°They don¡¯t teach you shit, do they? Consider it a loan. They¡¯re letting your borrow your gear and they¡¯ll take your coat as a ticket. They''ll want their stuff back too. Can''t let you take a joy ride, after all.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing funny about that. Can¡¯t they trust us?¡± Dion said.


    ¡°No. They need to know: alive, rogue, dead.¡± Apollo put on the blazer, he fitted his gloves and looked at the runes stitched inside of his jacket.


    ¡°Why do you get gloves?¡± He said.


    ¡°You should have asked.¡± Apollo said. Dion narrowed his eyes and tugged on the Priests arm.


    ¡°Hey, can you send in a reque-¡± He jerked back. The Priest yanked his arm away and slid back a few inches.


    ¡°Don¡¯t touch me.¡± He said. His eyes were still and wide and staring into Dion, the wrinkles on the old father seemed more pronounced in his anger and his neck began to glow red with rising blood.


    ¡°I''m thankful. But that''s it. I know what unholy marriage you two are, man and beast.¡± His dagger eyes stabbed at them. The sudden shift took Dion by surprise who assumed his desperation earlier would be the start of a friendship. As if desperation is any good of a start for friendship. But now the truth was out. Apollo put hands into a cross hatch.


    ¡°Yeah. We¡¯re frightening monsters. So keep far away and let us do our job.¡± Apollo said. He seemed experienced in weathering the storm of insults, you could see from his straight face, mocking face almost. For his whole life perhaps had been one insult after another. That was something Dion could admire.


    ¡°We won¡¯t cause trouble. Just don¡¯t get in our way.¡± Apollo scooted up. The Priest sat still in the back, tensed on his shoulders. But Apollo was not concerned with him, rather the two pieces of woven string in front of them. He grabbed them without caution, uncaring to the startled mess of the Priest. He held them in his hands and ignored The Priest completely, as he glared.


    ¡°Helen used to make these.¡± He said. ¡°I met her before she passed away. Now her son handles the business.¡±


    ¡°Threads of life.¡± Dion said. He wrapped it underneath his arm.


    ¡°Keep it hidden, let it touch your skin. When heretical arcana is close, they burn, when it¡¯s even closer, they glow.¡±


    ¡°Are they supposed to be warm?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Of course, they¡¯re picking us up after all. Let them calibrate on their own.¡± Apollo said. Dion couldn¡¯t stop scratching his arm and each time he looked at The Priest he scratched even harder. They all felt on edge, all far and backing away from one another.


    ¡°That¡¯s all we need from you. I¡¯ll keep in touch if I have to.¡± Apollo put his hands on the table and dragged his whole figure towards the Priest. He left him a smile before he went for the door. ¡°And only if I have to.¡± The Priest nodded. Dion couldn¡¯t look him in the eyes. Discomfort was festering in his brain. It made his thoughts cloudy and fumbled his mouth, he did not know whether to thank or to apologize or to bad mouth. Whatever feeling it was, it tugged at every corner of his body. He walked out before it became too uncomfortable and closed the door. The Priest looked at them, then to the basket of money. He shook, it felt lighter.


    Both Vicars were out. Dion huffed, he didn¡¯t realize how little he breathed until he was out of the room. The nuns that passed stared at him, some of them smiled, some scrunched their faces in disgust. Dion was sweating again.


    ¡°Is it supposed to be this hot?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°What is?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. My neck, my face. My arm.¡±


    ¡°Your arm?¡± Apollo asked. He searched in his pocket for the string and began to put it on his left forearm. It was the first touch, but one coil around his limb and he could already feel it searing into his skin. His eyes opened, he bit his lips and pulled on Dion.


    ¡°Hold on. ¡± Apollo said. ¡°There¡¯s something here.¡±

 Chapter 7

    Apollo


    July 15th, 2017


    12:25 AM


    Oh, the stars would fall tonight.


    They stood in a rented apartment room but could not fit themselves in it quite yet. For the last few hours, they had been in a fumble of fear. They sat around a table, hand out as they watched the pulse of the string of life. There was no movement, sometimes. There was, sometimes. Sporadic things.


    ¡°Are they working?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Apollo said. Dion wandered around the first few hours, Apollo kept his eyes on the string. He did not want to see it move, he did not want to admit to a fear that was pulsing in his heart. He wanted this whole thing to be over and done with, simple, neat, orderly. But on the third hour, he saw the coiling. The string, like a snake, wrapped around his arm, burned his arm, stung his arm with a tight grip. The faint glow of the string reciprocated in his eyes. Dion could see it across the room like torchlight and began smiling. He unwrapped his arms, the same symptoms were on him.


    "What do we do?" Dion asked.


    "We," He held his chest. "We find it, see if it''s here."


    "We know they''re out there." Dion spat and could not hide his jovial face.


    "We need to make sure."


    "Alright, let''s go then. Why wait?" Dion said. Apollo was trying to relax his chest. He looked to Dion whose irises turned red with the manipulation of his excitement. Apollo¡¯s did too as he tried filling himself with honorable rage, punching and scratching at his own thighs and finally committing himself.


    ¡°We¡¯re leaving.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°How will we find it?¡±


    ¡°Hotter the better, colder the deader.¡± Apollo chanted like mantra. He was bumbling between fear and anger. ¡°That¡¯s what she taught me.


    ¡°Well, alright.¡± Dion smiled. ¡°Hotter the better, colder the deader.¡±


    Apollo reached into his coat and put his hand against that esoteric design stitched on the inside of his jacket. It was the smooth feeling of felt at first until his whole hand was on it. Then it slipped. It felt like water as he maneuvered inside this curious zone like going through a pond blind. When his hand came out he had in it a strange mask. Waxy looking, almost, white except for the area and shadows around the eye sockets that seemed tainted with black lines. It looked like a Rorschach, odd design. Was it wild plumage? Leaves on pale dirt? A broken porcelain road, black veins perhaps. Its face was neutral, it had nothing else to it but the leather straps that attached themselves to the back.


    Dion revealed his own, a simple smiling mask with crescent eye holes that dripped with blue-stained tears across the contours of its cheeks. These were their life masks, like thieves or jokes across the night.


    Apollo put his feet against the window sill, he looked up to the edge of the roof top across from him and looked down to the singular ladder shoot and lonely street. He jumped like a leopard across the sky, narrow-bodied, and landed like a storm. Shattering brick, disturbing gravel. For the night came and the hunt called.


    Standing high above the edge did not help Apollo''s pores from leaking. He felt death upon them both. His hands shook and he could feel the vibrations and heat wrapping around him. They were above on an apartment rooftop where the steam and smoke of a ventilation shaft contaminated them with the hot air, across from them was the faint smell of processed meat from a factory. Rancid and processed, like rot in bleach. It did not help Apollo. He was nervous, too cold to feel the warmth of vapors and his limbs felt tight like they were hypertrophied, full of an anxiety that was bound to explode. A balloon animal, shaped and bent by a clown. Pressed, pressed, pressed. Pop.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± Dion asked.


    Apollo looked down with crimson eyes at the construction site that spanned half a block. They could hear noise. They could see details in the blinding darkness, their inhuman eyes adjusted, they were made for these things. Yet it did not help his mind for every new figure in the shadows made Apollo¡¯s stomach clench harder.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to wait until it comes out, then we¡¯ll kill it. We¡¯re in a good spot to see where it runs.¡± Apollo knelt on the edge of the roof. He was surprised his gloves did not slide off his wet palms.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    Dion tapped his foot. He shook his shoulders and began to kick around some plastic bags that floated. Apollo would have said something to him had he not felt the tightening of his throat. Then he stood.


    Both of them got closer and reared their heads as they saw the first thing to come out. A man running, blood on his body. He fell. Something was thrown at him, a can of paint that spilled white all over and knocked him down. Dion tightened his hams to jump. Apollo held him.


    The creature behind the man finally made his appearance and Apollo could feel his brain focus, all petty thoughts disappeared into the backdrop of his primal instincts. Live, kill, eat. He felt sick looking around the blurred and slow time around him as his adrenaline high pumped through. He looked down at the creature. Tall, big bellied, but thin limbed. Neck-less for on the top of it''s torso was a birds head. They mistook it for a plague doctor until its horrible mouth opened and the small ridges of its teeth showed like serrated blades. It to be something worse. It squawked and shrieked like a banshee¡¯s siren.


    ¡°I¡¯m not waiting any longer.¡± Dion said. Apollo wanted to tug him back but was too slow. Dion went forward, to a closer rooftop. He reached into his clothes and out came his instrument of death. It was too big to call a revolver, too heavy for any normal man. It was pointed forward and seemed to carry Dion with its own weight. Dion aimed up and it sounded like the heavens collapsing down onto the earth. Apollo felt the air break and push out. He opened his eyes and saw the meteor falling down.


    Pure silver, neon blue and heading straight for the beast. The creature heard it, too late but heard it and began to turn. His arm tore off into splatter and matter, black specks that turned the brown walls polka dot. Dion smiled behind his mask. So excited was he that he did not notice his own hanging wrist, the bone was sticking out, skin barely attached his hand to his body. He heard his gun fall and then realized the pain. Dion picked his gun with his good hand and pushed his broken hand back together against his chin. Apollo observed, it began to heal. Red mist came from the wound as the tendons and bones and muscles aligned themselves and reattached like self-healing machinery, red wires, red oil coming back to one another.


    ¡°You fucking idiot, don¡¯t push it.¡± Apollo leapt down to him. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±


    But Dion would not move. He watched the arm of the demon regenerate as well, cell by cell, skeleton, then muscle, then that onyx flesh.


    Both of them seeds of the same breed, germinated in some unholy soil.


    The beast stuck its long hand into its mouth and out came something out of a carnival side show, a sword swallower. He removed the blade. It seemed bony, perhaps it was a part of his own body, Apollo thought. It was not a thought to hold on to.


    ¡°Move!¡± He screamed and pushed Dion to the side. The spear whistled by and struck through the metal vent behind them. The fan went flying, the building shed bricks. Down below the monstrosity was fixing itself up from its bad throw and vomiting out another weapon.


    ¡°We can rout it, start moving.¡± Apollo said. He began to jump roof tops before he looked back at Dion who was standing again by the edge and who with one strong gallop of his feet, threw the brick beneath him all directions and headed straight for the monstrosity.


    ¡°Listen to what I¡¯m telling you.¡± Apollo spoke into the mask. There was nothing but static.


    Dion put his hand against the side of the wall and stone broke into dust as he scratched it all the way down. He hopped like some maddened cat, knocking and throwing pipe and wood as he managed down. It looked like a deforested jungle of pipe and cement and plank.


    He was laughing. Apollo did not want to hear Dion laugh. He was sickly hungry.


    Dion was shooting smaller bullets all the way down from different chambers in his gun. And all the way down he was cut and ripped. More spears were chucked his way, more damage was done to both beasts.


    He landed onto a broken floor. To his side, the unconscious body of Jeremiah, to his front, the beast staring back. Dion watched it. He was curious, falling into a desire for violence, just as Apollo feared. The beast reached into its beaked mouth, out came the skewer. He was a machine.


    Apollo gritted his teeth as he looked down from above. He decided to move again when he had his fill.


    ¡°Just push him back. That¡¯s all you need to do.¡± He told Dion. Static again. Apollo spat, slapped his forehead and headed on wards, past them, to the flat stone foundation, barely fenced by wood walls, where incomplete cement pillars erected upwards like albino evergreens.


    Dion pointed his gun at the beast and stood. He listened, somewhat, to Apollo. But there was another competing muse in him, Mars.


    He shot. The thing ducked. It was quick. He was impressed. Both at the creature and his wrist that managed to stiffen itself better than before. He was only bleeding this time. He did not wait for his pain to subside or for the blood to stop dripping from his wrist, he shot again. Careful now, with tact to his rhythm, an uneven pressure of bullet shots as if a drum line had stopped and started only to trip over their abrasive beats.


    The leg came off of the demon. It would not stop it though. It used its own stake to push himself back. The monstrosity hid behind the tarps and shot out its spears. Dion was stabbed in the foot. He grabbed the skewer and broke it, shattered it into bone dust. He would have chased through was stopped again. This one cut his shoulder and caused him to kneel lower. The creature was moving far and away. His body was fuming red.


    Dion stared. His face clenched, his eyes closed as he held his bitterness back.


    "You coward, come back." He shouted at the drifting footsteps. "What dignity is there in running."


    So angry was Dion that he pushed through his healing feet, the pain, the blood and would have given chase but he stopped. For above he could hear groaning. A withered cry of death. This one was human. His heart was torn. Two voices, two desires roamed in Dion''s mind. To help, to kill. He wanted to scream but he bit his tongue until it cut. He bled, drooled red. Hellish smoke released from his teeth as his tongue fixed its tip, it was the dying smog of his violent outburst. He fired an azure shot out at the sky. A flare.


    "It''s not heading your way specifically. But close enough." Dion said.


    "What the fuck do you mean close enough?" Apollo started. Dion cut the sound off his mask with a press of the button.


    He looked around himself and it seemed like the world was finally coming back to his blurred vision.


    Dion rested Jeremiah against a wall. He looked up to the moaning inside the castle of wood and decided to run. It was an excuse, he lamented, to not fight.

 Chapter 8

    Apollo


    July 15th, 2017


    12:34 AM


    The distant sound of gunshots died. The first thought that came to Apollo¡¯s head was the idea that Dion had died. But then he heard the radio transmission.


    The second thought was the fear that he would have to deal with the beast himself.


    So it was.


    Apollo put his back against a pillar of concrete and waited minutes that felt like days before he heard footsteps. He wanted to believe they were Dion¡¯s, but they were more nimble and he was not, they slapped the floor rather knocked it. He stopped his breathing at the realization. Everything was quiet and silence felt like another enemy to Apollo. A draft blew. Tarp slapped the trucks they strapped to. The top of the concrete pillar was full of what looked like small hairs of metal. The wind whistled.


    He waited. Until he could hear a screech, until he could feel the beast¡¯s breath next to him he waited. This was the worst part, his hand in his jacket and his eyes peering out at the edge of his cover to a sudden nothing. Nothing was there. His eyes widened. His breathing started again like ahigh pressurevault at the bottom of the sea sucking in all matter. He exhaled and released all his intensity off the side of the concrete pillar. It was a high vault outwards.


    The pillar collapsed into a storm of shrapnel that shot out every which way, that blew dust like a mushroom cloud up in the air and towards Apollo who could not see much in the warring mist.


    Thepikewas coming for him, straight to hisrapidbeating heart. He had no time to move. No, he did not move his legs. Apollo dragged his hands out of his coat and there was a sudden clank of steel that shot out sparks. The momentum broke, halted. The dust settled on their bodies. Their shadow figures defined behind the mist and spark like a Hellenian vase, with the silhouette of their bodies in tandem. A sword and a spear. Out before the beast was the long pike attached to its very long arm like a black line had been drawn straight through the horizon. Stopping it was the slab. A hunk of metal that Apollo had drawn from his coat, larger than himself, larger than any man, four feet wide and rusted all along its body. You could not see a reflection past its worn metal. It had no hand guard, it had no sharp edge, it was hard to call it a blade or a claymore. It was just steel and handle like a piece of metal had been chipped and broken off of Vulcan¡¯s anvil.


    Its tip wasinthe ground and as Apollo removed it from its cemented scabbard. The beast watched with an expanded yellow iris. He was far away from Apollo, wondering if the tall blade would ever have an end. When it was out, at last, the creature looked up as the long swing arced and rested on Apollo¡¯s shoulder. A missile, a mountain top. All along its rusted body were the cracks and creases that spilled dirt from their crevices, a shattered, dull, slab of silver and steel barely held together. Yet there was nothing more frightening to the beast than that bludgeoning tool. It was better to describe it as a jaggedcleaver. Horribly large, horribly hard to manage.


    Yet manage Apollo tried. As swift as he could and whatever speed lacked was made up for in its strength. One swing is all it took to split the air into a shrill cry and drag dust across the wide slash like a vortex. Everything seemed to break, whether work of man or God, under the blade as he chased after the demon. They went at it in the complex. The poles shattered. The wood turned to saw dust. The floors were beginning to collapse. It was hard to tell if Apollo was hitting, only that he was too afraid to stop and think about much of anything. Under prepared, under pressure, Apollo could not manage to collect his thought. The beast smelled it, that frightened sweat.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The intimidation of the blade was starting to wear as they dragged their fight back out, towards the unfinished pillars and trailers and pickup trucks that pushed out with each messy blow.


    It was beginning to end up terribly for Apollo. For between each thrust of his own blade out came five thrusts back. It was no dance of death as the poets would say of war and battle. It was the butchering of a chicken, the chase, and the dissection.


    And Apollo was getting cut. He retreated. He stuck the sword back down like a worn white flag. The beast was not appeased and Apollo hid behind the wide metal. Apollo felt his elbows gashed as they stuck out from the metal shield. He put his shoulder against the blade to help hold it together as the pike hammered down. Apollo looked out and almost had his eye plucked. He could not gauge a good read on the slender fighter, he could not tell what wasarmand what waspike. He only knew the beast had as much range as him andhiswas much more efficient.


    He tried removing the blade, tried swinging. But Apollo was kicked. He flew, blade and all, onto wheel barrel holdingbrick. It made him turn sharp. He fell on pallets and felt the shards of wood stab his back like deadly acupuncture. The creature ran. The red steam was coming off Apollo''s back as his body rejected the wooden daggers. The splinters fell, the cuts receded. But not quick enough. The beast rushed him and he struck his blade into the floor once again. His body was not healing fast enough and he felt the air growing hotter. He wanted to run.


    ¡°Move.¡± Apollo heard through his mask.


    There was a noise. A pop at first, then the sound of metal scratching.


    At the sound, he immediately kicked his blade up, back to his shoulders. He jumped backward and watched the dirt cover them like murk. It would have fallen on him had he not moved and he could feel the strength of it as it pushed the air down and blew his hair back.


    It was the crane that fell. High and mighty, collapsing onto the beast and leveling the floor. Apollo landed on a metal container and watched. He looked up, Dion was resting his smoking gun. He looked down and was paralyzed at the image. The beast was ripping its limbs trapped beneath the crane. He was pulling himself from the indentation, limb from limb. It could not wait to stand, it bit at itself like a starved cannibal. It would have stood, Apollo thought. It would continue endlessly, a program of evil running indefinitely. The thought brought something to life in Apollo. He put the sword to his side and watched each crack inside his metal ruffle and deepen its vein into the blade, he saw the dry cracks fill like rivers of hellfire. It was a long wait, but he had time to wait. He spun. One, two, three, four. He counted. And on five, threw his sword out. It flew straight, landed inside of the creature and all the world could see afterward was the large explosion like a pillar oftheearthscoreshooting up.


    The whole city saw the explosion and the smoke that jetted up. The police were hesitant to go inside, opting to watch from afar for the fire to settle. It was perfect. Apollo dragged his legs through the heavy camouflage and picked apart the body like a hungrycrow. The burning remains of the demon lay charred and from its chest and belly out came the stone. A red, philosophers stone at the heart of it all. Fuel for any Vicar. Apollo took it, put it in his coat. He picked up his blade that felt lighter. Metal shavings were coming off of his weapon and it made him bite his lips and groan. Then came the torpor. His whole body scraped the hot floor as he tripped. His eyes closed though he begged them not to. Whatever effort was in him he spent on the last leap, across the crane now on fire and sticking out of the floor like a harpoon into the white, ashy earth.


    The police saw the masked figure but did not shoot for they were afraid. The fire dragged at Apollo¡¯s heels and spread all around as he scaled up the black brick walls.


    ¡°Monster.¡± One of the officers said. So it was.

 Chapter 9

    Vicars


    July 15th, 2017


    1:15 AM


    He reached into his pocket for the red stone that pulsed. It felt rough in his hands and chalky as he bit into it. It got easier and his appetite became for voracious as he nearly ate his hand. He felt the drool on his palms and how it went down his arm. His legs that felt pruned, empty. He had hooks for feet, the way they dragged at the floor with their tiredness. And now they rose. His chest that took in hundreds of small breaths now relaxed to a proper pace. He could not say he recovered after all his stomach was still cut up, his back still bled and spilled onto his white shirt. At he was healing and more important than that, he was calm. He heard footsteps near him but did not bother to reach for his blade now half inside his jacket and half outside, like a magicians trick undone. The only crowd to laugh at him was distant, it was the helicopters cutting wind and the police and firefighters now drowning the flames.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± The voice said. Apollo hung by the edge of the building and started to lift himself. Dion grabbed him by the arm to help.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need it.¡± He gave him a weak push.


    ¡°I guess I just can¡¯t touch anyone today.¡± Dion said. He took his mask off and put it inside his coat.


    ¡°We¡¯re not home free yet.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°We¡¯re close. I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll be getting caught soon. Just as long as we properly come down from the roof.¡± He said. Apollo agreed though reluctantly put his mask back in. He let Dion go the way first and followed his clanking down the metal stairs on the side of the building. Apollo wanted his back just in case he did fall, better to do it on him than on the floor five stories below.


    ¡°What¡¯d you do? That was a big explosion. Hit a gas line?¡± He asked.


    ¡°No. It¡¯s nothing you have to worry about.¡±


    ¡°We''re fighting together. Of course, I have to worry about it.¡±


    ¡°The only thing you need to worry about is that impatience of yours. What the fuck was that?¡± Apollo gripped the hand rail to his rear and heard it bend into a sharp cry as he nearly dislodged it. He was breathing fast again. Dion looked at him.


    ¡°What do you mean? That guy needed help and I helped him. What kind of man would I be if I just let him die there and then?¡±


    ¡°A smart man.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d rather be stupid and moral than smart.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re neither smart or moral. You''re just stupid.¡± Apollo said. ¡°You didn¡¯t think at all. Besides the fact that I could have died - We could have died. Did you ever stop to think what would happen afterwards? You think that thing would just stop at us and that stooge running out of the fucking building? Of course not. He¡¯d go on and on. And then the problem wouldn''t be just one or three dumbasses dying.¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    ¡°Four. There was another man that I saved. That¡¯s what we do, save people. Remember?¡± Dion looked proper in his stance, with his chest primed with courage and his head high up above. Apollo was two feet further, up the stairs and yet he looked so small. So he evened him out. He grabbed Dion by the coat and put him against the ledge.


    ¡°You listen up, Superman. I thought I told already that we aren¡¯t heroes. But I guess the words became lost in your empty skull. Or are you deaf? Or stupid. Or both.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Whatever you think you are, you should stop. It''ll get us killed. And unlike you, I¡¯m not a warrior. I don¡¯t care for the security of idiots, I don¡¯t care to fight fair. I¡¯m a hunter. I track, I plan, I execute. I don¡¯t do anything but the steps that guarantee success. And you should too. Because failure is much more frightening than you think you know.¡±


    He let go of his coat and Dion pushed him back. Apollo fell down on the stairs and left his head to hang, his eyes fell to the floor.


    ¡°Striking a weak man. At least you¡¯re learning.¡± He said. ¡°But you haven¡¯t learned enough. You don¡¯t know what cost failure is. That¡¯s why you strut around with the fucking finger on the trigger, shooting just because you can. Acting high, just because you can. Keep feeding that fucking ego, buddy. You¡¯ll find out what the price. When you¡¯ve got so many fucking bodies on top of each that you can¡¯t even see the sun rise, you¡¯ll see what playing gung-ho gets you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re sick in the head,¡± Dion shouted. He no longer cared being hidden from the spotlight of police. His voice echoed in the narrow passage they were coming down to. ¡°You¡¯re reprimanding me for saving two people? So what. I shot early, so what. It ended up alright and that¡¯s all that matters right? The end game, whatever the cost. We killed it, we saved more people and we did it my way. That would be good enough for anyone. But not you. Oh no, not you.¡± He walked down as fast as he could. He sounded like a storm with the drumming he did. ¡°You¡¯ll call me the narcissist when I help others, but here you are demanding everything be done this way and that. Calm. Cool. Heartless." When he had the chance, Dion jumped on to the floor. "That won''t sate God''s tribunal. I promise you that."


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re so selfless, Dion. So. Fucking. Selfless. Was it a selfless laugh then? That I heard when the bullets started flying." Apollo stood.


    "So fucking selfless, with your boner as you beat the shit out of each other. A real Gandhi type of guy.¡± He was shouting down the alley to Dion who turned the corner. ¡°You¡¯re a modern day John fucking Lennon, aren''t you. You god damn violent retard.¡± He was talking to no one now. No one but a man in the corner of his eyes, opening a door and throwing a bag of trash onto the floor. He stared up to Apollo, not as much afraid as he was confused.


    ¡°Fuck off.¡± Apollo said. The man gave him the middle finger and walked back inside and Apollo climbed down the ladder, walking out into the streets as he finally caught a second wind of energy. His exhaustion was at least not debilitating anymore.


    He looked to the streets, a few cars would come by now and then but the sirens were low and the smoke was far off. It was a distant chaos that raged on in the city, like a shake of the earth slowly growing into a seismic raze. But it shook. Everyone moved, head to toe. Apollo could feel it. The Priest could feel it. Sophie could feel it. And so did Alestor.


    He had left to his office after the murder and had spent the last few hours in his study. He looked out to the small spinning dots of light. They were clear even in the cloudy night. His arms were shaking on his chest and he had to sit for he felt his legs were getting weak. It was the first time he felt afraid of leaving out at night. He would sleep in. He looked around to the bookshelves and desks and small figures for something to entertain him as a fidgeting body infected him. He closed the window. He shut the curtains, the chill was inside. A strange, summer cold. He sat down on the sofa and looked up to the ceiling. He wanted to send the message to his son to stay in tonight but could not move. The cold was too strong and his body was turning stiff and long like an antenna. He heard a voice. He turned, something was speaking into his ear. It felt like every cell in him stopped their process like paralysis, like death. He felt the grip on his neck. It was his master''s hand and finally, the words became clear.


    ¡°You¡¯ve failed me again, haven¡¯t you?¡±


    And Alestor froze.

 Episode 2 - Chapter 10

    Sophie


    July 16th, 2017


    11:14 AM


    Sophie¡¯s feet dragged on the floor as she was taken to the principal''s office. The accusation was simple, a boy with a bloody mouth crying to his mother in the nurse''s office. She had been reminded of this all the way there and how she should pity him, and how she would feel if she was there with the bloody nose instead of him. When they told her this she had looked at them, with her bruised cheeks and said ¡°If I was him? Well, I wouldn¡¯t be crying that¡¯s for sure.¡±


    They didn¡¯t ask her much after that and were glad when they sat her down in the soft, large chair. She was too small for it and it was too low to the floor and she had to stand to see past the horizon of the dark-wood desk. She looked around at all the memorabilia stuck along the walls, trophies, and pictures, vignettes and declarations of achievements. A panorama of the schools'' success the principal had adopted over the years. Her eyes came to the window and the shadow there. A little figure, her friend Pip.


    The judge was not here, she noticed. It was cold and quiet and Pip began to shout at her.


    ¡°Sophie.¡± He said. She turned away. ¡°Sooo-phie.¡±


    ¡°So-so-sophie.¡± His front teeth were missing and he spat with each s. ¡°Psst, psst. Sophie.¡±


    Finally, she threw a pencil at him and hit the window pane.


    ¡°What?¡± She said.


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be thanking me. You should be depressed. You can¡¯t even defend yourself and you¡¯re supposed to be a boy.¡±


    ¡°I know. But he was fat and big, I got scared.¡± His voice quivered.


    ¡°I know you did. Wanna know how I know you did? Because I¡¯m here with my hurt face.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± He said.


    She adjusted her lips into a neutral position, somewhere between resentment and pride.


    ¡°Do me a favor.¡± She nodded her head. ¡°Make yourself useful, start selling. I¡¯m losing business because of you.¡±


    ¡°At how much a bar?¡± He asked.


    ¡°The same price we always have.¡±


    He scratched his head. ¡°How much is that?¡±


    ¡°Two-fifty you dunce.¡±


    ¡°Okay. Where do I get the candy from?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean? What happened to your stock.¡± She walked to the window with her backpack. Her eyes were beginning to narrow. He knelt and look small under her gaze.


    ¡°I lost it.¡±


    She wanted to drag him up to her to eat him, a horror-movie monster. She scratched at the wood frame and looked up to give herself room to breathe. She undid the zipper on her backpack after reflecting - It was her fault, she shouldn¡¯t have trusted him - and she dumped three pounds worth of chocolate on his forehead. She shut the window, tired of hearing his moaning and heard the door behind her open.


    ¡°Trying to escape, I see.¡± The Principal said.


    ¡°What? No. I was just.¡± She bit her cheek. ¡°Just looking outside at the kids.¡±


    ¡°Sure you were.¡± The Principal fell atop his chair. ¡°I can¡¯t keep one eye off of you without you wandering off and doing god knows what. You¡¯re like a damn imp, girl.¡±


    ¡°You always say that.¡± She sat and crossed her legs. Her arms were close to her.


    ¡°And you seem worse every time. You¡¯re too stubborn, it¡¯s like a shield against good advice.¡± He shuffled paper and found a red note.


    ¡°Are you going to call my mom?¡± Sophie asked.


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Her eyes fell. ¡°I don¡¯t think she¡¯s home.¡±


    ¡°Cell phone?¡±


    ¡°She doesn¡¯t answer it. Not at this hour.¡±If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The Principal searched her face, what little he could see past her blond hair covered her face. It was just like the other interrogations and it felt just as bad, but he could do nothing but pity. That was worse. Leaving her like a castaway on her small island. He wondered if she was even aware of the S.O.S written on her face.


    ¡°Your grandpa then?¡± He put the pencil down and rung up the phone.


    ¡°Yeah. Grand paw can pick me up.¡± She looked up. He left a message and looked her over again.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you find a hobby. Join a club, do something with your time. You aren¡¯t dumb. I know that. You know that. But you sure as hell act dumb.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t be that smart if you say I¡¯m acting dumb. I thought part of being smart was acting smart. Like a scientist or somethin¡¯.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised. Plenty of people act smart without knowing the part and the dumber they are the more opinions they seem to have, probably trying to make up for how little they know.¡± He said. ¡°You can find them on TV all the time. Loonies, the bunch of ¡®em.¡± He was writing down information on a slip, that was his kind of justice.


    ¡°I wish you¡¯d act for your own self-interest, Sophie. You could do a lot with your life, you know that. Mrs. Breyer says you¡¯re good at math.¡± The drag of his pencil sounded sharp to her.


    ¡°I am acting for my own self in-te-rest.¡± She mocked.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t seem like it. You¡¯re like those dare devils, head strong and always shooting yourself out of a god damn cannon. The problem is, girl,¡± He sniffed. ¡°I¡¯m afraid you don¡¯t even realize you¡¯re flying straight into a dumpster. Have some sense.¡±


    ¡°You keep calling me the senseless one, but have you ever thought that maybe it¡¯s the world that acts a little dumb.¡± She said. ¡°Everyone¡¯s too selfish if you ask me. Too demanding.¡±


    ¡°Sophie.¡± He rubbed his nose bridge. ¡°You punched a kid.¡±


    She lit up.


    ¡°I pushed him too. I brought him to the floor and got him three good times before he punched me. It reminded me of when I socked Clarice. She deserved it too, I don¡¯t hurt nobody that doesn¡¯t deserve it you know that.¡±


    ¡°What I¡¯m worried about what you qualify as deserving it.¡±


    ¡°Hurting me or my friends. That¡¯s it.¡± She crossed her hands and blew the hair from her mouth. The Principal raised his finger and all a sudden came the grandfather like a rogue white-strawed tumbleweed. He blew it, went across, looked around and kind of spun in his excitement.


    ¡°Where is she?¡± He said. Sophie raised her hand. ¡°What¡¯d she do this time?¡±


    ¡°The same thing she always does. Got in a fight.¡± The Principal handed out the slip.


    ¡°Whatever she did she can explain. She¡¯s responsible and I trust her.¡± The Old Man said.


    ¡°I know. You do this every time, I know the both of you pretty well. You¡¯re frequent customers.¡± The Principal sighed. ¡°I¡¯m not even going to bother. She knows what she did, don¡¯t you Sophie.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Nicky.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Mr. Colefield to you.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just Nicholas. Just another old person.¡± She said.


    ¡°Alright Sophie, alright.¡± He almost laughed and would have if he didn¡¯t feel so red about the name Nicky. His father called him that and he hated him. ¡°What kind of punishment do you think you deserve? Be honest.¡±


    She looked at her Grand father and the dazed face he had, she looked outside to where she imagined Pip crawling. Her face still stung and it began to stain her white face.


    She smiled. ¡°A week suspension. I think I must¡¯ve broken that prick¡¯s nose.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t curse.¡± They both shouted.


    ¡°I¡¯m not giving you a week. You might enjoy that, you¡¯re getting three days instead.¡± He said. She smiled. ¡°And don¡¯t be so proud of that fact, for God¡¯s sake Sophie.¡±


    He pointed them away to the door but with held the grandfather for a bit.


    ¡°Have you considered sending Sophie to therapy?¡± The old man pried the principal''s hand off. It looked like he hurt the grandfather. ¡°I know a guy, he¡¯s local too. I have a teacher who goes, she¡¯s even recommended me about it too.¡±


    ¡°This family has never seen a quack doctor and never will. Good day, Nicky.¡± He puffed up.


    The Principal sighed. The old man left and out they went to the car. Not a word was spoken as they drove. They sat in silence, the radio provided white noise as they toured the city. On the corners of streets were the drawn out flowers and candles. Sophie kept her eye at the offerings and the pictures, she did not want to forget their faces, she felt that maybe, that she was the only one who¡¯d remember them and it meant that much more being the chronicler.


    She realized it had been like this for a while, staring out at the families and police and the pictures that had fallen and cracked their glass frames. It only got worse as she got closer to her house, by then the whole sidewalk seemed like a garden of misery. But there were no officers this time. There were only the lonely men and women on the porches sitting and scratching away at lottery tickets, the stray pit bull who barked a muffled warning at her. They stopped, there was a distant wail of a police officer car.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± She said.


    ¡°That¡¯s good. Remember how sorry you are and behave next time.¡± He said.


    ¡°You aren¡¯t staying?¡± She asked.


    ¡°No, I got the store to run.¡±


    ¡°Let me help.¡± She tried closing the door but the grandfather would not allow it.


    ¡°If I let you help this wouldn¡¯t be much of a punishment. Stay home, behave, play nice.¡±


    ¡°No one''s here.¡±


    ¡°Good, God knows your mother can¡¯t handle you. Lock the doors and study you hear me? Behave.¡± He said.


    She dragged herself out of the car and stood on the side walk. The old man felt bad for her as he waved at her. But eventually, she waved back.


    She turned around and the sound of engine roared before it died into a distant howling. This was home. The broken chain link fence, torn and bent. The ruined lock. It all reminded her of home. She pulled at the fence door, it would not budge. She hopped, opened it from behind and started for the back of the house where the trash was collecting into an overstuffed black container. The plastic bags and cartons of milk were spilling out as she rolled it to the front.


    Ah, this was home.


    Grimy, unpleasant. It felt like a part of her she did not want, but it was hers. She walked into the house and found the phone on the side of the wall. Looking around at the sheet of dirt around her furniture, the broken glass face of the table, the clock ticking away, it all made her dial faster.


    ¡°Who¡¯s this?¡± The voice asked.


    ¡°Pip. We¡¯re going to work.¡±


    ¡°Right now?¡± He asked.


    ¡°When else? The business forecast looks good for the next couple of days.¡± She smiled. ¡°We¡¯ll follow those crazies with the money-baskets.¡±


    ¡°Ain¡¯t they priests?¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter. They always bring a crowd.¡±

 Chapter 11

    Alestor


    July 18th, 2017


    10:34 AM


    Alestor did not want to be here, in this cold room, working with the defects of society (as he called them). But today was special, an inauguration of sorts and because of that, he was obliged to tolerate his client''s company. For today was not just for himself, but for the other entity, the worshiped so to speak.


    So he sat down on his leather brown sofa and waited for the nervous-ticks of Mrs. Breyer (his special client) to cease.


    Seven times they had been at it, Mrs. Breyer and Mr. Alestor and seven times they had failed. But she was confident today that they would get to the root of her psychiatric deformity. And under of lens of Alestor, they would find the mutation in her soul and cull it, like a tumor. Yes, for a moment she looked hopeful and frightened all at the same time. Because, after all, all psychiatric breakthroughs begin with admitting a tragedy. And admitting a tragedy, a pained memory, is always hard.


    She took a sip of a glass of water on the side of her sofa. Alestor had offered it to her. It tasted strange.


    She shook it off, must be the nerves. All the while she rolled around in her seat. The leather creaked with each of her movements. She nearly slipped out, the chair being twice as wide for her petite body. She ended uplifted her knees and tucking them to her rear to fill up the empty space.


    Alestor sat, playing with his fingers, twitching, watching her idle. He coughed.


    "We¡¯ll begin the auditing process." He said.


    "Can we do it without him?¡± She pointed to a man in the corner of the room with a black blazer and with dull, hazel eyes. They looked like glass, empty and transparent. Alestor sniffed, threw his pointer finger elsewhere and he was gone.


    ¡°Sorry, I forgot. He was a past patient of mind, of sorts.¡± Alestor said. ¡°Back to the auditing process.¡±


    ¡°Auditing process?¡±


    She took another sip. The water tasted better (should water have even had a taste?). Her glazed eyes stared around. And her thin, angular head began to roll side to side. As if the contents of her skull had been siphoned out. There was music in the background and a small drum line of footsteps, possibly from the men outside the door who were waiting for the doctor. Alestor knocked hard on the wall and the noise stopped.


    They resumed. In between, them was a coffee table. It was small, Alestor was within arm¡¯s reach of Mrs. Breyer.


    "Yes, Mrs. Breyer. The human heart has an affinity for delusion and blindness especially in matters of reflection of itself. We are here to cure that, to see what is in you. Both of us, hand in hand. This is part of the last step of our healing process." He said.


    ¡°Yes, I think today we can get somewhere. I feel it, doctor.¡± She began to sweat and took another sip. Mr. Alestor reached into his pocket for the rattle of a gold chain. It was a watch.


    "Now, given your temperament, I¡¯m going to try some things to help you relax. Okay?¡± She nodded. ¡°I will demand you look at me behind this moving stopwatch. All you have to do is answer my questions, that''s it. The quest for innermost reflection begins with an honest question after all." His voice sounded raspy, antique like the medals and goblets and statues and books that decorated the room.


    "Well, okay." She looked away at, fidgeting with her jacket, those nervous things you do. He stared at her and it was not until she stared back that they began.


    "What is your name?" Alestor asked.


    "Emily Breyer."


    "Where were you born?"


    "Utah. But I moved here a few years back."


    "I did not ask that." He said. She slapped herself lightly across the cheek. They began again.


    "What is your name?"


    "Emily Breyer."


    "Where were you born?"


    "Utah."


    "Did you have a family?"


    "Yes."


    "How big was it?¡±


    "We were four, now we''re three."


    "I did not ask how many there are, only how many there were." He barked. She twitched. She felt her throat tighten and wanted to leave but could not, something compelled her to stay. Or maybe couldn¡¯t. She sipped. What was in this water? It was good.


    She closed her mouth and rubbed away drool from her lips. He asked her name again. She stuttered, he barked. She cried. Softly moaning, it had been like this before but never as quick or as harsh.


    There were tissues for her and as she looked around she began to miss the stranger in the corner of the room. She felt alone in the dim room with the lifelessly colored beige wallpaper all around her. She began to breathe fast and felt a hand on her shoulder, it was Alestor. Mrs. Breyer breathed in and out and she stared into the stopwatch and its movement like a pendulum. Although she felt pressed, although her chest felt filled with cement, she continued on. Another drink. She was light.


    "There are only two things the soul demands, Mrs. Breyer. Honesty and strength of will." It was strange to hear his voice so soft, to hear a man both in anger and patient understanding. She was confused but went on with what he spoke. "I¡¯ve never seen anything as deadly to vice and suffering as those two." He lifted her chin and their eyes fell on each other. "We will do this together, again. What is your name?"


    "Emily Breyer."Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    "Where were you born?"


    "Utah.¡±


    "Did you have a family?"


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    "How big was it?"


    "We were four."


    "How many do you have now?"


    The air suddenly became thick. She looked at her glass, she swore the room was moving, melting away. She tried taking another sip, nothing but a water droplet.


    "Three." She said.


    "Of how many there used to be, name them all."


    "Michael, Carter...and...Abel." She muttered in between her rapid breathing.


    "Which one was your favorite." He studied her face. ¡°Between them all, who did you love most?"


    "I..." Her eyes looked to the speeding watch like a metronome counting down her speeding thoughts. Images of a lost, images of something dreadful. She wanted to believe she couldn¡¯t say what was in her. That it was beyond her. But it couldn¡¯t have been, she had felt it before in the privacy of her sleep (and now saw it in flashes across the wall). She put her hand on her chest, she could feel every one of her palpitations like a bird, or a worm, trying to burst out of her chest.


    The room spun again. She swore Alestor¡¯s rugged face was melting into play-doh.


    "Carter, my oldest son was my favorite."


    "And who was your least favorite?"


    I cannot, she thought. Not this one. She could not close her mouth anymore, her saliva was running out. It made her throat dry. She tried to breathe, her lungs felt weak. She tried to wriggle her feet, but there was no feeling. It felt like she was cast away, floating atop a dark sea and now, at this instant, sinking dangerously low to the ocean floor. Where the pressure cracked her.


    She stared at the watch again. Still vapid and empty and dull.


    "We always stop here. It has been like this for two months now, Ma''am." He rubbed his face. ¡°Are you even here?¡±


    He snapped his fingers at her. She looked up, a streak of spittle falling down to her blouse.


    "You¡¯ve traveled a dizzying river bend and you¡¯ve forgotten where it started. Pay attention."


    She felt full of emotion, of love and sadness and anger. Yet, her body could not move. She only cried, letting the feeling of a blue sadness color her eyes and escape her mouth and bleed out her nose. Alestor wiped her.


    "Say it." He slammed the desk. "Who was your least favorite."


    "It was." She was choking. "It was. It was.¡±


    ¡°It was?¡±


    ¡°It was Abel.¡± She mumbled.


    "Did you hate him?" He asked.


    "I..."


    "Did. You. Hate. Him."


    "...Yes. Yes, yes." It tumbled out of her, a decade of guilt.


    "What did you do to him, Ma''am?" He took off his glasses and got on his knees in front of her. He held her limp hand and gave her warmth. She was shaking worse and worse and the words were trying desperately to escape her throat. He squeezed her frail hand. And the more epileptic she got, the tighter he gripped, almost crushing it.


    "I let him die." She could barely pronounce words anymore. She sounded more of a dying animal than a human with that terrible admission she did. Alestor stared, curious and a bit disgusted. He dimmed the lights. He locked the doors and ran back to her to listen.


    "He was just playing in the river. I didn¡¯t think he¡¯d drown.¡± Her head leaned back, as if in a drunk stupor. She was mumbling now but in the silence of the room, Alestor could hear her clearly. ¡°I didn¡¯t think he was a bad swimmer and I and I and I¡±


    ¡°But you did know he was a bad swimmer, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°I let. I let. I let him drown. And. A-and die. And no one was around, I thought. And. And. And I thought no one would care. I just hated him so much. So, so much. Ever since I let him suckled on me, every time I saw his face. I just hated him. I wished he would just... and and and and then the water bubbled and and and then. Then. He was," He tried to lift her hands to her face to wipe tears. She noticed then that she was smiling. The images had begun to overwhelm her. The images of her dying hated son. Of the walls melting. Of the colors glaring at her like little halos. Of Alestor, in the shape of an elongated monster. Too afraid to scream, too confused to shout. Everything collapsed on her. Her senses, her motor reflexes, until finally, she fell into her high, into a state in between unconsciousness and nirvana.


    She looked up at the low hanging lights. They were small, and to her, looked to be made of warm yellows and oranges and reds. She began to laugh, cry, hysterically mumble.


    Pretty lights, oh pretty lights, won¡¯t you dance like stars in the sky. Pretty lights, dance for my son. She thought.


    What she said, however, was an incoherent mess.


    Alestor¡¯s face was neutral. There were no lines or cracks, all his features were softened as Alestor looked perplexed at her.


    ¡°Killed your son, huh.¡± He said.


    He walked slowly to the door and opened it. The men stomping around earlier were there and they stood there still tall and high in pride. There was an obvious nobility in their stance, after all, they were important men; the mayor, the police commissioner, the chief-editor of the local news and journal station.


    Alestor walked out, they all peaked in to catch a glimpse of his ¡°work¡±. They saw a woman, a crazy woman, they observed, shaking in her seat. Wide smile, morphed into something out of an asylum.


    ¡°She looked normal coming in.¡± The Mayor said. ¡°What was her problem?¡±


    ¡°She killed her son. Or rather, let him die it seems.¡± Alestor said. ¡°But she was also guilty of it. I think she¡¯s perfectly suited to join us as member or sacrifice.¡±


    They spoke in hushed tones.


    ¡°Whens the next the sermon, boss? You¡¯ve been keeping us waiting. Those other idiots are getting uneasy.¡± The police commissioner said. There was a strange, speedy tone to the way he finished sentences. ¡°They need proof of the gift. I mean, I know it¡¯s true though.¡±


    He looked inside the door again. She was slipping out of her seat, rolling out towards the middle carpet with the blue flower designs. He forgot what her cocktail was. Quaaludes, LSD, some seltzer to mask it all. He¡¯d had to write the recipe down again later.


    ¡°Tell them it¡¯ll be soon,¡± Alestor said. ¡°They won¡¯t have to wait long. It''s been willed.¡±


    The Chief Editor burst in.


    ¡°But when?!¡± He shouted, as loud as he could in a muffled voice.


    Alestor did not turn his head, only his eyes. They looked like two dark pieces of coals, completely black. His skin wrinkled. It squeezed tight into something that resembled scorn, animosity.


    ¡°If miracles happened at every demand and bark, they wouldn¡¯t be miracles, would they?¡± He said. ¡°My Master has promised me and I have no reason to doubt him, with how good he¡¯s been to me thus.¡±


    ¡°Ignore him, he¡¯s new.¡± The Mayor stepped in. ¡°What can we do to help?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a few things I need,¡± Alestor said. ¡°I can do the bulk of the work, I just need all of you to stay out of my way really. This means getting rid of evidence and lowering police traffic around South-side Havenbrook,¡±


    The Police Commissioner nodded.


    ¡°I¡¯ll need you to quell public contempt, using any which way, through censorship or false promises. It makes no difference to me,¡± Alestor pointed to the Mayor. The Mayor nodded.


    ¡°And I¡¯ll need you to cause some problems for some new, annoying, up-starters. Two new revelations,¡±


    ¡°My men have already screwed with those freaks.¡± The Police Commissioner said. ¡°Weirdos in suits.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re more than that, and I need you,¡± He pointed to the journalist. ¡°To put the blame on them. The more the public hates them, the harder their work will be. It won¡¯t stop them, but slowing them down should be good enough.¡±


    ¡°Well, alright.¡± The Editor said. ¡°And will my wish come true then, the millions, you remember?¡±


    Alestor shook his head. Vain ambitions, he thought.


    ¡°Yes, yes it will. Now get away, this already too suspicious.¡±


    They scrambled in opposite directions and left the building at opposite ends, at strange and different times.


    Alestor looked back, still in his office, with that sterile smell in the air. He walked inside after a while, Mrs. Breyer was laying on the floor, rubbing the carpet and tearing up. She balled up, shrunk, and stayed like that for a while.


    Alestor looked up to the shelves in his room, he stared at a goblet and picked it up. An antiquated, gaudy thing. A device, as well, for his ultimate end.


    He looked inside. Black goop. He rolled it around, swished it.


    ¡°I¡¯m closer, but still so far.¡±


    A goblet stood atop a shelf. He reached for it. He looked inside to what seemed like emptiness in low hazy yellow light, then slowly saw something come and peer from the lip of the cup. A red, nearly black, goops.


    And as the blood came down towards him, he saw in the corner of his eyes a white bird. Yellow-eyed, staring at Alestor. The creature stood on the window sill and did not chirp, did not move, did not rustle even as Alestor got closer. The bird turned to him, squawked once, a hoarse deep chirp and flew away, a worm in its mouth. Once again Alestor fell to his seat. To his rear, the intense ramblings of a woman experiencing a living nightmare. In his hand, a cup. In his head, a thought; Salud, to a promising future, to my king and my dreams.

 Chapter 12

    Apollo


    July 18th, 2017


    11:23 AM


    He sat in that small cubicle of a table, removing the contents of his burger. The lettuce, tomatoes, onions and finally pickles, all of which he put into neat piles around the plate. Dion entered the table with his own plate, staring at Apollo. His face convulsed as he looked at the man picking at his food like a confused surgeon. His face blushed red from the glares of other customers, (regular) big customers who spilled out of their small seats. The smell of grease lingered around them and around the orange and yellow painted walls of the restaurant whose mascot, a hot dog holding an onion ring, looked terribly happy and almost insane.


    ¡°What are you, a bird? Eat normally.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not a picky eater,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I can eat most of anything, but I don¡¯t like it when my foods mix. That¡¯s all. Everything ought to be in its own lane.¡±


    Dion nodded his head. Apollo looked at the statue of the hot dog standing outside, shining, peeling paint.


    ¡°Hey, listen.¡± Dion paused to look down. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for what I did. I didn¡¯t mean to punch you, back there in the alley. I shouldn¡¯t have.¡±


    ¡°Your apology is hollow, it¡¯s a routine, a social instruction that you commit to sate a narcissistic guilt in your head,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Calm yourself, you didn¡¯t do anything I didn¡¯t expect. You fulfilled your duty as the idiot quite well. What great execution, or lack thereof an execution. I had a feeling you''d go in with that hot finger of yours and that big head.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯re mad about?¡± Dion slapped his hands down on the tipsy table. ¡°Not the punch? You¡¯re mad I went in and saved two people?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not like your punch was any strong,¡± Apollo said. Dion winced.


    ¡°Don¡¯t sound so arrogant. It was strong enough to knock you down.¡±


    ¡°Overpowering an injured man is something only the insecure value as a source of pride.¡± Apollo ate a fry. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect that from you.¡±


    Dion swallowed his burger, clogging a grumbling insult in his throat. He swallowed, composed.


    ¡°Alright. Forget the punch. What was wrong about saving those two folks? They were halfway into the grave before we came around, we saved them.¡±


    ¡°Saved one. The other is in a coma I hear.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Well, I freaking saved one then at least,¡± Dion said. Everyone turned. He lowered his head back down.


    ¡°Don¡¯t say freaking.¡± Apollo rolled his eyes. ¡°It¡¯s a cop-out for those too afraid to admit to an animosity within them. Politeness for its own sake, disingenuous. It¡¯s childish. Let the priests or politicians hide behind their soft speak.¡±


    ¡°I freaking helped those two.¡± He grunted with fries sticking out of his mouth like fangs. Apollo was just starting on eating his lettuce salad.


    ¡°Tell me, Dion. What would have happened if we failed?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have a good imagination. Explain it to me.¡±


    ¡°If we failed I can tell you with certainty that the creature,¡± He leaned in with a quiet voice. ¡°That demon.¡± Back out. ¡°Would have eaten half of this city by the end of the night. We would have bodies lining the border walls of this town. That is the cost of failure.¡±


    ¡°Alright, but it didn¡¯t happen so why does it matter?¡±


    ¡°The hypothetical is everything.¡± Apollo brought his hammered fist down to the table. Dion looked at him and the eyes that seemed to look into a far-reaching memory. ¡°Theory is everything. The fear in your heart of the things you stand to lose is everything. If you don¡¯t know what you¡¯re fighting for, you¡¯re never going to fight as hard as the man who does. At that point, you¡¯re just a mindless drone, a biological robot fulfilling a desire for violence inherent to your lizard brain.¡± The people looked, their mouths covered with ketchup like beasts coming up from the carcass.


    ¡°I don¡¯t play that shit, fucker. This isn¡¯t a game. Wanna know why?¡± Apollo¡¯s face scrunched up, his voice seething out of his mouth. ¡°I know what happens when shit goes wrong. When the mistake becomes so fucking real and big that you can¡¯t even look up to face it. When the situation overcomes the man. I¡¯m telling you from experience, don¡¯t ever go out looking for trouble or doing that buffoonery you just did. It¡¯s nothing good, I guess unless you indulge in that kind of thing. And you don¡¯t, right Dion? You wouldn¡¯t happen to love it, would you?¡±


    Dion flinched. His back was straight against the worn foam and leather seat. He could feel a cut seam brush against his arms, and his hands gripped hard on the seat, tearing away cotton as if threads of fog.


    The curious eyes of the patrons peered around the corner of their round benches and leaned towards the two noisy hunters. A suntanned woman came by with baggy white pants and a bright Colonel Weiner hat that made her seem like a half-peeled orange. She smiled and stood carefully away from the table.


    ¡°Is there an issue?¡± Her voice was peppy and hummed at the end of her words.


    ¡°No, thank you.¡± Dion smiled. She smiled back.


    ¡°No,¡± Apollo said.


    Her face fell as she looked at Apollo and she retreated back.


    ¡°You really are new to this line of work, aren¡¯t you?¡± Apollo shook his head. ¡°Well let me tell you, this kind of trade doesn¡¯t forgive mistakes.¡±The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Who cares man. I held my own, I fought. And it isn¡¯t the first time either. I¡¯ve been practicing my shooting, my close quarter''s combat, my spatial reasoning and critical thinking. I''ve studied and read about these monsters for a decade and a half, and now I''m on the field. So as far as I¡¯m concerned, I have as much experience as you. ¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a difference between studying something in words and living it with sweat and blood.¡±


    ¡°Oh, really, you must be very knowledgeable. What have you learned, then?" Dion said. "The guide to being an ass?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve shadowed under a very, very, good mentor. I know these fucking creatures as well ¡ª Better than any man.¡± He looked away, towards the window. ¡°They change their shapes, change their origins, change their personality but they¡¯re all the same deep down inside. Those fucking demons. Past the guts and gore, it¡¯s all just a mindless violence. Like a machine, just propagating itself. I can¡¯t even call it evil, they¡¯re too senseless for that. It¡¯s more like instinct. They¡¯re animals.¡±


    ¡°You''re not as bright as you think you are, I could have told you that,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°A one-time affair doesn¡¯t make you an expert. I have years of tracking, analyzing and planning experience under my belt. I can tell you how they eat and where and how.¡±


    ¡°We all know how they eat,¡± Dion said. ¡°Can you tell me why, genius? If you could, we¡¯d have already solved this case.¡±


    Apollo paused, put a finger on his chin and contemplated.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Apollo said. ¡°That thing, that avian-type had a long mouth. Didn¡¯t digest corpses properly either, it looked like it was transporting them or something.¡±


    ¡°What, like a mother bird? Are you stupid?¡± Dion laughed. ¡°You just finished telling me they were mindless.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I also told you they were robots. At least these lower level types. And what¡¯s the thing about a robot that makes it so useful? It¡¯s programming.¡±


    ¡°Do you have any evidence for any of this?¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± Apollo shrugged his shoulders. ¡°We have a cult, black mass, and demons. Hard not to believe they¡¯re all linked.¡±


    ¡°But do you know.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s what my years of experience tells me though.¡±


    ¡°Years of experience? We¡¯re both twenty-four.¡±


    ¡°Physically, sure. Mentally, we¡¯re about a century apart.¡±


    Dion stood. He kicked the stem of the table, it rung.


    ¡°Forget that, forget you.¡± He wiped his mouth. His eyes narrowed to Apollo who was looking around curiously, almost amused before he realized the myriad round, white eyes. Then his throat became dry and his voice hushed as he put a finger above his pursed lips.


    ¡°Calm down,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me to calm down you hypocrite. I won''t be lectured by you. I don¡¯t need a lesser man who pretends that hiding in the face of evil is a sound strategy.¡± Dion held his fist high. ¡°Yeah, I rushed in and yeah, I¡¯d do it again. A hundred times over, I would help a stranger out.¡± The words spat out of his mouth. The orange woman behind the counter shook her head as the manager nudged her to, seemingly, interrupt them. As if she could stop those tall brutes.


    Knowing this, feeling it, they all grew more nervous, more hostile, more aware. Apollo felt his nose clear and his vision sharpen.


    ¡°We should go.¡± Apollo grabbed Dion¡¯s shoulder. ¡°You emotional child.¡±


    He led him out the building, past the statue and the flaking bright colored walls.


    ¡°If we¡¯re going to work together, we need some ground rules,¡± Dion said, standing in front of the Weiner shop amongst a plaza where the homeless collected and dug from the full bins and garbage cans. Dion handed one of them his bag of half-eaten food.


    ¡°Yeah, I agree,¡± Apollo said. ¡°So next I tell you to do something, you fucking do it.¡±


    ¡°Listen to you? You don¡¯t have strong enough principals and morals to guide me.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯s this for a principal, fucker. Your morality is flexible, fickle, and worthless. The best strategy is the one that gets us the best result for the most amount of people, so when I tell you to wait and be careful and to not rush in, you fucking listen.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t abide by that.¡±


    ¡°Then the next time we fight, when you go in brash and raw, when you lose and you¡¯re dead on the floor curled up, latching onto that pride of yours and the whole city is in flames because you couldn¡¯t get a grip on your fucking pettiness, then tell thy neighborer and stranger, I tried, I tried my best. Go on. Do it. If you want to win and succeed, you listen to me. Not your instincts, but me. You understand, Dion?¡±


    He closed his eyes and breathed deeply and eventually nodded, yes. Shaking his head, yes, with a wide vein bulging out of his forehead.


    ¡°So what¡¯s the plan then, genius? What do we do next, without any leads or any information in regards to this cult? Or this murderer, or whatever.¡±


    They walked around the corner of the plaza and hit an empty sidewalk. The walls loomed over, the sun was hidden along a bank of gray clouds.


    ¡°No leads? Who told you that?¡± His voice sounded glee, only for a moment. ¡°There¡¯s so much fucking evil in this town you¡¯d have to be blind to miss the black shoots of putrid smoke coming out the ground.


    Apollo put himself in front of Dion.


    "Tell me, Dion, in these last few days, what do you think I¡¯ve been doing?¡±


    ¡°Masturbating over your dead philosophers.¡±


    ¡°No, I''ve been befriending evil, of course.¡± He heckled. ¡°You see, it''s all linked. Nothing happens in a vacuum, this is the sphere of influence of humanity. Or perhaps, evil. A drug dealer may know a murderer, a murderer may know a syndicate, a syndicate may know a politician. And so on and so on, each man his own ladder step upon the high climb to the truth. And it may be so far up there, so far removed that you can''t see it. But it''s always there, the answer to our mystery. Who is this murderer? What is this cult? What do they want?¡±


    ¡°That''s a lot of words for such a dumb claim. Where''s the truth then? Where''s the answer? " Dion gestured with open palms. Apollo sighed.


    "Here¡¯s what we¡¯re doing, you double-digit IQ monkey. We¡¯re going out to consult evil. An interview of sorts. I have a meeting already. And you¡¯re going to play the role, alright?¡±


    ¡°I hate this stupid plan already. What would Jesus think?¡±


    ¡°Jesus would have summoned God¡¯s wrath upon these wrongdoers, that¡¯s what He would have done and that¡¯s we¡¯re doing.¡±


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°Very carefully at first, seductively at second, and violently at last. When the times right.¡± Apollo said. Dion nodded, his eyes flaring up almost in anticipation. It put off Apollo, for a bit.


    ¡°Alright, here''s the scene. We''re going to a little club out there in the heart of the city, and we''re going there under the pretense of being cocaine dealers. You¡¯re my bodyguard and I¡¯m the Louise Villa, some LA hotshot turned Cartel spokesman for narcotics this side of the country."


    "Well, you do look like a scumbag," Dion said.


    "Our interviewer likens himself to be a big shot. Sells psychedelics, or, ''mood enhancers'' as he calls them. Well, we''re going in, waving our big money cocks and we''re going to convince him that if he doesn''t buy from us he shouldn''t even be bothering with the game. Then when he bites, as greedy fucks like him tend to do, we''re going to demand to see if he even has a customer base for this shit. And from there, we''ll get a list. I''m sure the gluttonous fuck will more than happy to ego-stroke himself. And if he doesn''t, we''ll beat it out of him. Easy. I just don''t want to start a commotion so it''s easier if we lie to him.¡± Apollo shifted his eyes to each corner of the alley and each shadow. "I''ve already seen an uptick in cops. They can be quite annoying and hard to navigate around."


    "You''re really sure this is going to go as planned, aren''t you?"


    "Yeah, people are predictable. All of them, all the time."


    ¡°Dreadful. Disgusting.¡± Dion rubbed his temples. ¡°Tell me at least. How¡¯d you organize the meeting?¡±


    Apollo smiled. Wide grinned. Dion looked at his contorted face and the darkness he wore beneath his eyes. They looked completely black, like pits.


    ¡°Luck, mostly. There weren¡¯t many ingredients to the whole thing. A dark alley, a poor sap trying to make a buck.¡± He paused to reflect. ¡°Our shitty Volkswagen and some jumper cables. Those helped.¡±


    And Dion turned away and walked faster down the street. Apollo could tell, looking at the woozy stride of Dion, how he truly was.

 Chapter 13

    Alestor


    July 18th, 2017


    12:24 PM


    The fire lapsed around him, in swells and growths like tendrils, sporadic and gluttonous. He saw the fire grows and nodded to what he heard. His eyes, wide open as the giant surfs of red flames wrapped around him. Then he felt hot, though not from the fire that did not feel much of anything, but of something else growing inside him, like the tendrils or the waves, a rancor both lurking and ravenous in the weeds of his psyche.


    There was a silence in the air, a musk of salt and burning hair. And game. A strange, intense flavor of game, of wild animal on the tip of his mouth.


    Smoke shot out, he pushed his face away. It wrapped around his face. Alestor waved it away.


    And from within that flame and its wild flailing, two lips opened wide, yawning almost.


    ¡°Hmm?¡± The voice said. Alestor''s shaky arms reached for pink salt sitting on the floor next to him. He looked around in his little library in that corner of the office where there were no windows, nothing but the glare of charcoal covered walls. He threw a pinch in.


    ¡°What do you want, Alestor?¡± The voice asked again. He gulped and put both hands on the floor.


    ¡°They¡¯re getting unruly -¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°Your worshipers.¡±


    ¡°And?¡±


    ¡°And they need a sign,¡± Alestor said, conscious of his tone. He needed to remain low, humble, simple.


    ¡°Is that it? Is this why you¡¯ve summoned me. To do a bit of theatrics? Dance? A miracle or two?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve summoned you for direction.¡± Alestor¡¯s head rose. ¡°And to remember a promise made.¡±


    ¡°Which?¡± The voice sounded amused, almost.


    ¡°The promise of bringing back my wife.¡± His voice broke. ¡°And my child.¡±


    Fire spat out. White ash collected in a small ring around the base, like growing rot.


    ¡°That¡¯s up to you, isn¡¯t it?¡±The voice screamed. The ash ring spread out, towards Alestor. Alestor dug his hand back into the leather pouch, back into the pink salt and flung it at the ash and fire. A hiss, a scream like a seething hiss, came off from that flame.


    ¡°When can I see my wife back?¡± Alestor asked.


    ¡°When the rapture is brought upon them all, you will stand with your beloved on the holy mountain. One of the few."


    ¡°But when? How long do I wait? When and what and how? And how?!¡± He said.


    ¡°How?¡± The voice screeched and the fire rode up to the ceiling where the smog formed waves, crashing about like black regurgitations. ¡°I¡¯ve never taken you for a passive fool.¡± Sparks spilled and danced on the floor. ¡°Every faith needs its servants, and servants need their Gods and Gods need their worship. A black sabbath requires the mass, the faith, and the sacrifice. You¡¯ve known this. Something as grand as your desire requires an equally ridiculous penance. Life for life, a human hecatomb. A sacrifice.¡±


    Alestor looked down, his head heavy with doubt. His eyes hurt, sweat fell from his chin. Sacrifice. Blood for blood. He wiped his brow with his sleeve and looked up.


    ¡°And the hunters?¡± Alestor sat on his knees. They dug into a loose plank and bled.


    ¡°Hunters?¡±


    ¡°They killed the last son you sent me. They¡¯re here now and they come waving a black flag.¡±


    ¡°Hunters¡­Heart-eaters you mean?¡± The voice laughed.


    ¡°They''re Vicars, I''ve heard rumors about them before. But I thought¡­with how small a city this is¡­I thought they wouldn¡¯t bother. But then, well. Then they killed it, the thing you sent me.¡±


    ¡°Oh... Oh, my. Vicars? Heart-eaters... I knew they¡¯d be attracted eventually. But this soon? Damn church dogs, aren¡¯t they? Pagans of a false God.¡± The voice hummed. ¡°Hunters¡­¡±


    Alestor faced the floor, his body prostate. And the voice, the fire, the demon or god, laughed into a small hysteria. Mumbling, amused. Hunters, Vicars.


    Alestor rubbed his knees. He brought his hand up. Blood.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± He interrupted.


    ¡°Oh. Yes. Of course.¡± It said. ¡°I might be able to help, at a cost. Are you sure you want it?¡±


    His heart pounded, he clutched his chest.


    ¡°Do I have a choice?¡±


    ¡°Does anyone, really?¡± The demon said. ¡°The illusion of choice was the greatest sin God ever committed to man. Terrible thing, isn¡¯t it?¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Alestor¡¯s bloody nails dug into his coat, past his white shirt and onto the skin, the bustling skin of his chest.


    ¡°Alestor,¡± The fire spat out. ¡°Are you sure you want my help?¡±


    ¡°I already a killed a man.¡± He slammed his hand down. The word - killed- grew out of him, like a knife, clawing out of a womb. A birthing of something wrong. ¡°It can¡¯t be any worse, can it? What¡¯s another death? Why would another man¡¯s life matter more than mine? Why not kill him?¡±


    His chest hurt.


    ¡°Good mode of thought! There may be hope for you yet.¡± The voice said. ¡°What is the big deal, anyway? You killed a criminal scum. Shit. Society¡¯s understanding nature inhibits proper punishment and here you are to correct it all. What¡¯s wrong with getting a little payment for your work? You might be owed, in fact, from all the things you¡¯ve done. All the rapists and child molesters and murderers you¡¯ve disposed of.¡±


    The memories flooded him. Heavy memories, still recent enough to make it impossible to distance himself from. Memories still fresh, still vibrant with his color, with the awful accuracy of color.


    ¡°But I don¡¯t think the souls of criminals, of rotten people, will be good enough for what you need. To feed and fuel the thing, I''d like to send you. Do you understand, Alestor?¡± The voice said. ¡°I need something more. Something, say, high quality.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean by high quality?¡±


    ¡°The virginial blood of the innocent,¡± He could feel the sneer, the arrogant glee from those fiery lips across from him, within that ashy circle. Alestor swore he could feel his heart stop. ¡°The price of a man is weighed by the merit of his soul. I need something rich, something good. Give me your best and I''ll give you my best, an equal exchange.." It said. There was silence. "Give me, say, a priest perhaps? An honest judge? A child, yes, a child could do. A young babe.¡±


    He wanted to scream. The words bounced off the cavern of his skull, the gap left by his empty brain. For he could not think, there was nothing there now but the buzzing words and a rattling throb.


    A child.


    His hand fell and stiffened. The pink salt in his grip slipped out and drizzled onto the floor.


    ¡°Now you know my price. You do want your wife back, don¡¯t you?¡± It said. ¡°It¡¯s not like you¡¯re really ending someone anyway. Just killing, just sending them home, to me. I¡¯d say you¡¯d be helping them out, saving them from a miserable life in this dark world. Is there any other peaceful way for a human to go? While they¡¯re still innocent. Before life has gotten its death grip on them? Before its ruined them? I''m sure they¡¯d forgive you when they see paradise. When the burdens of life are cut and the shackles, thrown.¡±


    Alestor was still. The flame began to die and he did not bother to fuel it, he let it recede. And it felt, as the fire died, that it had burned away a piece of himself. There was nothing left for him to hear. He walked back and stumbled against a book cabinet. The books fell to his feet, he held himself against the dark oak frame.


    His legs went weak.


    Then he heard a knock, the ravenous knock of his students, the hasty knock that demanded of him a certain composure. He breathed. He evened his hair that had split and run from him in opposite directions and collected all the bits of himself that seemed to escape or break off from his nervous wounds. He pressed his suit and shirt down, looking at the floor, looking for some sanity, some confidence, some goodness. And looking up, with a final exhalation of his held breath, he snapped into a straightened posture.


    Knock. Knock. Knock.


    With his face taken back to a dull, assertive expression, he walked to the door. The men were waiting outside and sweating.


    ¡°There. You saw it, didn¡¯t you? From the glass window of the door.¡± Alestor told them. They were all lucid, drooling and heaving. The Mayor was the first to speak.


    ¡°Did you tell him what I wanted? The millions, the yacht. Did you tell him?¡± He was shaking Alestor.


    ¡°No, but he told me what he wanted.¡±


    ¡°Yes, we heard.¡± The police commissioner said. A gap for silence. ¡°Children.¡±


    They fell to quietness again and huddled together, their black coat covered shoulders forming a silhouette against the buzzing fluorescent light of the psychiatric office. Like the shadows and contours of four great mountains. Who would break it first? Who would be so selfish?


    A gasp. Then there was a sound of parting lips, like suctions.


    ¡°I know some routes.¡± The Police Commissioner said. They all licked their lips, and one man¡¯s courage led to the other, a boulder gaining stride down the slope.


    ¡°We¡¯ve had an outbreak of orphans.¡± The Head Editor said.


    ¡°We¡¯d have to do it after curfew, fewer suspects.¡± The Mayor said. ¡°I can put that into motion.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes, the right people at the right times. We can get half a dozen, honestly. Not too many, that¡¯d be too suspicious. That¡¯d suffice, right Father?¡± The commissioner said.


    Alestor looked at them. He could read the words from their lips, but couldn¡¯t understand them. Not at an intellectual level. They were just noise, phonetics, hot breaths from animals of what he perceived to be of a different species.


    The Mayor, a pudgy man with his suit tearing at the seams. The Commissioner, tall and proud, thick-jawed. The Chief Editor, pious and desperate in his eyes. What strange people, Alestor thought, But am I any different?


    They wanted this more than him. Or did they?


    Of course. They had to be worst.


    Murder of the benign, that was too large a price for Alestor. Wasn¡¯t it?


    He shook in place, thinking, cursing silently, the memories of his dead wife and son. That¡¯s all it took, not wealth or power or knowledge or security. All it took was the promise of happiness. Some smoke and mirrors, a miracle or two. The voice of a Djinn, of a demon or god. And then they were all convinced.


    He wondered, so briefly, as he backed away towards the wall, away from the leering shadowy people. He wondered if the voice he heard or the magic displayed was something to be rejoiced, or feared. Or even real.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± The lost lambs said in unity. And Alestor, frightened father, bearer of responsibility, took a deep breath. He tried to find a stop, an inhibition, a brake of morality that would make him shut up and stay silent. But he could think of nothing more he wanted. Nothing more, than the soft hand of his wife.


    ¡°Do what you need to do, then! You heard him.¡± He lashed out. The words seemed to hurt him himself, as Alestor scowled and retreated to his room.


    The men heard it, heard it with wide grins.


    ¡°Alright then, we¡¯ll get on it.¡± The commissioner said. There was no misinterpretation, no language barrier now. They were all of the same kind and form. And Alestor, in the midst of that office amongst those long couches and magazines and coffee tables, seemed to fly away, detached from the scene. Detached from himself.


    ¡°What have I done?¡± He asked to no one. He ran back to his room. Into the seat. He opened the drawer looking for an answer.He pulled the first thing he could find. A bag cocaine ripped from his twitchy pinch. It spilled like snow across his desk. He reached back inside, this time he felt the cold touch of a flash. His eyes shifted between each. He gave up, decided he¡¯d have both and took turns. Sniffing, drinking, like a starved desert man amidst the oasis. Taking bountiful sips of the sweet waters. So Alestor did, bobbing his head between the lips of his flask or the face-shaped imprint of cocaine.


    Depressed and awake at the same times, with his rapidly beating, mournful heart. A mind in dissonance.


    Now he knew how Mrs. Breyer felt. Now he knew that he could not take back.

 Chapter 14

    Sophie


    July 18th, 2017


    5:22 PM


    They had not sold anything in the two hours they were there and it was enough to make them look into the sky and beg for a falling anvil. The sun was oppressive, though hidden, lurking in the gray waves of clouds like an invisible ray beam pointed directly to the back of their heads. Their brains were frying. Slow. Burning, slow. Their tired eyes wobbled underneath their strained necks. They were small and as such, constantly looked up to the grimaced faces of customers. They were in a parking lot, made into a pseudo-swap and meet. But there was no one to meet, or at least, no one who wanted to meet with them. The stragglers wandered past them. The littered streets were empty and only kept the company of plastic bags, like ghosts in white sheets.


    The frugal were at home, the frightened were at home, the murderers too, must have been at home, Sophie presumed, safe in their little houses.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go. My feet hurt.¡± Pip said. Sophie looked at him. Her eyes went first before her heavy skull followed. She felt sticky with sweat and rubbed her arm against her overalls to dry them. Looking at Pip¡¯s slick, dripping, bald head only made the humidity worse.


    ¡°This is all your fault. You know that?¡± Sophie said.


    ¡°I told you I was sorry. I didn¡¯t think the chocolate would melt.¡± He said. She wafted through a carton box of chocolates by her feet and felt the clay-like substance of melting chocolate between two fingertips. Like turds. Like the sewer was laid and sprawled in that little box. She looked down to the jar of money next to the plastic table they borrowed (from Pip''s mother, Sophie didn''t own these types of things). The money jar doubling as cashier register was empty. She could see the bottom of the glass and raised it to her eye to magnify the broken, black pavement.


    ¡°I¡¯m not talking about the chocolate.¡± She continued. His head lowered. He rubbed his legs against each themselves as if eager for the restroom.


    ¡°I¡¯m suspended. My grandpaw gave it to me last night in a phone call,¡± She said. "Had to hangup midway just to avoid the headache."


    ¡°And I said I¡¯m sorry.¡± His voice was high pitched, and his body shook with tension.


    She too, felt her stomach knot up.


    ¡°What¡¯s sorry going to do for me?¡± She slapped the glass down.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± He said.


    ¡°You never know, do you.¡± She said. "I wonder if there''s even a brain in there."


    He put fingers into the holes of his shirt. Stretching his shirt out, ripping the red and blue stripes lengthwise across him. It ripped, the threads popped out. It was just a goodwill shirt anyhow, wasn''t worth much. And talking to Sophie made him realize, she made him feel like he wasn''t worth much.


    ¡°Why do you always talk to me that way?¡± He asked. Sophie stared, shocked.


    A homeless man wandered with a scarf dragging through the dirty floor. The wheels of his cart whistled. A local baker in the corner of her eye picked his nose. He was supposed to be sweeping leaves and grass into the dry street gutters.


    She fixed her shock, closed her mouth and swallowed her spit.


    ¡°Why do you always mess everything up?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Why are you so mean?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Why are you such a coward?¡± She asked.


    "Why are you a bitch?"


    "Why are you a pussy?"


    Their voices, going on and on, until they both synchronized and melted into common rage.


    She pushed him. He pushed her. She pulled his hair and with one great shove between the two of them, they split. Five feet apart, staring at each other.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    He was silent. His gaunt face looked out to the street where the pickup trucks were roaming in their low hum that sounded more like a bee than an engine. It was the mild buzz of the city, like white noise, a television channel that no longer worked.


    ¡°You never cared about being in trouble before! You never cared about getting into fights. But now you''re worked up? Why? Because it was my fault? I never asked you to help me.¡± He said.


    She went quiet. Pip opened his mouth, but paused in contemplation, then with his raised fist, shouted again. ¡°No. I don''t think you''re mad at me. I think you''re just mad because your momma doesn''t love you."


    Her right eye twitched, and she felt her hair split, and her arms tingle as if ants crawled all along her pale flesh. These small sensations came to her neck, a part of a long wave that stretched across her body until all of her tingled and quaked and harmonized with anger. She kicked one of the table stands. That made Pip afraid. Courage left his legs, his body. His nimble, tall legs, like weak tree branches. Crows above squawked, sitting by the edge of a rooftop. They heard the noise, stretched their wings and dropped half-eaten cigarette buds on the floor below, like black rain. A crowd gathered, or rather, a collecting of voyeurs and sullen eyes behind the many windows of the apartments and stores watched.


    "You heard me." His voice cracked. "Your momma doesn''t love you."


    ¡°Don¡¯t you talk about my mom.¡± She pointed to Pip.


    ¡°Or what?"


    She grabbed his wrist. His muscles were tense. However, he did not blink or was really, even surprised. He closed his eyes and got ready for it. She got ready for it. He took a deep breath and waited, patiently, what felt like a century for her to cock her arm back. He tightened his face, and someone put his arm on his shoulder.


    He opened his eyes to see the man who had grabbed Sophie by the hand. He was imposing, his bodies shadow covering them completely.


    ¡°Don¡¯t fight now.¡± This stranger said. It was a man, wearing too tight of a suit, a black undershirt, and a red tie. His brown shoes did not match his belt, and that was the first thing he noticed as he looked up to this great presence. His bald head was spotted brown like leopard skin, but the rest of him was pallid and ashy and cracked, like a corroded canyon. A sign fell over. It was the advertisement, ¡°SOPHYES FAMUS CANDYES, TASTE U-CAN TRUST.¡±


    They pulled away from each other, then from the man.


    ¡°I don''t think it''s right for a boy and a girl to fight¡± He smiled.


    They backed away from him.


    "I was hoping to get something for my wife and kids at home," He said, smiling.


    They wiped their faces. Sophie snapped at Pip. Pip grunted at her.


    ¡°I¡¯m not selling anything.¡± Sophie closed the box of chocolates.


    ¡°Well that isn''t good business, is it? You just found yourself a customer, and here you are, kicking him right out. Well, that ain''t any good, is it?" He said.


    He wondered if his face hurt from all the smiling.


    ¡°We¡¯re closed.¡± Sophie worked on putting her things away, quiet and gentle.


    "You''re closed. I''m not." Pip clutched a bar from her hands as she put away the box. She glared at him, eyes like daggers.


    "You know what?" She said.


    "What?"


    "I don''t think we can be friends anymore." She said. "If you don''t listen to me, we''re done. Do you hear me?"


    "Why would I care? All you''ve done is got me into trouble all these years. What do I care what you do?" He said.


    She turned, defiantly and threw the backpack over her shoulders. Pip¡¯s eyes were swelling, and he wiped fresh tears with his sleeve. Damp stains were left on his shirt, on his arms, on his chest.


    ¡°Fuck you.¡± He walked away, towards the bakery, knocking over a plastic chair. Then apologizing, and holding his bruised leg. He must have tripped ten more chairs by the time he was around the corner. It suit him, these kinds of awkward goodbyes.


    "Oh, friends shouldn''t fight." The bald man stood looking at Pip''s direction. His eyes were dead. Discolored. Gray.


    ¡°Hey, you," She said. He turned down. "We¡¯re - I¡¯m not doing business. You can leave now.¡±


    ¡°Oh, won¡¯t you sell me one. Sweat heart?¡± He undid a button on his coat. His stomach rolled out. ¡°They¡¯re famous sweets, aren¡¯t they?¡±


    She looked up at him. His teeth were small, there was more fleshy, pink gum in his smile than ivory.


    ¡°I don''t like you, mister.¡± She said. The baker, the citizens looked at him, perhaps compelled to and by, this jolly, eerie fellow.


    ¡°Why''s that?¡± His bare, chinless neck rustled up and down with fat. His mouth twitched.


    ¡°You''re weird.¡± She stepped back. She repeated, louder, so everyone else could hear. ¡°You''re a weirdo, mister.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s cruel, girl.¡± He raised his hand, fedora in hand and covered his spotted scalp. "We''re all a little weird. And shouldn''t weird people stick together?"


    She kept backing. He approached her. And by an act of God perhaps. Or random happen-chance, a car drove by. People exited their apartments. A few strangers walked, here and there to remind them both that civilization was still here.


    He stopped pressing her.


    ¡°Well then." He flashed his half-smile. "I guess we won''t be getting along, little girl. Have a nice day,"


    He started to walk.


    "And make sure you apologize. It''s not good to lose a friend.¡±


    He walked, steady, at a slow gait before gaining speed and traction as he turned the corner. He held his hat the whole way there.


    When she saw him disappear, she felt a drop in her stomach like a needle had fallen down her esophagus and poked her. But in the heat of it, with her face flushed red with anger and with the noises of coming footsteps and engines a-roaring, she could not make sense of her feelings. She wanted to get home. She wanted to hate Pip. She wanted to get away from the man.


    She reached for her box of melted chocolates and gripped it. She felt the black, ooze onto her fingers and through the cracks in her clenched fist.


    It felt like mud.

 Chapter 15

    Alestor


    July 19th, 2017


    9:05 PM


    ¡°Are you ready, Father?¡± A young woman said. It was strange, he thought, to be called a father to people who were not his children. And even stranger still, that these children (some, who were nearly twice his age), to worship him with obsessive candor as they did. The young woman trembled as she handed him a yellow flower to put upon his chest. He sighed and slicked his hair behind a broken crack of mirror.


    This pack of cultists, one raised over the time of several months, were in want of knowledge promised. He could see in their faces whenever they walked up to him.


    Four, had walked up to him. In that little dressing room, behind the ruined walls of a downtrodden theater house. Four faces behind the first young girl were looking at him, some old, some young, all with the same desire in their glazed eyes. Alestor walked past them, out the dressing room and approaching the stage. The path there, in between weathered red curtains, seemed to narrow as he went through the caverns of the halls. The light bulbs hung from the chassis of metal walkways. They looked skeletal, the ribs perhaps, of some dead machine-animal. These light bulbs too, seemed dead. For they buzzed, and their light was minimal and unreliable, flickering on and off. The parceled shadow of Alestor went ahead and dragged behind, both at once.


    A low hanging bulb popped. He stepped over the glass but was unconcerned. The glass popped underneath his feet.


    He was in a small room, it could not have fit more than two men but was still a length walk across. There were tables, mirrors that could not reflect in the obfuscation of darkness. He looked around, no one, and rested by one of these tables. A bouquet of dead violets hung their heads at the stems. He leaned up, like the flowers. Head hung, like the flowers. A handkerchief in his pocket helped him dry his sweat. He wanted air and took a big gulp and tasted mildew and rust as if the overgrown brick and rotting wood had managed to grow themselves inside his mouth.


    "A life for a life," He mumbled. "Which one matters to me most? The stranger, or the love?" He closed his eyes and re-opened them. His head was high, his gaze was narrow and his conviction, deep. The seed of evil was planted somewhere, in the corner of his eyes, in the wrinkles of his brain, somewhere deep. In that primal spot, center-most his skull, his soul.


    He had germinated it, watered it, fed it. Man after man he had killed, with panicked and driven madness. It had started with criminals, then suspects and had moved to the sick and the homeless. And now...


    Here he was. With a knife in his pocket bulging out, with his fingers touching the outline. With a child. A child! Somewhere behind the curtains, out the end of the hall, on a stone tablet, sleek and cold.


    Alestor put the stole on his shoulder, wrapped it around his neck and let it dangle by his hips.


    His stone face, cracked by the years and the stress, now fixed itself to something brooding, demure. He walked down the hall. Small holes in the walls shined moonlight, highlighting the contours of his disciplined face.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    The light was bright here, on the stage, burning even. Or perhaps he was just too used to that darkness, reared to it over the years. Alestor put his hand above his face to shade himself. Behind the overhead glare, the fleets and rows were full of servants. Family, he called them.


    A full symposium that stretched to each end of the ruined walls. Exhaust pipes hung by ceilings. This stage creaked. It was all cracked and jury-rigged. They leered at him, the people and the walls and the pipe, like birds sitting on the branches of dead trees.


    He walked to a pedestal. If there were a time to lose courage, it would have been now, but he went without fault. His muscles were flexed, his shoulders raised like a predator in the heat of the stalk. His face, tight. The boy was in front of him. The book, too. A dark, leatherbound with the washed-out lettering, cracked and barely legible.


    ''Maestrum Mortuous''


    Alestor put a hand over it. The people around looked at him, their curious and doubtful faces, gone pallid as he uncovered the tarp over the boy. He seemed gentle in his quiet sleep, his chest slowly rising and falling.


    Alestor looked up, gathering the faces who were caught in the spectacle of the sleeping child.


    ¡°We should begin then. Of mans first transgression, his rebellion and his freedom.¡±


    ?


    Among the dozens there, only Alestor¡¯s voice rung out.


    Isaac watched his father from afar, from a balcony where the tattered red drapes danced, excited. The drafts of wind were cold and neverending, and he could see from small gaps of the brick wall to the outside world, where the high grass was plucked and strewn about. As if there were a storm. But it never stormed here?


    He raised his head over the lip of the balcony. His father had both hands raised up towards the sky like antennas.


    ¡°Our salvation, the morning sun.¡±


    Isaac looked below himself, at the steps and seats. He tried to remember their faces, but could only recognize the famous ones. The commissioner, the mayor. Everyone else was a stranger to him, and perhaps that frightened him most. The idea that they (the strangers) ran around his city with absolute impunity, that they would never be caught, that they were too plentiful. Snakes, they were, who left invisible tracks of filth.


    These anonymous emissaries, worshipping their God (whichever God it was, Isaac couldn''t understand his father''s Latin.) with reverent head bows and quiet hymns.


    He started counting. A face looked up. He went back down, frozen.


    Laid on the floor, Isaac expected his death, but heard his father''s Latin again. In a strange way, he was glad, for they weren''t chasing him. And then, with slow realization, he went sad.


    The murder had not been interrupted. And he was too scared to do it, too concerned with his life. Too much of a coward.


    A killing coming closer. A murder that demanded gasps and shrieks and violent clamour. Isaac''s heart beat faster. Alestor spoke faster. Isaac brought his head back up again, he saw the sheen of the blade risen high above Alestor''s head. And it came down like a blur of silver light. And he too, came down, behind the guardrail, to avoid what he saw. To forget what he saw.


    But he had already witnessed too much.


    He put his hands over his mouth to stop himself from screaming. He felt an urge to gauge his eyes out. All he saw was red, all he saw was the boy and red. The red, like a blanket, wrapping over the small body. Red. Red everywhere.


    He closed his eyes and urinated himself, but only noticed it hours later. Only after he was safe and they were all gone, when he had no more tears to spare.


    He was quiet up in the balcony with the gold-rimmed guardrails and the dilapidated Victorian columns. Time had eaten away at him, had left him tired and sleepless and scared. He had laid on his belly, on the floor for hours now. Heavy steps, light steps, monstrous steps. He heard them all and had seen it all. The police commissioner, the mayor, the strangers and the snakes. Father.


    And thirty minutes after he had heard the last person leave the theater, he had stood up briefly. He walked over to one of the many empty seats, and he vomited. Right there, on the perforated cushion.


    He spat out the last remnants. He looked below, the tarp laid over the corpse of the boy.


    He wiped his mouth, mucus streamed down his nose.


    "Who do I tell?" He cried. "Where do I go?"

 Chapter 16

    The Drunk


    July 16th, 2017


    1:39 AM


    Three drinks had made walking feel like a dance. Six had made it lopsided and slanted.


    Walking was hard. Especially when she was this drunk. This poor girl, nameless, a nobody in this town. This anonymous drunk was using her friends like walking canes, she rested her weight on them, each side of her body held by one annoyed friend. She grabbed at their necks and their arms and gripped them as she fell.


    ¡°Come on,¡± One of them said. ¡°You can make it to the door, can¡¯t you?¡±


    A few shots, a few drinks, a few dances had made her tired. Her body felt hot, but she could not feel the sweat, only the cold from the outside that chilled her skin. It was a nice feeling.


    ¡°That annoying prick wanted to fuck me for so long,¡± She laughed, her voice somewhere in between pride an annoyance. A friend to her side only nodded and typed away at her phone.


    ¡°The uber is coming soon.¡± She said.


    Another friend stood by the edge of the street with her hands tucked into her chest, rubbing them together against the unbearable cold. The light post to their side was slanted, at least, the drunk felt as she hugged it.


    ¡°Yeah, yeah. Deeefinately. He reaaally wanted to take you home. We saw.¡± Her voice dragged, her eyes rolled back. The drunk only giggled and looked behind to a door that opened from a bartender taking out the trash. From the open door, she saw the sign, ¡®Restrooms¡¯ and felt her stomach drop. Drop what? She didn¡¯t know exactly.


    ¡°Can I use your restroom?¡± The drunk asked and used one of her friends to push herself up.


    The bartender stared at her for a bit. She grimaced, scratched her head. It was a very passive way to eventually say no, but one so long winded and tired that the drunk simply did not wait. She walked past the bartender.


    ¡°Thanks,¡±


    The bartender stretched her arms out and let them fall by her side.


    ¡°Sorry. She gets a little aggressive when she¡¯s wasted.¡±


    She ran past empty bottles that laid on their sides on tables that laid on their sides, chairs with broken legs sat upside down on top of the bar top. The smell of urine and nail-polish scented whiskey permeated the air. She felt something ride her throat, almost emptying out of her. She caught it. With a cupped hand on her mouth and the other on her nose, she rushed even faster to the restroom.


    There she turned the faucet and drank. It helped. Then she put her head under the water and ran the water down her scalp like a baptism. The layer of caked makeup dripped down. Thank god.


    Used makeup, spotty with dirt and sweat drained down the hole. And when she was done, and the feeling in her throat settled and with legs finally strong enough, she went into the stall.


    She sat and urinated and looked at the numbers of stupid girls and stupid boys with hearts etched along their names. Graffiti, hearts, the fake (?) phone numbers of prostitutes. These were all around her like cave paintings.


    It made her headache, a pulsation that came in waves. The night felt worse for some reason.


    She put her head down, away from her phone that buzzed and bounced out of her pocket. It fell and cracked when it hit the floor. The screen looked like a web. But she couldn¡¯t bother, her eyes were heavy, and her body seemed lighter as she emptied herself. It was a comfortableness, so gentle that she allowed herself to drool. The sound of the faucet running behind the stall. The sound of the wind outside the window. Gentle - serene even, this shitty little bathroom. Dirty, defiled.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    It was nice.


    But relief is always temporary. Her leg slipped off. She yelped, thinking she was falling. Awake, she jiggled her leg. It felt numb and prickly.


    Her phone stopped buzzing sometime in between her small nap. She picked it up, vision blurry.


    If only she had read the messages.


    But another stall door opened.


    [i]That bitch probably wants to kick me out.


    ¡°I¡¯m not finished, sorry,¡± She screamed out. There was silence. Then the rubber guard scraped against the floor as the door closed. So what?


    A moment later, light footsteps like the hooves of an animal.


    Clack. Clack.


    Her head turned to the sound. It seemed¡­heavy? Like a horse maybe?


    Clack. Clack.


    She rubbed her eyes some more. Her hand massaged her stiff neck. She heard the stall next door.


    ¡°Hey, I¡¯m not done!¡± She screamed.


    The walking stopped. The faucet stopped. And as she noticed, it was as if the wind stopped.


    Minutes passed perhaps, a tension growing in her knotted up stomach. It wasn¡¯t vomit or shit or piss this time. It was something new, something sobering.


    The person. Or thing. Had not left the bathroom.


    Her eyes grew wider. She pulled her pants up and lowered herself to see below the stall. Half-way. She stopped. Or was forced to stop.


    One stall door opened and closed. Then another. Then all of them, all of them but hers crashed and slammed and clattered against the walls.


    It was too fast. She couldn¡¯t even scream. Only barely breath.


    It stopped. When silence stepped in, she could finally notice she was crying.


    She sniffled and put her hand on her mouth.


    Listening, not even breathing now.


    No more clapping, no more clacking. There was a stranger sound now.


    The stall next to her closed with a bang. The person stepped in, right next to her.


    She heard the slobbering sounds of eating. The wet gritting of teeth, the noisy hunger. The drunk hoped it was just her head and the half bottle of tequila and she begged it to be just that. But the noises grew, louder, louder. She tried, slowly, to undo the lock on her door. It creaked.


    The person stopped eating. She wished she had just stayed asleep.


    Then came the strangest sound from that strange little stall next to her. It was like something plopping, like something falling into shallow water. It bobbed up and down and fell out the rim, then with a thud, landed on the tile floor next to her. Her eyes could barely move, but she had to know. She looked down. Her body froze.


    A half-eaten arm. The ivory, the knobs freshly mawed and stripped of flesh. Bloody toilet water spilled out after the arm, encroaching on it and then on gue. She screamed. Out the restroom. Into the bar room. Her heel snapped somewhere along the running line. It didn¡¯t matter. Nothing mattered! It flew off her feet like a bullet casing. Midway through the bar, she turned. She screeched. There she saw her friends, what was left of them, hanging by the ceiling fan. It wasn¡¯t right. No, no. None of it was. What she saw were ways the human body should never be - in shapes, unholy.


    She closed her eyes as she ran through her friends. Their skin hung like ribbon decorations. She felt like vomiting as she felt their skin and limbs pass over her. Outside wasn¡¯t better. Even in the darkness, even with the broken light post now laying lopsided on the floor. She could see, though wished she didn¡¯t. The bits and pieces; eyes and brains and deformed organs.


    ¡°No, no, no,¡± She covered her mouth. She almost slipped on Abbey, the sarcastic one. She didn¡¯t like her. But she wasn¡¯t happy she was dead either.


    Her gait was strange, her ankle had been sprained a while back. She wobbled down the streets, hands waved up in the air. The taxi had made it. Thank God, if there was one.


    He braked. Only, just barely.


    ¡°Drunk idiot.¡± The driver muttered nodded his head and looked at the GPS on his dashboard.


    ¡°Are you-¡±


    ¡°Get me the fuck out of here!¡± She forced herself into the passenger seat. She had blood all over her, from feet to hair.


    ¡°Wait, I don¡¯t want any trouble-¡±


    ¡°Drive, you fucking idiot!¡± She screamed. He didn¡¯t argue. One inspection of her dirty face and the broken, half-mournful, half-frightened eyes suggested that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn''t argue. Her nose dripped. Her eyes were glazed, unblinking and wet with tears.


    She trembled all over.


    ¡°Alright,¡± He nodded his head. ¡°Alright¡± He switched gears on the car. He took his foot off a pedal, she could hear the whine of the brakes.


    Then she screamed again.


    For the driver was gone. Not physically, of course. His body was very much there. But he was gone.


    She scratched her face.


    He was spilling out of his waist. And everything inside of him, all of him, spilled over to the clutch, down the seat, across the passenger seat. There was no driver. Only matter; flesh and blood and bone and the blade. The blade, or whip, or whatever weapon it was, slowly extracting itself from his severed body.


    Her voice cracked, she moved forward. She stretched her leg out and pressed down on the drivers¡¯ still twitching foot. The pedal moved. The car blazed down the street.


    There were howls all around. Everyone seemed to be crying. The engine, the girl, and the beast chasing after them.

 Chapter 17

    Apollo


    July 16th, 2017


    12:33 AM


    ¡°Try not to make a scene. Act like ghosts, like we weren¡¯t even here.¡± Apollo said.


    Dion stood to his rear across a neon-sign. A strange design, it featured a man (presumably, a man) on the floor sprawled out with a drink in his hand. The club was called, ¡®Tipsies¡¯. Cheeky.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never been to a club.¡± Dion said. His glossed eyes stared into the bright red and orange lights.


    ¡°You don¡¯t drink, do you?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Nope.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s keep it that way. Just do what I tell you and we¡¯ll be good.¡± Apollo said and judging by Dion¡¯s curious look - that inquisitive and wanting look - that being good would be anything but easy.


    ¡°The man we''re looking for goes by the name Mr. Lovinski.¡±


    ¡°Is he Jewish or Russian?¡± Dion got out of the car. The cold air struck Apollo, he rubbed the back of his neck.


    ¡°Why does that matter? He¡¯s scum. That¡¯s his breed and kind: shit,¡± Apollo spat. ¡°He was the son of a mob boss before he had the idea to kill the old man, now he¡¯s the biggest drug player in this town. With that title comes some knowledge, I presume. The knowledge every single name of his LSD dealers.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s LSD important?¡± Dion asked. ¡°L-listen, I¡¯m not into that kind of stuff. I don¡¯t even drink,¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not for us, idiot,¡± Apollo started walking. ¡°Every corpse related to the case has had LSD in their blood work. It¡¯s the only uniting piece of our ¡®vampires¡¯ murders.¡±


    ¡°Oh, so he¡¯s a junkie.¡±


    ¡°Maybe, maybe not. He loves using the stuff at least.¡±


    ¡°Then let¡¯s get to it,¡± Dion took the lead and Apollo narrowed his eyes as he looked at the quick stride Dion walked with. They came to the bouncer who eyed them both. It was the worst time for Dion to cut in line, but he did, almost attracted by the sounds inside. The vibrations of loud hip hop. The happy screams of girls too drunk, or too wild as if to be drunk anyways. He pushed three people to the side. They fell to the floor, Apollo¡¯s hairs from his arm.


    ¡°What¡¯d I just tell you?¡± He slapped Dion across the back. ¡°Don¡¯t. Make. A. Scene,¡±


    ¡°Wha-?¡± Dion looked back. ¡°Oh, sorry, I didn¡¯t see,


    It didn¡¯t matter by. The bouncer grabbed him by the back of the neck and turned him towards him. He (the bouncer) cocked his hand back, his aim focused squarely on Dion¡¯s jaw. In one movement - the twist, the clench, the thrust. A cross, aimed straight for Dion¡¯s chin.


    It didn¡¯t so much as leave a dent. The bouncer struck skin, he touched bone and he had certainly attacked Dion, but it did nothing. He retracted his arm, surprised at first, then look to his hand. Two fingers were broken, the rest were red and swollen. He slunk away, against the wall, holding his hand.


    That was it for security.


    ¡°Get in before the camera sees us.¡± Apollo pushed him in. The line behind Dion looked at the bouncer, then at the open door. They all flooded in.


    The two fell into the crowd and squeezed themselves between the hot bodies so doped on ecstasy that the very look on their faces almost made the two Vicars high. Their pupils were so wide and exposed that they looked like black craters. Their bodies were hot and more importantly, unaware. People fainted left and right, to be stepped on later on. A young man collapsed near Dion, he caught him by the arm and found a nice seat to rest him. The druggie slunk like some kind of jello substance, to be absorbed and combined later in the cocktail of colors and flesh.


    Dion looked away for a moment and turned back. He never saw the druggie again.


    ¡°Don¡¯t waste your time on these idiots.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Let ¡®em kill themselves,¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Dion screamed. ¡°Why should I let them self-destruct?¡± The lights flashed red and purple across their faces, the noise of music vibrated their cheeks. After a while, even their ears seemed to break. They could only hear muffled bass.


    ¡°These people, they¡¯re hollow.¡± Apollo shouted.


    ¡°They¡¯re just having fun,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°And yet they¡¯re hardly conscious of it. Explain that? Why would people so desperately try to have fun that they¡¯d dope their bodies and yet in doing so, forget the whole thing even happened?" He said. "Because it¡¯s not just about having fun, they need this. They need the moment and they need to forget it too until it becomes a hazy, comforting memory. Not too specific, not too accurate, just good enough for them to pretend it was something that mattered later on in their lives. They¡¯re like fragile pipes, ready to break at any time. Too small and weak for any kind of pressure, so they do this. A small gesture to exhaust the building anger in them,¡±


    ¡°It sounds like you¡¯re projecting,¡± Dion smiled. ¡°And you¡¯re panicked.¡±


    Apollo grimaced and walked towards the bar. He whispered something into the bartender''s ears that made her wide-eyed. She ignored the brutish catcalls of the drunkards falling from their stools and brushed away women passed out on the wooden counter with the pools of mixed fluids; vomit and drool. She led Apollo and Dion to a fleet of stairs where the flashy colors eased into a calm purple and blue.


    It felt like they were entering a shark tank. The quietness did not help.


    Deeper they ventured, past rooms that banged and beds that creaked and the sad laughter and moans and every now and then - a scream. They stopped at a pale man whose skin changed to whatever color the lights were. Like a chameleon. He was guarding the last stairs that led up, to a penthouse. He looked them up and down and nodded his head.


    They took the last few stairs. They were narrow, they made both Vicars sweat, the color of neon lights faded near the top, as if they were entering some kind of dark hole. The digestive tract of a monster waiting, hungering.


    They came to the top.


    ¡°I¡¯m here to see Mr. Lovenski.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± A second man guarding the door (which was nothing but a cheap satin curtain) to the penthouse said.


    ¡°I¡¯m with the cartel,¡± He took out a wad of cashed rolled into a cylinder, as well as a little marking on Apollo¡¯s hands. Three dots. They were just cheap markings with a tattoo, of course, but in the near darkness they were compelling enough. For idiots, at least.


    ¡°This is for a deal, you hear?¡± Apollo said. ¡°The rest is in the car. Your boss should already be expecting this meeting.¡±


    The man did not move, the tension grew in his eyes as he swerved them left and right.


    ¡°Do you understand?¡± Apollo screamed. ¡°Mu¨¦vete. Hijo de puta. O, te mato.¡±. He lifted the curtains, both entered. The long glass room was set before them, the beast waiting at the end of a table opposite the room. Dion stopped Apollo, he took him to the side, near the entrance.


    ¡°What the heck is this¡± He asked. ¡°Cartel? Drugs?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been networking is all,¡±


    ¡°What about the money? What kind of job is this? What are you doing?¡±


    ¡°They money? I beat some drug dealers for it, nothing they¡¯ll miss.¡± Apollo whispered.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°You what?¡± Dion clenched Apollo¡¯s wrist. ¡°Is that how heroes get things done?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s how I get my jobs done. Deception is a powerful tool, it¡¯s not my fault you¡¯re too stupid to use it.¡±


    He yanked his arm away. Dion stood there, watching, regretting. Regretting everything. Regretting mocking Apollo when they first met, regretted climbing the stairs. It was the type of regret that turned his stomach, that made the confluence in his mind, like two opposite watter currents both running towards one direction and fighting against each other. Anger. Fear.


    He turned away, looking at Apollo walking to the table.


    ¡°Beating up drug dealers, huh,¡± Dion said. He ran away.


    At least Apollo figured, he heard the foot steps after all.


    He found a seat in front of Mr. Lovenski, in front of a table with a stripper pole right center of it all. A woman was grinding her ass against it. Her face had shame.


    ¡°She¡¯s a doctor five years into the job, can you believe it?¡± He spoke as if she wasn¡¯t even there. Judging by the empty look in her eyes, she might not have been at all. ¡°She bought a little too much cocaine than she could pay though, and here she is now to get an advance for her payment.¡±


    Two bodyguards around Mr. Lovenski smiled. The two women around his arms pretended to smile, they put their faces down almost immediately afterwords.


    ¡°I¡¯m not here to talk about what you do in your spare time,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I¡¯m here for the deal I spoke about.¡±


    ¡°Come on, you don¡¯t even want to get to know me?¡± He said. Apollo eyed him, he was ashamed to admit that he was not ugly. Or greasy. Or hairy like the movies had painted villains to be. He was rather handsome. Sleek. Confident. It annoyed Apollo, like a painful cyst.


    ¡°I know enough,¡± He said.


    ¡°No one can ever know too much about another person,¡± Mr. Lovenski said. ¡°Tell me about yourself, Mr. Juarez. What are you doing here this far from the border?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just here to chart new territory, is all¡± Apollo said. ¡°And I want to know how fast my product can run with your dealers.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t get too angsty, you¡¯re going too fast and hard for me,¡± Mr. Lovenski said. ¡°No one likes to be sold to, but everyone loves to buy. So make me want to buy, Mr. Juarez,¡±


    Apollo smiled though the veins in his temples bulged.


    ¡°Mr. Lovenski - Johnny, can I call you that?¡± Apollo asked. Johnny nodded. ¡°I run a very tight schedule where a missed second might be life or dead, or the loss of millions that might as well be life and death. Now I am reputable, most of your dealers can attest to that. Your competitors can attest to that.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sure,¡± Johnny said.


    ¡°So I need you to understand, I really can¡¯t waste time. I mean that with all due respect.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve been very unkind,¡± Johnny said. ¡°Both rude and impatient and I don¡¯t like that. We haven¡¯t even spoken for five minutes and you haven¡¯t gotten to know me. What kind of rapport is that?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m terribly sorry you feel that way,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re very sorry,¡± Johnny said. He played with the gold rings on his fingers.


    The smiles on everyones faces turned. The woman stepped down from her pole.


    ¡°Do you want a drink, Mr. Juarez?¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t drink.¡±


    ¡°They say never to trust a man who doesn¡¯t drink.¡± Mr. Juarez said.


    Two shot glasses of tequila were set in the center of the table. Apollo sighed and drank one. He closed his eyes but did not wince and when they reappeared, they seemed even more dire than before. More desperate, more dead (if that was possible).


    ¡°I just want to know if you can run my drugs and if so, who your best runners might be.¡±


    Johnny sipped.


    ¡°You need names of my dealers?¡±


    ¡°Our business is very particular and very cautious. That¡¯s why we¡¯ve been in business for so long.¡±


    ¡°Sinaloa, right?¡± Johnny asked. Apollo nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll have you know then that we deliver nearly a hundred kilos per week. That¡¯s very good considering our size. We do it at high profit margins too, the market here is small but the people who buy it seem to be desperate for the stuff. LSD, mostly.¡±


    Apollo¡¯s eyes glistened. A sheen came to them, almost brighter than the very neon lights. A mistake.


    ¡°Can I have some names of your dealers? I want to interview them, at least your big haulers. For the LSD.¡±


    ¡°I thought you already interviewed some of them? They gave me your recommendation after all,¡± Johnny said. Apollo felt the sweat come on. Here in this tiny glass room, he was getting hot. The handsome man, the calm and sophisticated and ruthless man was making him sweat.


    ¡°We¡¯d like to expand past cocaine and marijuana,¡±


    The room went quiet. Both women left. They exited the satin, being led down the stairs by a man. The guards stared directly into Apollo. He felt their glare. He felt everything, even the muffled music and the light itself. He felt every particle.


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m a fool?¡± Johnny asked.


    ¡°What?¡± His face went cold.


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m a fool.¡± Johnny said. The two guards reared their hands into their pants.


    ¡°I¡¯m not police, if that¡¯s what you think.¡±


    ¡°What are you then?¡± Johnny lifted one hand, a pistol flashed.


    ¡°Are you suspecting me?¡± Apollo said. ¡°I¡¯m not police. I promise.¡±


    ¡°I know you¡¯re not. Because I know every cop in this town, that¡¯s what scares me.¡± Johnny cocked his gun. ¡°Who are you?¡±


    A girl came in and set down a drink in front of Apollo. The tap of the glass, the music all melded into a single medley of white noise. A loud, conquering noise landscape that hit his skin and made him red. He was hot. Intensely. He felt the girl dancing behind him, and the small wafts of air come his way. He looked at Lovinski and his smile and took a sip, then gulp of the drink.


    "It''s a gift from me, even Jesus had a last dinner after all," The barrel pointed down Apollo''s head. The cross on the man''s v-shaped shirt bounced around like a taunt.


    ¡°It¡¯s good,¡± Apollo said.


    He looked up.


    "So how are we going to do this?" Johnny. Lovinski. Whatever-the-hell he was or is, said. "Want it quick to the head, or a couple of shot so your mother can have an open casket?"


    "My mother died a long time ago," Apollo said.


    He matched his breath with his heart and took a careful eye at the trigger finger on Johnny. He heard the click.


    He saw it press down.


    He grabbed the barrel and pointed it up, the bullet shot into the ceiling.


    Glass fell down on them.


    Standing, he punched the first bodyguard, the right man in the jaw. The bodyguards head slammed against the back of the wall, blood streaked where his body dragged down.


    Lovinski shot, he hit Apollo''s thighs. He smiled, pre-emptively. Apollo passed him, galloping off the table and towards the second body guard. He broke his face easier. Punching him, down with a hammer fist like a wild ape - and oh, the screaming of the women - and the screaming of Johnny as he unloaded a full clip into Apollo''s back, with shots so careless and wild that they ricochete''d more than struck. With shots, so bloodthirsty, that they left clouds of blood wherever they struck Apollo''s back.


    It looked like his spin was blossoming roses.


    It didn''t stop him though. The bodyguard laid on the floor, motionless. His face looked like the jigsaw puzzle of what a face should be, all scrambled and turned around.


    Apollo stood. Smoke came from his wounds, a healing factor that perhaps Johnny should have been informed about. A healing factor that removed every casing and bullet from his body, slowly pushing it out of open wounds and sealing the hole closed shut.


    Lovinski tried reloading. He got halfway, Apollo stripped him of the gun before.


    The women ran down, the Chameleon ran up with an uzi. Apollo threw the gun at him. The Chameleon fell unconscious.


    Apollo held Lovinski by the neck.


    "I can''t believe I lost," Apollo cringed. "I can''t believe I lost my fucking temper to you,"


    Shaking hands tried to grab Apollo''s grip.


    ¡°What are you?¡± Johnny whimpered.


    Apollo threw him onto the table.


    ¡°Give me a list of names of all your LSD dealers. Last name, first name. And tell me how much product each of these fuckers moves.¡±


    ¡°F-f-fuck you. I¡¯m not saying shit,¡± He muttered in a voice that flipped between low and high, broken pitch or eerily stiff pitch.


    "You''ve got big balls," Apollo smiled. "Let me see them for myself,"


    He dragged his hand down, down...where they shouldn''t have gone, to do something that was far beyond torture. And Apollo''s arm tensed. And Lovinski felt ill. He felt sickly, then pained. So, so pained.


    When Apollo revealed his hand, it was bloody.


    "Aahhh," Johnny muttered. Apollo grabbed his neck.


    "You''ll lose the other one unless I get that list, you understand that, right?"


    "Ahhh," Johnny screamed.


    ¡°A normal man would have confused your stubbornness for honor,¡± Apollo said. ¡°But I know it to be fear and confusion and pain.¡±


    The man huffed. He struggled through, sweating, with veins bulging on his face. The doctor was crying in her corner.


    "What else can I take from you?" His greedy hand wandered back down. ¡°Don¡¯t look.¡± Apollo told the whimpering doctor ¡°I want this to be a secret between him and I alone,"


    Lovinksi screamed. Pain found him. His legs shook, his body rattled and he was scratching at Apollo and trying to pry away from his iron grip.


    ¡°I''ve only squeezed it. You still have one chance to be a father. Start writing,¡± Apollo let go of his neck. He tried to find the pen and notebook in his pocket. Johnny scratched at him.


    So he squeezed a little harder.


    Just.


    "Ahhh!"


    A bit.


    "Let go!"


    Harder.


    "Please! Please I beg you!"


    He threw him away and used a napkin left on the floor instead.


    ¡°Pen. Pen. Pen¡± He was shouting. He looked around, everyone''s faces showed despair. Silent. Gasping, wide mouthed despair. ¡°I need a pen you idiots!¡± Apollo wasn¡¯t sure who he screamed at. Himself or the girls or the people below. The doctor came around, throwing it and rolling it on the floor.


    It didn''t take long for Johnny to write. He clenched his groin the whole time, but wrote. Wrote like it was the only thing he was good at, like it was his calling. A real poet.


    He pushed it towards Apollo.


    ¡°You know I''m going to fucking kill you, right?¡± Lovinski said. ¡°I''ll have you skewered. I''ll have your whole fucking family murdered, you hear me?¡±


    ¡°Is that what you think? Or what you hope?¡± Apollo approached and knelt over him. ¡°Live with this pain and this pain alone; you will never find me, you never knew me, you can never hope to even see me. Scream into the air, your impotent rage. It''s all you''ll ever be. Impotent.¡±


    He took his masculinity from him, then and there. One swift grip. It was so shocking, so cruel that Johnny couldn''t even scream. His eyes simply quievered and his mouth was agape.


    Apollo let go of him.


    ¡°I saved you the sin of having children. You should be grateful," Apollo said.


    ¡°I¡¯ll fucking kill you.¡± Was all the neutered man shouted between his crying moans. His face tightened in pain. One of the girls was calling an ambulance. Apollo looked around, there were no cameras and he felt calm at last.


    He left the glass penthouse.


    He hugged the dark walls and steered clear of the light and found the nearest window to drop from. His bones bent and cracked when he landed. He was finally out.


    Opening his cellphone, he noticed the blood at last. The bright red magnified by the light of the phone. He shook his head and searched for Dion''s name among the screens. He couldn''t help but be annoyed though, at the blood stuck in between his fingernails.


    He should have put his gloves on first.

 Chapter 18

    Dion


    July 16th, 2017


    1:47 AM


    The crowd of people around Dion jeered and laughed. They pumped their fists and drank from red cups and bottles that fell into lakes of broken glass. Dion watched a man come from this crowd, shirt removed. He was not thin nor strong, but very tall and very drunk. The man looked at him, tightened the sinews of his and pointed his fists before he tried to punch. He was pushed forward. Then he found stride. He ran. With all leverage on his arm, he aimed for Dion¡¯s face.


    Dion stepped to the side and kneed him. He dropped almost instantly. The crowd was silent for a moment, wondering. Most were disappointed. Some even booed. But the man stood again and held at his abdomen and breathed with a voracious appetite as all the contents of his lungs had been taken from him. He was not as forward anymore. He put his shoulder towards Dion, raised both hands to block punches that didn¡¯t come. And with cleverness (or what drunks think is clever), he slipped his hand into his pocket for a knife. He ran with it. Knife out.


    Dion kicked the drunk¡¯s leg. He limped.


    The drunk tried again.


    He got another kick. And everyone was beginning to sorry for the knife holder. But alcohol is a powerful agent, almost as good as courage. Maybe even better. Because the man felt neither the pain of his broken ankle nor the shame of everyone looking down at him.


    So what did he do? What all stupid people do, get louder and tougher and try harder when they know they¡¯re losing. So he huffed. He puffed. He leaped for Dion.


    Dion slapped him. It looked like one, but pushed his skin so far back and cracked his jaw so hard, that it might have been confused for a sledgehammer.


    This was a man that hunted demons for a living, with the strength of a superhero, who was commissioned to beat drunks in alleyways. Dion felt embarrassed.


    The drunk tried to stand with one hand. His lip burst open, blood flooded down his chin.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± Dion knelt down to him.


    It was like fuel to his violent heart. What he assumed to be Dion¡¯s patronization. Fuel. Shame. Anger. The blood from his lip kept pumping, he looked up to Dion. He could not leave it like this, even if he lost.


    He gripped his knife and pushed it up. Screaming. Hysterical, almost. The drunk¡¯s eyes, bloodshot and yellow hued. Dion felt the knife, felt his flesh and meat move-aside for the metal insert in his abdomen. They all stared. It was a scene so shocking that it seemed like an accident, that the drunk hadn¡¯t been involved at all. He was so mortified, in fact, that he ran away. On his knees and on the broken glass, he slunk into the crowd who now stared shocked and awed.


    ¡°I messed up,¡± Dion stood. ¡°Sorry for scaring all of you.¡± He hung his head low and walked through the crowd, the blade handle still in his stomach.


    ¡°I¡¯m a doctor, let me help.¡± A woman said and rushed to Dion. He would not give her his hand and nearly ran from her, would have run, had he not bumped into someone and stabbed the knife further into him. Blood was starting to leek and soaked his white shirt.


    ¡°Oh boy,¡± Dion said. The people stared neither jovial or excited. They just watched, like zoo tourists. He wanted to push them all. He felt palpitations.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°You need a hospital man,¡± Someone said.


    ¡°No, it really doesn¡¯t hurt.¡± He lifted the knife out. People put their hands over their mouths as the blood flooded out. Dion smiled, it was supposed to be reassuring but as he looked around, understood how it might have been confused for insanity.


    Whatever. They were shocked enough to make way for him as he walked past the group. The track of blood behind him.


    He was heading in the direction of the reason that this all happened in the first place.


    How did this happen?


    For a woman, of course. A brunette. Cute, too.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    He stopped in front of her, she was midway a small tunnel that connected the alley to the club.


    ¡°Thank you.¡± The young woman said from within. ¡°Thank you so much.¡±


    Her brother or¡­ whatever he was, was sitting with bruises in his face.


    Yeah. It wasn¡¯t Dion who started the fight, it was just him who finished it. It was over something stupid, too. You see, the brother (please, let it be just a brother) had picked up the wrong drink, had gotten hot headed over being accused of stealing a drink and decided to pick up the wrong fight. After all, how long does it take for men to find a stupid reason to kill each other?


    And it was within that crowd, that Dion had stepped forward to defend the man who was getting bullied. So that¡¯s where he was now, that¡¯s how this all happened. That¡¯s why he had a wound in his stomach.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t have to do that.¡± She said, her eyes focused on his bloody stomach. ¡°Jesus Christ,¡±


    ¡°I did have to do it,¡± Dion wiped blood off his face. ¡°I don¡¯t like bullies,¡±


    ¡°Let me see.¡± The brunette touched his abdomen. It was wet. ¡°There¡¯s no cut, though,¡±


    She looked up confused.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright, see?¡± Dion said.


    ¡°What?¡± She looked back and stepped over her unconscious brothers( brother, right?) shoes.


    ¡°Is he fine?¡±


    ¡°My fianc¨¦?¡± She said. ¡°Oh, yeah,¡±


    Oh? Her fianc¨¦. Oh. His smiled died a little.


    ¡°Let me pay for your hospital bill at least.¡± She said.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, I swear. There¡¯s no injury,¡± He strained his face to be neutral, to not be anything but disappointed. But in his guts and his pockets he could feel it, the knotting feeling of frustration. He thought - about this brunette of whom he did not even know the name - that he no right to believe he was deserving of anything. And he thought, shamefully, that he had no right to think defending her (¡­and her fianc¨¦) should demand worship. His face lowered from the shame, disappointment, frustration. Most of it self imposed, like self-flagellation. But more she kept pulling at his arm and thanking him. And more he felt terrible, head drooping. He was lost and felt the urge to run away. Run away, far.


    She was the first girl since being out (of the Vatican, that prison)and he couldn¡¯t help but feel a little¡­infatuated. He was aware of it. Of course! But¡­he wanted to say something at least. Even if it was a lost cause. He should at least be forward, say something¡­nice.


    Like¡­you¡¯re welcome, cutie. Or. Or! ¡®I just don¡¯t help any beautiful girl, you know.¡¯


    He closed his eyes. The knots in his stomach tightened.


    She¡¯s getting married.


    He had to remind himself. But between the feelings and the high, he felt compelled at least to say something small. Just¡­some cool sounding thing.


    I want to run away, so badly.


    How could he though? Even the drunk had put up a fight.


    Dion opened his mouth.


    ¡°I just want to say-¡±


    ¡°What the fuck is this?¡± A familiar voice said.


    Dion heard from it from a distance. He saw Apollo and the cell phone on his ears, and he saw him coming up to him with his angry, full stride, and Dion felt relief. He was salvaged. Like a shipwrecked straggler crashing against the shoreline, with all the mirth and shackles of seaweed behind him.


    ¡°What the fuck did you do?¡± Apollo asked. Dion sighed. He felt the air clear up.


    ¡°These guys were picking on her fianc¨¦. I stopped them.¡± He said. The woman looked at the two.


    ¡°Do you want a prize for beating up drunk people? Next, you¡¯ll tell me is that you¡¯re top honors in the special class,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I¡¯ve been calling you for twenty fucking minutes. Do you understand? Twenty minutes.¡±


    ¡°I was inside most of the time, why didn¡¯t you just look around? I was by the bar.¡± He said.


    ¡°That¡¯s the point. We can¡¯t stay here. Got it? Next time, answer my phone.¡± He said.


    ¡°You should answer your phone,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get smart with me, asshole,¡±


    ¡°No, he means, your phone is ringing.¡± The woman interrupted. Apollo shot a glare at her and felt his pocket. He looked at the screen and grunted like a savage caveman, lost to time, lost to place. His brows scrunched on his nose bridge, and he pouted as he answered. And all the while, the shadows collected on Apollo''s face as desperate words spoke through the phone. There was trouble.


    But Dion didn¡¯t care. Neither did the woman. Apollo walked away for a bit.


    The woman tugged at Dion.


    ¡°If he hadn¡¯t started the fight,¡± She looked the broken man on the floor. ¡°If he just relaxed after the first few drinks, you wouldn¡¯t have gotten hurt. I just can¡¯t let this go, I know you¡¯re not fine.¡±


    ¡°No, no, I swear. Promise,¡± He smiled. It was crooked. He felt nervous that it was crooked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t like being talked down to. This isn¡¯t a joke. I feel guilty, and I want to help you however I can.¡± She began working her purse.


    ¡°Believe me, lady. I¡¯m fine.¡±


    It didn¡¯t stop her hands. She got a pen and wrote something down on a slip.


    ¡°If you need some money. Maybe a place to stay, any help, give me a call. I don¡¯t like owing people debts, I don¡¯t like owing anyone anything.¡± She handed the paper to him.


    It felt like a trophy, though it was just a slip. He wanted to shout. All feelings escaped him, his limbs went numb.


    It felt like fighting against his body, fighting his grin back, fighting his legs from jumping. He shook his head and looked back down at the fianc¨¦. It reminded him to kill his smile. Dion coughed.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll work something out,¡± He said. That was cool, right? Or creepy? He felt sweaty again.


    ¡°Right,¡± She smiled at him.


    It must have been good enough for the moment at least. For them to stare at each other for a moment. To be suspended in time and, almost frozen in the joy of the atmosphere.


    She leaned in to shake his hand. But they felt it, the brooding face of Apollo. Felt it like a fucking sledgehammer slamming down the top of their heads.


    ¡°We¡¯re leaving. Right, the fuck now.¡± Apollo said. Sirens passed them, the red and blue flashed within the alley. They zoomed by, the noise morphed like the wailing cry of a ghost.


    ¡°Really? Now?¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Apollo stepped into his private space, inches away from his face. ¡°Right now.¡±


    He did not even protest. They both started walking off, Dion turned for a moment.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Ophelia.¡± She said. Ophelia, he repeated, every vowel of the word feeding the fire in his chest. Ophelia.

 Chapter 19

    Vicars


    July 16th, 2017


    2:02 AM


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to do that back there.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter now, none of it does,¡± Apollo said. Staring down below was intimidating for Apollo, with the hot fumes of an exhaust pipe blowing up at him and the skin underneath his mask collecting sweat.


    It was caught, the wetness of his sweat. On his collar, on his brow, on his wrists. It was if it had just rained. But really, it wasn''t the heat that made him this way, what made him nervous was down below, it was the red-colored comet zooming across the street. As if it had just been plucked the overcast sky. It was a car with one tire missing, driving on rims and skittering and sparking and wobbling down the street. It was the monster behind the vehicle. The demon, with the fur that covered most of its bodies and the dozen legs it crawled and jumped off, and the tongue that shot out like a pike or reeling line. A rapier. That''s it was. A rapier blade.


    The car hiccuped.


    It went over a small bump, then swerved. It followed the contours of an uneven road until it finally crashed through chain link fence. The metal dragged atop the front of the car. It made a long, sc-sc-sc-scraping noise. Apollo cringed.


    The car. The fence. The monster all fell into a culvert, so fast, that all they could see was the silky-fur and the red sparks.


    "It doesn''t look particularly smart, probably minion-class. A servant, perhaps," Apollo said. Though he wasn''t half as confident as his words. He was terrified, he could feel it like a cold scraping hand going down his backside. That was part of the reason he kneeled at the edge of the safe balcony.


    His whole body refused to move. Maybe he wouldn''t have until he felt the rough hand. Until Dion tapped him forward.


    ¡°What are you waiting for?¡± He said. Apollo looked out to the screeching car. Dion was putting his mask on. Both wore the ivory on their face, rough and dull and shaped to the contours of their faces. It shielded his red eyes from the wind, and it kept them anonymous. That''s all. They jumped off the brick and concrete pillars that held the freeways above, they ripped through fences. The metal dangled from their hands and feet then fell off with each new gallop through the air.


    Now standing on the floor, in the culvert and looking down, he spotted the car. It wasn''t hard to miss. It was screeching, both the vehicle and the demon. They were heading into a sewage hole too small for a car. Apollo reached into his coat, he felt his hands dig - quite literally - inside his jacket.


    "Get ready," He rested his giant blade on his shoulders.


    Then he ran.


    The wind currents grazed him, he felt the whistle of the air as he zoomed by and gained speed, then as his posture lowered and he was low and lean, he stopped feeling the molasses-like drag. With the reflection of light posts against him, and his sword glistening and reflective, he almost looked like a half crescent moon running by. A failed abortion of the celestial bodies, half a shadow, and half blinding light.


    Above, he heard Dion. For Dion was moving, jumping rooftop to rooftop with his guns and shoulders in front of him. Apollo nodded to him, Dion nodded back.


    They looked like dogs, acted and hunted like them, heads forward, weapons forward as if in a four-legged sprint. Dion fell, finally. He landed and slid down one side of the culvert. His mouth open. He felt his tongue dance, and he shot mid-slide.


    The demon felt one of its legs go.


    The limb passed Apollo, the drizzle of blood sprayed against his mask. But it didn''t stop the speed of the monster, it had eleven more legs to support itself.


    Dion shot again. The noise crippled Apollo''s ears for a moment, he was right next to the shot.


    The car honked.


    The creature shot back.


    For the monster, although not stupid, was at least battle inclined.


    The demon shot its tongue into the ground, like the mighty Excalibur being sheathed. It vaulted. Turned around, faced them. It retracted its tongue with such strength, such blinding speed, that the rocks holding it had shot out forward. As if an anchor sweeping the ocean floor, uncaring of all the harassed fauna or creatures.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Apollo put his arms in front of his faces and lost sight for a moment. The rocks struck him, some impaled his abdomen. They bruised and hurt more than bled. When he let down his arms to see again, he frowned.


    It had gained on the car. So they gained on the creature.


    It was like watching three dogs chase after the shiny object.


    ¡°Don¡¯t fucking miss,¡± Apollo ran ahead.


    ¡°I¡¯ll try not to.¡± Dion paused, his knelt and steadied his gun. He shot again. The air of the bullet pushed Apollo¡¯s hair. And he missed and missed and missed. Or rather, the creature dodged and dodged and dodged. And Dion spat.


    Battle inclined. Apollo spat.


    "What''d I say?" He screamed behind him.


    "I''m trying," Dion struggled to reload as he started running again. He hid behind Apollo. Then, after a while, passed him. Apollo knew that naivety, he saw it before. Dion was pissed.


    "Hold on," He screamed.


    But rage was in Dion''s hands and his legs as he raced forward. Apollo tried to catch up. His sword was massive though.


    The wind snapped and broke at his ears as he was approaching the pace of the car with those inhuman muscles.


    Forty, forty-five, fifty, sixty miles per hour.


    Dion shot twice. Too wild though. Too unrestrained. The floor looked molten where his bullets missed and ricocheted. They struck a building off the side and took off chunks of its cornices. The casings shed off. He was getting closer. Apollo''s heart pounded. He forgot to breathe. His red eyes were stuck in that glazed fear.


    The monster turned around.


    "Wait, Dion. Wait!" Apollo reached out a hand.


    Dion pulled the trigger. Click.


    Click.


    Click, click, click, click.


    Out of ammo.


    The monster looked at him, Dion. Dion fumbled his hand in his pocket. The barrel withdrawn, the smoke rose. Red hot, steaming.


    Dion''s eyes opened wide. The monster was opening his mouth. His tongue was protruding, aiming.


    It looked like a vortex, a blender, a black hole; the black hole where all hope goes down.


    The blade-tongue shot out. Apollo shot out.


    His shoulder pushed Dion aside. He held his giant steel sword in front of the tongue. It didn''t matter. The tongue cut through the sword, chipping the steel off. The reflective metal, now blinding white in the air, fell behind Apollo. It sat in a mess of metal shavings, a small pool of a thousand brilliant flaws like the water surface of a lake.


    The tongue went through the blade. Apollo leaned his head back. The last thing he remembered was red waves in the air.


    Dion, however, saw it clearly.


    The blood on the floor, the broken mask on Apollo.


    His body was still on the floor. The monster started for the car again.


    ¡°Hey, come on,¡± Dion shouted.


    Apollo was still. His body looked stuck into paralyzed deadlock, crooked on the floor. He walked up to him, more afraid than sad really.


    He heard a breath. He knew it wasn''t his because he had forgotten to breathe this whole time.


    Apollo breathed. Then Dion breathed.


    He raised one hand, then put it against his face. He covered his mouth or what was left of it, trying to hold what ever was spilling out; teeth, blood, pale-bone.


    ¡°My hucking hace.¡± Apollo cried. He had no bottom lip to say f. He let go of his blade, his other hand worked to removed pieces of the white mask embedded in his face. They looked like small gems. Blood diamonds, literally.


    ¡°Let me help,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Ho,¡± Apollo waved Dion away. "Ho!"


    Apollo curled into a ball, he grabbed his face tight. Then he rolled around as if that could cure pain.


    ¡°Alright,¡± Dion said. Looking forward wasn''t a better sight though.


    A loud crash. Hot streaks. Gasoline. The smell of ruin was intense, of rubber and fire. He was thankful for having a mask that covered the smell, most of it at least. He could still taste it though. The bitterness. Dion looked back, Apollo was still rolling. Then he ran straight towards the explosion. The demon was on the roof of the ruined car, aiming down. He would have gotten his target. Would have, but a bullet grazed him. The demon jumped into the air, it was like hearing the crack of a whip. It latched onto the graffiti-laden walls. The sewer was right beneath it.


    Dion looked at the monster, his blood was hot. He shouted at it, a guttural scream, he knew not why he did it.


    It was instinct. Just like the demon.


    And the demon shouted back, high-pitched, a screech that broke glass. The air shook at the monsters shout like an after blast shock of a missile, a loud horror in the night, the stuff myths were made of. The devilish choir bells, here to alert everyone to the congregation of chaos. The fire around them rose, licking the air like Satan''s tongue. The rancid sewage emanated from the dark hole underneath the creature. And next to them, the crying whine of a woman.


    It was primeval, the whole scene. A mini-Armageddon.


    The demon spat. It ran. It raged. The rustling of its furry face thrilled Dion as if a taunt. It looked like a chimera, half-reptile, half-lion. It wore the crown of a lion, at least. Yet it had no pride. It shot its tongue into the floor, used the rubble as a smoke screen. When it cleared, the demon was gone.


    It disappeared into the hole.


    Dion looked back to the crashed car, to the woman. It was like before, with the men, with a heart that could not decide. Or he thought at least, that it would be a hard choice. He thought his mind could argue better. But his adrenaline was too much, the thought of failure was too much, the thought of killing the monster was too much.


    After all, he almost killed Apollo.


    He looked to the car. All he could see was blood on the windshield or what was left of it. The woman had stopped crying. A wheel rolled away, tapped along the surface like a drum line, and fell flat.


    She''s probably dead.


    He reloaded his guns.


    And this thing killed her.


    His face tightened and lowered.


    Dion prayed for her.


    "I need to go." He said. But his voice sounded nothing like horrified. His voice sounded...excited. Like a child reasoning for play, for his toys, for his fun. Dion smiled. He was glad he was wearing a mask. He walked into the hole, dipped his feet into sewage and walked, walked until he couldn''t even see the outline of his body from within the darkness.

 Chapter 20

    Dion


    July 16th, 2017


    2:17 AM


    The walls of rusted metal expanded to seeming eternity into the small tunnels. Dion could feel the shit and piss up his leg and his feet that tried desperately to stay stable as he swam through the murk. His feet felt like a sponge. The ceilings dripped with gunk and filth with a smell almost as hostile as the creature. He covered his mouth and pinched his nose. Rancid, putrid, a scent so pungent in death it was almost beginning to smell sweet.


    He brought in his shoulders, the walls were getting smaller.


    It was in this dripping darkness that he had stopped thinking. All that drove him was a compass of seeming anger; a forward stubbornness leading him, the beating heart that paced him and the tingling trigger finger waiting for trouble. He was close. The string on his arm proved it. He came to a crossroad, he looked at all six directions and the small lights that came down at intervals from curb gutters. He could hear clacking, car hums, the deep moans of the city night. They came like small whispers through the holes, and he made sure to steer clear of the light. He lifted his arm and chose the third tunnel, it seemed arbitrary though.


    Is this it?


    A bag floated past him, a dirty Coke bottle cracked underneath his feet. He turned!


    Nothing. Just cardboard, hanging from a metal grate and fluttering.


    He looked down and began to see the murky water-floor. His eyes fell into the trance of his image, and his muscles relaxed as his shoulders slumped. His heart relaxed, his eyes eased to a more gentle red. Each breath after the other was easier on his lungs and throat that had tightened and dried out.


    Calm almost killed him.


    But the air behind him flexed. It cracked, like a whip. He felt air shift, his neck hairs rose.


    He rolled forward. The blade went past him and up the wall. It scraped along and broke pipes that spilled water across his face and made his vision blurry. The water filtering the creature into a smudge behind it.


    Sprinkles landed on his forehead, soothing. And steam came off the side of Dion¡¯s face where he had gotten cut and where he was beginning to heal.


    ¡°I was looking for you,¡± Dion said in seeming excitement. He wiped the remaining blood from his face.


    The demon took a step back, devoured by darkness. All Dion could tell was the snarl, the scratching walk like a dragging executioners chair.


    He cocked his gun. The creature ran. Under him. It aimed to trip Dion. It would have, had he not jumped. Bad move.


    Dion almost cursed. His eyes widened. The monster aimed his mouth up, the tongue shot out. Dion caught a broken metal pipe and using it, leveraged his body out of the way of the tongue. A piece of cloth from his pants drifted in the air. He sighed.


    Letting go of the pipe shifted it, the water sprayed above both of them now, like an emergency sprinkler. He touched the ground. Whatever was on his face he wiped away; blood, sweat, piss.


    It seemed a careful creature because it had given Dion all the time to pick up his dropped weapons, to observe cautiously.


    [i]That¡¯s a mistake, buddy.


    Dion moved his body to a steady rhythm, jumping off the balls of his feet. He tried shooting, pretending at least. The monster did not react to the feint.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    So he tried again. Nothing.


    On the third, he actually pulled the trigger.


    He shot. And a bullet in this narrow of the space must have been like a canon going through a pipeline; inescapable to dodge. Should have been, at least. But the creature scaled the walls and made its body flat. The bullet zoomed past. Black hairs shaved off, some were burned. He could see its shape then. He could count a dozen legs and the stump he had made one of them into. It still dripped blood. But that was nice, the smell of blood. It beat the scent of the septic canal, at least.


    They walked in circles around each other. The light segmented them into slide shows of anger and rage, a new face, a new growl with each passing shadow of the bars. Dion counted the space between them. A few meters.


    He winced and looked down for a moment, he didn¡¯t realize he was cut. And just before he could see it heal, he raised his head. The creature was gone.


    His eyes danced around the room. He circled once. Twice. Three times.


    A shadow.


    He shot. His wrist snapped. The tunnel filled with the noise of his frustration, the ricochet of blue bullets, the smoke that rose up and his muted scream that had died underneath the buzz of his deaf ears. The cloud of smoke rose. It rose and cleared and from the mist, the mouth. The jagged teeth.


    He groaned and felt the teeth dig into his shoulders. They clenched down.


    ¡°Get off me!¡±


    They clamped and once in position, the rows of teeth spun and eviscerated his flesh. And the monster dragged him down, and he felt his flesh being cut and blended and pulled by the weight of the creature. He felt like a gazelle in the grip of the lion, being held by the lion¡¯s maw.


    The blood fell down his shirt. His shoulder and chest muscles spasmed. A bone (or two) snapped.


    And Dion began to laugh.


    That¡¯s all that went down the holes and the pipes, the laughter and the drop of his pistol into the murk. As if in ecstasy from the pain, like an embrace from a lover. A hug.


    His arm came around. He tightened it around the demon. The stupid thing didn¡¯t even notice, not until its own spine began to snap and bend. And by then, by the time it had gained the agency to think about getting away. It was too late. All twelve legs could not pry Dion¡¯s good hand.


    He heard a pop. The wide mouth opened up like a flood gate. Out came the scream of the demon. His chest felt lighter and he eased his grip to almost let it fall. Almost. Dion caught the demon midway, a good grip by its frizzled hair. He grabbed the demon and slammed it against the metal walls. The concrete wall left a hole where the demon was slammed onto. Then Dion dropped it, he felt tired. The monster tried to crawl away. Dion got one of its feet just in time. He slammed it against the pipes now. The floor. Every inch of the small enclosure took a beating, as Dion bashed the demon with tasteless brutishness. Screaming, laughing as he did so.


    He exhaled at last and let go.


    The monster laid on the floor. He stood, breathing heavily as the wound on his shoulder exhumed smoke from the healing factory.


    The demon was drooling, black blood.


    Dion slumped over. The demon turned on its belly. Its teeth, broken. Its face, bloody. It roared a broken cry and exposed its sharp tongue.


    A final retaliation, it shot out. Dion, tired, thigh injured, only half dodged. He stuck out one palm. The tongue-blade went through it. [i]Keep going, keep trying through his cheek, [i]What''s left in you? and through the ceiling. [i]That''s it. I love your spirit. The smoke of rubble fell down. More water sprinkled on them.


    ¡°Tenacious. I respect that. But would you even accept my respect? Could you even think of it?¡± He heckled. As the tongue retracted, Dion put his foot down on it to hold it in place, like a rope. With his hand, the punctured one, he closed it and yanked the creature towards him.


    The demon came to him. And he got a barrel inside its mouth when it reached Dion, at last.


    Dion¡¯s stomach fluttered - a sick pleasure - as he looked down to the black-pits-for-eyes that were on the demons face and the fear they expressed, and the shivering snout it wore and the broken mouth that tried to cry out. A demon crying, laughable. It made Dion happy. So happy. Too happy.


    He didn''t want to shoot it.


    It was a disgusting thing to admit, and to be conscious of, he¡¯d know that later. But he put the gun down and went at the demon with his hands. And he did things to it only butchers would, or surgeons, or other trained gutters.


    His stomach fluttered all throughout, his arms shook with joy which he confused for revenge.


    He didn¡¯t really remember much of what he did, but he''d remember the feeling.


    He remembered the body though. The guts on the floor. The philosopher''s heart he had surgically removed, and now put in his pocket.


    ¡°Oh, my god.¡± He didn¡¯t say those three words. A woman did. A drunk, staring from gutters that looked down below to the sewer level. Dion didn¡¯t know what she saw, only that she gasped, only that his eyes were burning red like two ruby¡¯s in the night.


    Dion was eating. There was flesh still on the philosophers stone, he didn¡¯t mind. He ate. And the drunk woman above the metal grates cried. She slipped off her heel and left it there. Then she ran, screaming:


    ¡°Police! Police!¡±


    He sighed, put the other half of the demon¡¯s heart in his pocket. He put his mask down and stretched his neck.


    He almost forgot why he was there.


    [i]I need to get back to Apollo.

 Chapter 21

    Apollo


    July 16th, 2017


    2:35 AM


    ¡°I alibe.¡± Apollo gargled blood. His tongue had just begun to reform. ¡°I¡¯m alive.¡±


    The jaw was the second to last thing that regenerated for him. And with it came a feeling of balance finally. His legs shook as he stood. His arms could not straighten out and held his chest. He fell, his body limped on the ground before he tried again. He was bleeding everywhere, atop the dandelions that grew in the cracks of the culvert, atop the small stream of gutter water at the center. He bled on top of the fragments of his mask.


    ¡°No evidence.¡± He mumbled. He leaned on his sword as he stood. When he finally felt comfortable, he put it inside his coat and waited in an almost prostrated position. He shook and slapped his head like an old man to a broken television set. It didn¡¯t help him heal, that was for certain. It never did. Vision came. Finally. He looked down and picked up what remained of his mask as if they breadcrumbs and him a bird. And he put what remained of his mask in his coat. Looking above, he could see the guiding star. And beyond it, choppers. Their searchlights were coming down like some angelic arbiter.


    ¡°No evidence.¡± He said with that nasal voice. He had no nose, not yet, that was still taking time.


    He hid underneath a large stretch of unfinished freeway above him. It was a ramp, barely being built and after today, it was a construction to be delayed. He spat and grit his teeth and picked out the mask lodged in between his toothless gums. They were like toothpicks. If he had the tear ducks to cry, he would have.


    At least there were some conveniences to getting your face blown off.


    ¡°Cover every track, leave nothing to these bastards,¡± He ran across the stretch of land leading to the flaming car and gutter. Along the way, he picked up every bullet he could. His blood would disintegrate, all he needed to hide was the solid stuff. The guts and the bullet casings and the teeth and the bone. Like a child picking flowers in the forest, red and white and golden copper, all bountiful in his tender hands.


    He came to the wreckage and the car that had crashed into and up the wall, only to stop midway, lopsided against the wall with the top portion ruined into a scrunch. He dropped the evidence into his coat and listened with his half-grown ears. He swore he could hear breathing, though his half-blown off head filled him with false sounds or made those real, distorted. But he was sure - sure! That this was a person, sure that it was no schizophrenia.


    He leaned in, and the soft noise of coughing lungs responded back. He walked closer to the car, put a hand on the trunk and jumped when it burst open, fire ejected out. There was nothing inside. The smog burned his face, and he leaned away. The car was just so wrecked that it seemed to explode and combust on its own. The wheel rims remaining on it ejected out like explosive bottle caps. The glass shattered with bursts of fire. And he the woman. Somewhere in the cluster of metal, he heard her.


    He also heard the choppers.


    The heavy blades that cut through the air, the light that was far off yet closing in. The helicopter lights that followed the wreckage from its origin, the chain link fence, going down the trail of carnage towards Apollo.


    ¡°I need to go.¡± He said. ¡°I can¡¯t get caught.¡±


    He turned his legs to move and heard her breathe again. Softer now, more desperate like she was drowning. He heard the loud sirens of the police too. And wondered why they even bothered if the whole point was to catch people, why make any sound. That seemed counter-intuitive. But who was this hunter of demons to complain about other hunters? He had lost. Was beaten.


    He looked like a ghoul and felt like an idiot.


    ¡°You¡¯re not worth it.¡± He told himself. The backseat began to ignite into flames. He wished he had no nerves to feel the heat. He turned his legs to run, but could not compel himself. The woman coughed again.


    ¡°I really did get fucked up in the head, didn¡¯t I?¡± He said. Though he wasn¡¯t, he was very clear and very honest. He looked at the giant cloud of smoke and threw himself in, searching in the smog, for a door handle. He found one. It would not open. The woman was coughing behind what he assumed (for the smoke was thick and he could barely see) was the broken door. He punched it. He removed the door and threw it like a frisbee, away from him. Then he deflated the airbags, ripping them out. They wheezed as they fell and the woman appeared behind them.


    Apollo fanned the smog with his hands.


    ¡°Come on,¡± He said. The girl looked up at him, she almost looked as bad as him, and when her eyes opened to the light of the engine fire reflected from his fleshless face, she cried. It wasn¡¯t loud. She could barely breathe.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Zombie.¡± She choked the words out. She tried to push him away, her arms were trapped behind the dashboard. Thankfully.


    Apollo punched the dashboard, got a grip of wires, and removed the whole thing radio and all out the way. And it seemed the more he helped her with his inhuman appearance and his inhuman face, the more frightened she became. She slapped him. Over and over and over. Had it not been for the lack of oxygen, she might have fought him at the spot.


    ¡°Keep slapping me bitch, and I¡¯ll leave you here.¡± He parried a slap, then brought his hands under her. He ripped the seat, her on it, seatbelt and all and carried her out the fire and smog. She winced, crying all the way.


    ¡°Stop bitching, you¡¯re fine-¡± He stopped, midway. In the fire lit aura of the car, he saw her figure. What was left of it, at least. Her legs were mutilated, bent and broken like some poor balloon-shaping parlor trick. It was a terrible joke.


    ¡°How are you alive?¡± His voice sounded normal, his nose must have come back.


    ¡°What-!¡± Between seeing him regrow a limb and finally coming to terms with her legs, words were the last thing she thought of. Her head just looked up and down.


    He too was at a loss for words. He bit his lips, they were still sensitive and pink. He offered a hand to her, as she held her broken legs and cried.


    Then he heard a gun cock.


    ¡°Shit,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I know it might not seem this way right now, but it¡¯ll be alright,¡±


    That was all he could offer the crying woman. Behind him, he could feel the glare of a freshly formed up firing line. And him, the idiot perpetrator.


    He reached down and ripped a sleeve from her shirt. He wrapped the beige cotton over his face.


    ¡°Freeze.¡± He heard an officer say. They opened their car doors with extreme caution, their bodies carefully boxed in behind cover. Their guns pointed from the hood tops, and the windows of the black Chargers surrounding him.


    "Want some advice, lady?¡± He had that guttural sound to his voice, that natural bitterness that came from a man who just had his face blown off. ¡°Next time you should fucking use those car brakes."


    She wasn¡¯t listening, simply mumbling, holding her legs, crying ¡®They¡¯re dead, they¡¯re dead.¡¯


    ¡°Right¡­¡± Apollo said. Turning around, he saw the army of gun barrels looking at them.


    "All units to 4622 Edmond St., near the freeway. Yes. Yes, the half-finished ramp,"


    He looked up, towards the warehouse buildings to the side and the columns adjacent to them.


    [i]Can I make the jump?


    ¡°Freeze, or I¡¯ll blow your fucking brains out.¡±


    [i]You¡¯re a little too late for that.


    ¡°No one has to die today.¡±


    [i]Is that why you got two dozen guns looking down at me?


    ¡°Put your hands up. You¡¯re surrounded.¡±


    [i]Like it matters.


    They sang their warnings like a choir of fear. Apollo grimaced, with what little face he had to frown. The officers steadied their arms. He heard ten simultaneous clanks of safety-off, trigger happy, cocked guns.


    ¡°Go fuck yourselves,¡± Apollo whispered. He ran. Up the side of the culvert, he felt the bullets hit his shoulder, and he kept his head low. He felt his knees shot. He jumped with the single good one he had left. He stabbed his arm through the column. He put his single leg to the concrete, then kicked off it. A barrage of bullets struck the spot he was just on. He slid down a wall, then worked his hands up, up the storage house. The bullets came flying, striking the windows and the metal and something grazing him. A pistol struck his ribs. Then more bullets struck him, small caliber rounds. And for being small, the hurt they did was pretty big. It was the deadliest episode of acupuncture of his life, and he was still climbing. Bleeding, dragging his bloody body up to the roof. But he stood, somehow, at the top. He turned, just to growl.


    The light came on him. He ran, jumped building to building with the choppers struggling to catch up to him. He put a hand on the bullet hole in his leg, he shouted and put his other hand against the blinding light.


    ¡°Fuck off.¡± He mumbled.


    He grabbed a brick and threw it at the chopper window. One of them, at least. It swerved.


    ¡°Fuck off!¡± He shouted.


    He led them. A few gallops, a few miles away, he led them. And exhaled a sigh of relief once again, as the Colonel Weiner sign flashed neon across from him. Perfect. The smokestacks of this little industrial corner were just enough, and the signs were just large enough for him to slip through and hide. He walked through the trails and puffs, he walked over to the giant E of the Colonel Weiner sign. With what little strength remained, he put his hands underneath the sign and pushed with his legs until the E portion of the sign separated. The metal screeched, the wiring sparked, like veins to a removed organ. They squirted sparks everywhere.


    ¡°You should have left me alone.¡± He said. They could not listen, if they did, they would have avoided it. Apollo spun and launched the metal piece of the sign at one of the helicopters. It hit the glass and shattered it. One of the choppers had to make an emergency landing. The other (there were only two here) persisted. It would not stop. He grabbed and L this time, L¡¯s were sharper. This one he aimed for the light, and he closed one eye to aim. He kicked this one, with his good leg. And he watched the L swerve in the air, spinning, and decapitating the light off the helicopter bottom like Medusa''s head. There was no lights, period now. Not from the sign or from the helicopters.


    The sign read ¡°Colon Weiner.¡± It would have been funny if anyone could see it.


    They floated above, instead. And when support came, it was too late.


    He went nowhere far, really, and the police hadn''t expected that. He hadn¡¯t gone anywhere at all. He was resting, laying atop a bed of plastic bags and half eaten food. He had fallen into a dumpster somewhere in between a jump, an accident really, and had decided just not to move. And when the noise of the chopper was too loud, he pulled down on the dumpster door and rested his eyes. They were shouting above and ran off, chasing after a man they rated too highly.


    Because Apollo was tired. He couldn¡¯t run anymore if he wanted to. He just hid in a dumpster.


    They never found him. No one did. Not till morning came and some pimple-faced employee came to throw the trash, and he shouted when he saw Apollo. Until then, he slept. Soundly.


    It had been a long time since he slept that well.

 Chapter 22

    Apollo


    July 16th, 2017


    8:55 AM


    Apollo came to the front door and knocked four times before he realized no one was there. He sighed and fixed the mask the covered his mouth and nose. He knew he still looked like a terror, there was unfinished work on his face. He put his foot on the door, breaking it wouldn¡¯t have mattered. But seeing an old lady to his rear, in the hallway staring at a masked man breaking into a house, he suddenly got the urge not to become a suspect in a crime.


    He waved at her.


    The doorknob turned. He immediately pushed the door open and went inside. It smelled like a dung heap, and looking around, he wondered what it was. The smell collected on one individual, Dion who stood next to the door.


    ¡°I forgot my key,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°You look terrible,¡± Dion said. ¡°I thought you said part of being a Vicar was not standing out?¡±


    Apollo lifted his coat and showed him the bullet holes across his abdomen, where the blood had dried and where the scars protruded. The lead was still inside of him and moving around, sitting down, all actions seemed to push the bullets in his abdomen. They rubbed his ribcage, Apollo flinched.


    ¡°As you can see. I¡¯m really fucking hurt. Please tell me you killed it and that you¡¯ve got the stone.¡± Apollo said. Dion lifted the red rock from his coat, he threw it, and Apollo ground it up in his hand. He lifted his mask. Dion grimaced at looking at his face, he didn¡¯t blame him though


    ¡°You got hurt because of me,¡± Dion said. ¡°But I didn¡¯t ask you to help me either,¡±


    He was surprised the words had come out, something moved him to say it, like a second soul inside of him.


    ¡°If I didn¡¯t you would have gotten your head cut off.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t apologize for what happened to you. You should have just acted like you always do, alone, calm. Collected. You had no right.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°I had no right to save you? Do you think I care about you?¡± Apollo shoveled the powder into his mouth. It tasted like candy, coating his tongue and fizzing, melting into him. ¡°You¡¯re church property. I was just protecting an investment. I understood the risk, and I thought that me getting injured was a better alternative to you getting your head cut off.¡±


    ¡°Well don¡¯t evaluate anything next time. You¡¯re not my mother. So stop with your patronizing.¡±


    ¡°Did I hurt your pride? Let me kiss your booboo, sweetheart.¡± Apollo said. His voice was high, and it made Dion reach over, with anger in his fists, to remind him that he too was a man. He was about to swing before the door opened.


    ¡°Another one.¡± Apollo rolled his eyes.


    It was the Priest. He stormed in, leaned back into a chair and kicked his shoes off.


    Apollo sighed. He put two fingers between his nose bridge and snapped it back into place. He sniffed twice, he heard a whistle.


    ¡°It never heals right,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Did you think I wouldn¡¯t read the new?.¡± The Priest shouted. He held the paper in his hand and waved it like a town crier. Here ye, here ye. Dion tried grabbing it, but his hands were too slow, and the Priest slid the paper down the table to Apollo. He grabbed it and looked it over.


    ¡°They almost got a picture of my pretty face.¡± Apollo unfolded it. He felt the skin on his arms rejuvenate, the purple bruises receding to his even tone of brown. The philosophers stone was working.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°You destroyed a helicopter. You destroyed a couple thousand dollars in property damage. Roads will need to be rebuilt, fences will need to be re-stood.¡± The Priest nearly spat at every word. His dog face was drooping, and his eyes would not blink. ¡°It¡¯s anarchy out there, and you¡¯re adding to it.¡±


    ¡°A couple thousand seems like a better number than last time,¡± Dion said. His head was low in reverence to the rabid holy man.


    Apollo touched his stomach. The bullets were coming out and falling on the floor.


    ¡°We killed it,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°I did.¡± Dion corrected.


    ¡°You¡¯re right, I just got my face stabbed,¡± Apollo said. ¡°The point is it¡¯s dead. What¡¯s the big deal?¡±


    ¡°You couldn¡¯t have done it a little cleaner?¡± The Priest slapped the table.


    ¡°Nothing is ever clean with hellspawn. Maybe you should do it yourself if you want it done better. Assuming you have the balls to pick up the sword in the first place.¡± Apollo picked a bullet casing from the floor. It was still red with blood. He placed it, flat side down onto the table. The Priest shook the furniture, the bullet fell and rolled away.


    ¡°I¡¯m your boss. And don¡¯t you forget it. When I tell you to do something, you do it.¡± He stood, rather dramatically, with both hands slamming down on the table and his body pacing back and forth and leaning against the wall.


    They could barely look at him. Apollo, out of embarrassment for the act. Dion, out of fear.


    ¡°Are you getting closer to these freaks, at least?¡± The Priest said.


    ¡°Yeah. I have a name for a drug supplier that might have a connection to them.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°You dragged me all night for a name?¡± Dion turned, a wide frown on his face.


    ¡°You seemed to have enjoyed yourself,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°So you¡¯re both causing trouble. And you - you especially,¡± He pointed to Dion. ¡°You¡¯re making moves around the town, and your partner doesn¡¯t even know what¡¯s going on?¡± The Priest rose and dropped his hands. ¡°What the heck? Maybe you should act, you know, like more of a partner?¡±


    ¡°Another one who fucking says what the heck. Is that hard to curse?¡± Apollo stood and threw his coat to his bedside. It made a nice blanket for him to lay on. He closed his eyes and put two hands behind his head.


    ¡°Whoever is doing this mess is an amateur.¡± Apollo rolled to his side. ¡°He¡¯s not really summoning demons, more so, summoning the personifications of demons. Like¡­ah¡­spirit. A proxy for the real thing - which it¡¯s not.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean personifications.¡±


    ¡°I mean to say, they¡¯re like puppets. They¡¯re empty, stupid vessels. Low-level creatures. They don¡¯t really think and follow simple commands. They¡¯re easy for people like us,¡±


    ¡°Is that why you almost got your head ripped off?¡± Dion asked.


    Apollo coughed.


    ¡°The big bird we fought, for example. The bird was a rendition of Amon. Of course, it wasn¡¯t actually Amon, more like the idea of Amon.¡± Apollo traced fingers into a sky, imagining the incantation that must have taken place. ¡°Yesterday¡¯s monstrosity took the shape of Bael, one of them at least. But it wasn¡¯t anything close. I think whoever our little devil summoner is, is trying to shoot higher than what he can manage,¡±


    ¡°Why doesn¡¯t he just conjure up the real things then?¡± The Priest asked.


    ¡°Because you can¡¯t just conjure up princes and nobles and lords, they¡¯re stuck in hell for a reason. Something that grand needs some godly power. That''s equivalent exchange. There¡¯s a reason why it¡¯s hell,¡± he said. ¡°No one gets out. Ever.¡±


    ¡°Listen, I¡¯m glad for your demonology lecture. But this only affirms one thing: you need to do your job better.¡± The Priest went off.


    ¡°I¡¯m putting the squeeze on them. It doesn¡¯t matter why this person is doing it, who he¡¯s doing it for, he¡¯ll be fucked in a couple days.¡± Apollo yawned.


    ¡°You could speed it up if you got off your ass.¡± The Priest tapped on Dion. ¡°Convince your partner to stop being lazy. Sloth is a sin, after all.¡±


    ¡°I couldn¡¯t convince him to do anything,¡± Dion said. ¡°He¡¯s a dog, a filthy animal,¡±


    ¡°Part of catching a criminal is giving them room to make mistakes,¡± Apollo said. ¡°So that¡¯s what I¡¯m going to do; be patient.¡±


    The Priest nodded and rubbed his scalp. He looked around the room and the mess of clothes and papers scattered about with important, giant red circles over them. He looked at the map and the threads and pins that wrapped around the city, and it made his head spin. He felt anger for his powerlessness, his inability to understand and remembering last nights face only made his feelings worse. The idea that people were suffering, the idea that they bled and died underneath what he felt was his city made him yank his hair. In the end, he took a deep breath of air.


    ¡°Are we done? I¡¯m going to sleep.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m not,¡± Dion said. ¡°Someone needs to keep the city safe,¡±


    Apollo began to laugh. ¡°Go ahead superman, just don¡¯t cause any trouble.¡±


    ¡°Not any more than you would,¡± Dion said. The Priest exhausted his anger, it felt something underneath his flesh that just disappeared into the environment like heat or energy.


    Why even be mad? He could not move these two stubborn people, they were stones, and he was too weak to push them onto the incline. He felt like some Egyptian slave, empress-less, just pushing and moving and getting crushed under the weight of the bricks. [i]How could they not feel urgency? How could they not pity the weak?


    He sighed. He scratched his head and the spot where his hair used to be somewhere in the back. He let the small gray hairs fall to the floor. They looked like broken cobwebs.


    ¡°Take some showers at least, you both smell terrible.¡± He said. And he was gone, getting ready for the new day.

 Episode 3 - Chapter 23

    Some nights after the sewer incident, in a place remote and irrelevant¡­


    This had been the first time Jeremiah would see his partner since he was nearly killed and it frightened him. He had thought about leaving four different times on the way to the receptionist desk. He had hidden inside the restroom on the way to the room. He had stared at his feet for half an hour at the door, the big ¡®601¡¯ in black letters, and he had memorized the number of black tiles in the checkerboard pattern underneath his feet with how long he waited.


    With a gulp. With a deep breath. He opened the door.


    The first thing he heard was the strum of a guitar out of tune and how it made a hollow, low pitch note, like a bellow or a boat creak. He looked immediately from left to right. Everything was white and blue, clean and cold. He heard the noise of a machine and what it pumped into Officer Heinz¡¯s tired lungs. His partner; he looked stuffed like a turkey roast, tubes and tape and bandages all over him to keep him from falling apart. Jeremiah dropped a bouquet of flowers he had bought for the occasion. The laid on the bedside.


    His injuries felt small now that he looked at his partner. Jeremiah had some cuts and scars but that was it. He could not think of any of his aches as any kind of meaningful pain in the presence of his comatose partner. He felt small in front of the man lifeless on the bed. And then he heard the guitar again. He looked to his side. There was a little person, quivering, strumming.


    Beady eyes looked back, they felt like bullets. It was the small face of a boy and this boy was so tight in a ball and nervous that he looked just about to explode. His hair the color of dead, muddy brown leaves. They formed long, wavy strands.


    ¡°You must be his son, your mom told me you¡¯d be here. How are you holding up?¡± Jeremiah said.


    The boy did not talk, only stared. It made Jeremiah feel cold.


    ¡°You¡¯re here alone? I know your moms working but don¡¯t you have any relatives?¡± He asked again. Nothing. Jeremiah smiled, it was fragile.


    ¡°I was his partner. He was very kind and brave, you¡¯re dad that is. Funny too!¡± His face felt weak. ¡°I¡¯m just here to pay my respects.¡±


    The boy nodded. He stared and when it felt like Jeremiah could not bear the judgment of his glare any longer, he started counting floor tiles again. They were two mutes and next to them, the ceaseless sound of a respirator.


    It was oppressive.


    Jeremiah couldn¡¯t look without being disgusted. None of what he suffered was enough, not enough to pay for this coma. He clenched his fist and felt his cut-stapled hands bleed. His knees shook. Then he just held his breath and the snot and tears that began to ride down his face. The beeping was so low but it felt like a hammer on his heart.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    [i]I wish I was on the bed instead.


    He moved. He ran out. He would have reduced himself to a puddle if he hadn¡¯t. The thought was too heavy. He put a stray rose into the sink and let it drip water that carried the aroma out the room, out the receptionist office, out the giant glass sliding doors at the front. The boy, the doctors, the crowd stared and he wanted to rip his eyes out.


    [i]I know I¡¯m terrible. Stop looking, I know.


    ¡°Fuck. Fuck.¡± He told himself. A pair of doctors, smoking, moved aside as he came through the street. The hot air made his eyes burn and the crowd was loud and - and, he just let go. All the way to his car, he wept. All the way to the liquor store, he wept. Through the day, through the night, he wept.


    Drunk by his sadness, drunk because of his sadness. Bottle after bottle.


    Now, this is medicine.


    He parked by a sidewalk. A giant metal man holding a donut hung leered overhead, above him and the store he just shopped in. Below, on his knees an empty box of donuts rattled.


    His stomach was swollen. His eyes swerved.


    He moved his hand across his face to see how bad it was, he counted twelve fingers on one hand.


    ¡°I should have manned up. I shouldn¡¯t have let him take the lead.¡± He remembered the night, the bird that made his shoulders shiver. The darkness, the spear, the fear inside of his gut. He could not find a single scene of heroism from himself, not even on the ride back. Or in the medal of honor lying on the passenger''s seat. He remembered his urine stain, he remembered that especially.


    Nothing felt good inside of him.


    An hour into the stupor he had the idea to look outside, it was getting too hot and he opened his mouth thinking it would cool the burning in his throat.


    ¡°I need to let go.¡± He told himself. His face was strained like he had eaten something sour. ¡°Why the fuck should I feel guilty. I only did what was normal, what anyone else would have done.¡±


    He tugged on his steering wheel and nearly pulled it out with his mad grip.


    ¡°What the fuck do you expect of me. Huh?¡± He screamed at the sky.


    He looked up, proud of his outburst almost. His eyes kept to the slow-moving cloud and stars that looked like streaking lights in his blurred vision.


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    A line. A bright light. He saw it across the horizon. He followed it and where it lead. He rubbed his face to see if it was drunkenness. No. He saw it. A comet tail, azure like a bright blade of water cutting through the dark horizon. He followed it all the way to where it landed: the donut man and his giant, plastic, smiling face.


    An explosion. Fire.


    Then he saw the donut man, the statue, decapitated. The head, blown into molten, dripping plastic. Jeremiah laughed. Until the head fell on the rear of his car. Then he wobbled out. Then he cried.


    The metal was bending above, it anchored over him and he leapt out of the glass. The weight collapsed on his empty car and he crawled away, dragging his weak legs through the broken pavement. The light posts came down, the whole street looked like it would burst open and he found a nice corner, near a fence, to fall into fetal position. He kept his eyes shut as he heard the explosions, as the metal fell and collapsed and when it was all done, when all he heard was a raging fire he opened his eyes. The street in front of him, his car, were all swallowed into the sea of fire. There were people with him, looking, then firefighters, then paramedics.


    ¡°He¡¯s not hurt, just drunk.¡± A paramedic said.


    Hah. Only drunk.


    The police officers looked at him, some of them familiar with his face. When it start, when did it happen, they asked. He did not know. He couldn¡¯t explain much. He only knew what they knew. The street was filled with brimstone. And the lake of fire had tried swallowing him whole.

 Chapter 24

    Dion


    July 17th, 2017


    8:06 AM


    It had been three days since the sewer incident, and they were pressed. The names of a drug dealer that could or could not lead to the key-buyer (what Apollo presumed to be the vampire of Havenbrook) as well as a new and sudden occurrence, the kidnapping of a child.


    Kidnapped children weren¡¯t strange occurrences. Not to any other town at least, but in Havenbrook, a kidnapped child could mean anything between ransom and of course, child sacrifice. So they were here then, to inspect the area and scout for clues in a way the police seemingly hadn¡¯t.


    Apollo bit his nails as Dion drove around the corner. They looked outside to the shoeless children and the arcade cabinets they tiptoed in front of. Street Fighter, or Metal Slug, they couldn¡¯t tell with how ripped and broken the cabinet stickers were. There were liquor stores every other house, it seemed. Then the houses disappeared, then the road did too. Wooden fences became chain link, dogs roamed around, eating from sewer gutters. Crows picked and dragged carrion from the mud roads and from a sidewalk they could see a man in a wheelchair with a sign that read, ¡®help a poor veteran¡¯ and the cup that laid below him.


    The first thing Dion did when he stepped out was hand a few coins to the poor man. The second thing he did was shiver. He couldn¡¯t tolerate the feel in the air, a certain creeping coldness. Though Apollo did, he even looked like he was thriving.


    They walked towards a parking lot half transmuted into a forest.


    ¡°They¡¯re gon¡¯ take me to the Saint Jones, you bitch.¡± A woman was flailing her limbs in the air, blue plastic bags hung on her arms like the swollen, rotten fruits of trees. Her hair was held together by a rag, a piece of an American. It was red and white. ¡°Those devils are gon¡¯ take me to the Saint Jones where the CIA live, let me tell you. They gon¡¯ fill me with poison, ¡®ell take my soul away I know it.¡±


    Another woman came by to drag her back to a small cove underneath a tree, a patch of blue tarp.


    She looked back to the Vicars, a fragile smile on her face.


    ¡°She¡¯s sick.¡± She said. Dion started to make a move towards the two girls, the wallet in his hand.


    Apollo held him back.


    ¡°Don¡¯t even try helping. Some things are beyond your control.¡± He said.


    ¡°It just makes me feel wrong.¡±


    ¡°Weak, you mean,¡± Apollo said. ¡°You can¡¯t punch diseases of the mind in the face. You can¡¯t wrestle them.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Dion said. Dismissively.


    There was no path to follow, just an endless patch of black asphalt that bled into the forest. The homeless were scared, but they gathered around the blue flowers. Some slept, some drank, some picked the little joys from the floor. It had rained yesterday, Dion was reminded, by the heavy dew collected on the poles and tarps that drizzled when they shook.


    ¡°What are we doing here?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Our job,¡± Apollo said. Dion narrowed his eyes. ¡°What? What¡¯s the problem? I thought you liked helping people, so why don¡¯t you go around looking for trouble,¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t help any of them,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°And I thought I was the defeatist,¡± Apollo said. Dion frowned, his shoulders slumped. He kicked a rock across the street. Apollo rolled his eyes. ¡°Listen, we¡¯re just here to get a name, there was a kidnapping nearby. Some kid by the name of Matthew ¡®Pip¡¯ Lafayette. I have a belief that his murderer was one of our guys. One of our many guys. I just want to see if anyone here has some information.¡±


    ¡°Jesus Christ, that¡¯s horrifying.¡± Dion clenched his fist. ¡°But are you sure it¡¯s our guy.¡±


    ¡°No. That¡¯s why I¡¯m here,¡±


    ¡°What about the drug dealer?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°He comes later. Don¡¯t worry about him. Just ask around.¡± Apollo said.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    They wandered into the sanctuary of homeless.


    The poor were everywhere, walking in droves, hanging clothes by the tree branches, hanging themselves by the sides of trees and light posts, their myriad and uncoordinated clothes outliers amongst the drab and gray brick buildings. They ate bread and crackers, they boiled water on small portable stoves and drank from little flasks in their jackets. He went around them carefully, watched them stack up in front of barrel-fires like a tribe of furred animals. Beyond this ruined parking lot was a space of wild forestation that had grown into the lot. They had built into that locale as well. Their tents like small flags of ownership.


    The tall grass hid some sleeping homeless. Walking became a caution for them as if they were dodging snakes for every now and then they bumped into a stray limb of a drunk or sickly figure.


    It was like that for at least an hour. A dreadful hour for Dion at least. Looking at Apollo, he could see no tangible reaction, no churning of the face or frustration or sadness. It was like he wasn¡¯t even feeling anything, or worse, that Apollo resembled the very homeless and destitute he was trying to question.


    It was a gross comparison.


    ¡°And who are you?¡± Apollo asked. Dion turned, it was a man in a wheelchair. He looked relatively clean. He was old, past his midlife at least. Apollo shot him a twenty.


    The old man swiped it.


    ¡°You should be more grateful,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°You should get the fuck out of my sun.¡± The veteran said. At least, that¡¯s what the sign read above his incapacitated legs. ¡®Homeless and hungry vet.¡¯


    ¡°You¡¯d be more likable if you were polite,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I just want to ask some questions, old man.¡±


    ¡°Ask away. You might not get the answer you want though,¡±


    Dion took out a notepad. He snapped the pen-top and worked on the yellow pages. All other sounds seemed to die out as he focused on this singular, old man.


    ¡°Were you here on July sixteen, at around noon, maybe dusk?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m always here,¡±


    ¡°Did you see a little boy? Dark, probably no older than thirteen?¡± He took out the newspaper clipping and showed it to the old man.


    The old man lifted his beret and laid the picture in his lap. With a pinch, he grabbed his shirt and ventilated it. Dion could smell the musk, like egg and gasoline and a little grime. He held his mouth.


    Two medals hung by a jacket sleeve tied to his chair. They rattled.


    ¡°What platoon did you serve in?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t matter,¡± The vet said.


    ¡°People will accuse you of stolen valor with that kind of answer,¡± Apollo said. The old man rose his tired eyes, a popped vein in his yellow eyes squirted blood. It looked like a cloud of red.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ve seen this boy,¡± His voice seemed annoyed, above all else, and panicked almost. Apollo threw another twenty.


    ¡°You remember now?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t really wanna talk about this kid,¡± The old man said. ¡°And you don¡¯t either,¡±


    He tried to turn his wheel away. Apollo stopped him.


    ¡°I thought soldiers were supposed to be honorable, valor and all that shit,¡± He said.


    ¡°Valor is for dogs,¡± The old man tried to work the wheel past Apollo¡¯s foot. He couldn¡¯t roll over it, and every time he tried, the mechanisms of his chair creaked. ¡°Pride is for dogs. So is respect and decency,¡±


    ¡°I agree,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And I know you¡¯re a coward, I just want to know what¡¯s got you scared enough to reject twenty dollars,¡±


    ¡°I know what it¡¯s like to be thrown away, kid,¡± He said. ¡°I know how easy it is for a man to be buried and forgotten. Trust me. Hell, you can kill a man and leave it out for rot, and people still won¡¯t care. Not really, at least. We¡¯re disposable, all of us here, and I ain¡¯t trying to test that,¡±


    ¡°Why can¡¯t you talk about this kid?¡± Apollo threw a hundred dollar bill. It fell to the floor. The old man finally lifted his wheel by brute force and rolled over the bill.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to beat the information out of you,¡± Apollo said. ¡°But I need to know what you know, that¡¯s all there is to it,¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know a lot, but I know it¡¯s enough to get me killed.¡±


    And Dion put down his notepad. He put his pen in his front pocket, and he walked in front of the veteran¡¯s trajectory. He put both hands on the armrests and stopped his locomotion. In the inertia, he leaned down. And he hoped his face did not show hate, though he was frustrated. And he hoped his will was strong, for he needed conviction. And he said, in a voice somewhat mournful and somewhat eager.


    ¡°This child had a family. That family will have to live without him, but what¡¯s even worse than that, is that they¡¯ll have to live in that painful ignorance of not knowing what happened to their child,¡± Dion said. ¡°This Pip kid might be disposable to you, to me, to the rest of the world. But to his mother and father, he is everything. They need to know, we need to know.¡±


    The old man looked down, his head shaking back and forth. Apollo walked up, his face was much more severe, stern and rough-edged and glaring. It was a scary enough face to make the old man reconsider Dion¡¯s softness.


    ¡°Just give us whatever you want, we can drop you off at the train station, and we can give you enough money to forget any of this happened. At least that way you can leave this town knowing you helped the common good,¡± Dion reached down and grabbed a flask hiding in the veteran¡¯s boot. ¡°And that seems like the best thing for you yet, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    The old man shook his head. He swiped the glass and looked down at the picture. His lips pursed. He sighed, then took a swig.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly who these people are that you¡¯re messing with, but I know what they do.¡± The veteran said.


    ¡°Good, I want them to come after us,¡± Apollo said.


    The veteran took another swig.


    ¡°I might have seen a guy following this kid,¡± He held the newspaper clipping up against the light. ¡°All I know is how he looks like, alright? Sometimes I see him here and there, that¡¯s it. Alright?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good enough for me,¡± Dion said. ¡°Describe his appearance,¡±


    It took a few moments for his courage to finally come. It took even more alcohol, but eventually, squeezed between one hard ass and one optimist, he finally found the words to say.


    ¡°He was bald,¡± The veteran began.

 Chapter 25

    Sophie


    July 20th, 2017


    12:12 AM


    Sophie didn¡¯t hear about Pip¡¯s death from anyone''s mouth. That was what made her truly sad.


    She had heard about it over the news. While she was heating up a cup of noodles. She heard it in the kitchen, the words straying into her periphery like a walking shadow.


    Matthew ¡®Pip¡¯ Lafayette found missing.


    Sophie ran into the living room, dropping her food all across the floor (it didn¡¯t matter, nothing did). The reporter said he was missing. She knew he was dead, knew it her bones.


    The first thing she felt was anger at that instant. She blamed Pip for it (for his own damn death, god she was crying so much when she screamed at him). Blamed his stupidity. Blamed his meekness. It made her so frustrated she didn¡¯t eat all day. Didn¡¯t sleep much either. Then the next day came. She was sad when morning came, it was a strange feeling to look at the morning glow of the sun and to feel it burn and wither her down. As if the sky was glaring at her. She just put the blinds up and curled into a ball on her bed and in the darkness (and only in darkness) was she genuinely comfortable enough to cry.


    The day went slow. Though her thoughts and regrets and feelings went racing through her head. Her mother came up once. She knocked, Sophie didn¡¯t answer. And when night came, she felt thankful for God for the first time ever.


    She had a kind dream about Pip that night.


    By the third day, she was finally feeling the pain of not eating and the pain of slowly rotting. She finally stepped out of her room around morning. She showered, breathed, watched numbing television. She ate a bit of soup left over, and grilled a sandwich that she ended up burning, but ate anyway.


    That night, she had a nightmare.


    She didn¡¯t quite remember it. Though she screamed late into the night and woke up to sweat. And not knowing why she screamed was somehow worst than just remembering the damn dream. On the fourth day, then, she wandered to the police station to ask questions.


    ¡°Have you found his body?¡± She asked a woman who, by the loud, prominent clicks of her keyboard, seemed annoyed. She chewed some gum with long gnaws and looked at her.


    ¡°Where¡¯s your mommy, kid?¡±


    Sophie grabbed pens and pencils from a small mug on the counter in the main lobby and threw them at the receptionist.


    Needless to say, they kicked her out. Not without her kicking and screaming.


    ¡°I almost took out my taser,¡± One of the officers said and sat her on a bench in front of the police station. ¡°What¡¯s your mom¡¯s number he asked?¡±


    She said nothing. When he reached down to check his pockets for his phone, she pushed him down to his ass and ran wild across the street. The man tried following, he gave up after ten seconds. She knew how to climb fences, and fast too.


    After three days of crying and exactly one afternoon of fruitless journalism, she came back home. A little angry still, very much sad. But that night, stranger than all the others, she felt resolute at all.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    She went underneath her covers and looked at a map of the city. She circled where Pip had been kidnapped. These were the beginnings of her plans, and sleep wasn¡¯t part of them. It¡¯s not like her racing heart would let her rest anyway.


    By midnight, that very night, she was ready.


    She had in her backpack, in no particular order: a map of the city, a fresh sweater and a few bags of treats. Candies mostly (she was still a child). She threw in a packet of jerky to pretend it was a healthy, good trail mix. She had the plan outlined, she rewrote it and redrafted ten times.


    It was simple, really, all she wanted to know was what happened to Pip. She thought it to be an easy plan, retrace her steps and interview the people around the scene of the crime. It¡¯s not like she didn¡¯t have an idea where he might have been kidnapped, he had gone the opposite way of hers that night. And with this in mind, she retraced her steps. The points of interest seemed obvious; Pete''s Bakery, Lowrie''s Loundra-mats, The Devil''s Tail. She didn''t want to go to the latter in particular, it was a loud nightclub. But she would, like she would the other places and homes in the area.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like the police are doing anything, right?¡± She said to a small stuffed animal. Mom told her she was too old for toys, but they were helping her now.


    Mom said a lot. But now, this late at night, she was silent. She stepped down to the living room with her gear on her back, her soft sneakers tip-toeing across steps. Sophie¡¯s mother lounged on the sofa downstairs. A plastic clock ticked away, it was in the shape of a black cat, and the pendulum tail swung for each second dialed. A television returned static, her mother fell asleep with the remote in her hands.


    The cat meowed. It was twelve thirty exactly. She looked down.


    ¡°I¡¯ll be back home soon,¡± Sophie said. Her mother had left dinner for Sophie, she realized when she turned to the kitchen. It was just a Styrofoam cup of noodles, now waterlogged. The noodles looked like small slugs inside the cup.


    ¡°Thanks,¡± Sophie whispered. Her mother snorted. It sounded like a cackle in the emptiness of the house. It was the first time she had ever felt the house to be too big and herself, too small. She didn¡¯t know why she felt nostalgic for the month-old stained oak countertops or the rings of dirt that decorated the glass tables from cans of forgotten beer or the walls peeling their paint and paper like old bark. It should have been terrible, this rotting house, but it felt like home to her.


    Her nose sniffled.


    ¡°You can¡¯t even take out the trash.¡± She spoke low, her voice was strained. She walked to the kitchen and swung the black bag over her left shoulder. It was bigger than her, but she carried it with ease. Her mother laid on the sofa, mouth open. There were green shadows around her eyes from smudged makeup, her drooling lips dripped brown lipstick. Her cheeks were flushed red, though she was not afraid or ashamed or angry like Sophie was. Sophie found a cigarette bud on her mother''s chest and flicked it to a glass cup. It had left a burned hole in her shirt. She kissed her mother on the cheek and wiped her lips of the taste of foundation and of rouge.


    Her mother rolled to the side, she dug her face into the sofa.


    ¡°You¡¯re never there for me,¡± Sophie said. ¡°But I still love you,¡±


    She finished.


    She did not sneak out, she did not make any effort to hide anything. She grabbed her clunky bag of trash and opened the door. It wasn¡¯t like the Hollywood movies made it out to be, when you have a parent too tired to care, it¡¯s easy to go unnoticed.


    She walked out. She walked around the side and dumped the trash.


    She turned around and waved goodbye. The door closed and the warmth of her house left her out in the open, to a midnight chill on the sidewalk of her street which in this new darkness, seemed foreign to her.


    The broken lights of crooked posts blinked down at her. She met travelers, some few minutes into her walk, they looked hostile. Their teeth looked like daggers but she pressed forward, weak and wobbly, she moved on.


    She neared a park whose dry grass felt rough against her Achilles heel. She scratched herself going to the large tree at the center and climbed it like a Crow¡¯s nest and looked out to give direction to the worried captain, her heart. Beyond the horizon stretched out the thin veil of darkness, she faced away wild wind. There was a curiosity in the small lights of apartments and of streets, like stranded stars in a growing dark space.


    Here lay all the mystery of life and death, and her the sole detective to it all.


    Oh, what great mystery for her but to you, dear reader, I will leave no surprise: Sophie would die tonight.

 Chapter 26

    Alestor


    July 20th, 2017


    6:00 AM


    The sweat came off Alestor¡¯s back and stuck his skin to the bed. It had been a night of strong images. He looked to his side and found a picture of a woman whose smile invoked a cold dragging feeling across his spine and he put the picture face down as it worsened. The feeling would not leave. Not for the hour he spent looking around his house, looking for the pictures of his smiling dead wife. It was one-thirty-four in the morning when he was done. He must have done a whole loop, putting down the pictures before he receded back to his room and plopped down the bed.


    He¡¯s coming.


    The stands of the knocked over photos shook like scared, wagging tails.


    The window pane opened. The curtains wafted. A strong wind blew them apart.


    His hair dragged to the currents. Then it ceased.


    And the voice appeared.


    It was in the floorboards. It was in the door frame. It was in the walls.


    A voice, sweet and calm.


    Then, as if the current following the sound of flood, his walls were painted black. It dripped down, flushing the baby blue color of his bedroom. Everything turned malicious, everything closed in on him and the walls went dark, like a black sea washing over him. He certainly felt washed up. Alestor fell from his bed, he put hands above his head. He rushed out. The walls outside weren¡¯t any better, his whole house was corrupted. It shook.


    He ran to his study. He struggled to the table on the end of the room. He quickly took out a brown bag. Like an addict, you could see the dependency on his face and his shaking hands when he felt the coarse pink salt pinched through his fingers and spilled all cross the floor and table. He threw salt, as quickly as he could. He threw it in pinches, then handfuls. Then the whole bag all at once. Then with a finger, designed the symbol like a child playing in sand.


    A pentagram, somewhat. But much worse, with strange symbols and hebrew all across. Then a few more circles, a few more esoteric shapes.


    He clapped both hands and then slammed them into the symbols of pink salt.


    It birthed a fire.


    ¡°Hmm?¡±


    The flames licked and he could hear the voice through the snaps and crackles of the fire. He immediately knelt and felt his shins bleed as they dragged across the rough floorboard, towards the flame.


    ¡°I¡¯m here, oh bountiful one,¡± Alestor said. The fire dimmed for a moment and all he could hear was the quick breathing of the being from beyond.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    ¡°Be quiet.¡± It said. ¡°I should have your tongue ripped off that you would suffer me another failure,¡±


    ¡°You said-¡± Alestor started. The fire slapped the ground.


    ¡°I said? What does my saying have to do with your lack of action, with your failure?¡±


    ¡°You said you¡¯d help us if I gave you a boy this time,¡± Alestor said.


    ¡°And I did, did I not?¡± The voice said, ¡°And what did you do with my help? Waste it,¡±


    ¡°But the boy¡­-¡±


    ¡°The boy is with me now, where he could be properly appreciate,¡± The being said. ¡°Do you know what his name is? It¡¯s Pip,¡±


    Alestor felt his stomach drop.


    ¡°Pip,¡± Alestor repeated. It shook him. Pip. The familiar face, the blood. The little dark boy that he kidnapped. Pip.


    He had a name, and a family, and a past and a future.


    Alestor looked up, the fire reached half-way to the ceiling. His hands shook as his knees inched closer to it.


    ¡°Is my wife with you too?¡± He asked.


    The fire came down for a moment, it washed over his hands. They burned, roasted. He jumped back and screamed.


    ¡°Do you think you¡¯re in a position to beg for anything? Another death and you haven¡¯t even killed the heater-eaters. Are they that much of a problem?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re durable.¡± Alestor said. ¡°And the children are afraid they¡¯re getting closer.¡±


    ¡°Let them get as close as they want. You¡¯re almost done, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes but I¡¯m afraid we¡¯ll need at least another ceremony. I don¡¯t know if we can hold on until then.¡±


    ¡°Then don¡¯t.¡± The voice said. ¡°Cut your losses and leave,¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Alestor looked up. ¡°I won¡¯t compromise this. I need this.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± The voice asked. ¡°Where¡¯s your conviction? You already failed to kill them twice, what would you have me expect from you now, failure?¡±


    ¡°I want my wife.¡± Alestor whispered.


    ¡°What?¡± The voice mused.


    ¡°I want my wife!¡± Alestor screamed.


    ¡°And what a nasty desire that¡¯s been.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve done what you¡¯ve wanted, for years now,¡± Alestor said. ¡°I¡¯m owed a wife. You owe-¡±


    ¡°Owe?¡± The voice laughed. ¡°There is no owing anyone or anything. You wanted something, I told you the price. It¡¯s a shame you haven¡¯t found a way to pay it yet, but it¡¯s your shame, not mine.¡±


    ¡°Why torment me.¡± Alestor cried. ¡°Don¡¯t you want this as much as me?¡±


    ¡°What I want is of little concern to you,¡± The voice said. ¡°It¡¯s a feeling that changes everyday. That changes even now. Why, my eyes are set on something more than just slaves now,¡±


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Alestor asked.


    ¡°None of your concern,¡± A whip of flame slammed against the floor. ¡°If you still want to meet your wife, then do as I¡¯ve told you.¡±


    ¡°I want to, but the Vicars¡­¡± Alestor lowered his head. ¡°They¡¯ll kill us. All of us,¡±


    The fire wrapped around the room and he could feel the grip, a manifestation of all the fumes and heat, choking him, squeezing his body and forcing him into convulsions.


    ¡°Would they kill me, though?¡± The voice screamed. ¡°I¡¯ve never lost. Not in a thousand years, and a thousand years more. You¡¯ve shamed me twice. And now you¡¯ve insulted me. I¡¯m beginning to wonder if you want my offer retracted?¡± The hand of fire let Alestor go, dropped him to the floor and receded. The soot covered walls grew up, onto the ceiling. It smelled of ash, like a volcanic eruption had gone off in his home. Alestor coughed, finding breath amongst the smoke and heavy air. He heard the voice laugh.


    ¡°Me, lose. That would be something, wouldn¡¯t it? I¡¯m getting excited. Is that love?¡± The voice laughed. ¡°Lust, maybe. I¡¯d like to meet them more. But for that, I¡¯d need you, wouldn¡¯t I?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have it done by tonight,¡± Alestor massaged his throat. ¡°No more errors. No more hesitation. Then we¡¯ll see you soon,¡±


    It was like the demon¡¯s face appeared in the flames. Pieces of it, like a fragmented photo. Alestor could see the smile, the cool veneer and the rows of ivory through the heart of the flame.


    ¡°Oh, by the way.¡± The demon said. ¡°Keep an eye on your son. He¡¯s got quite the mouth.¡±


    It crackled and died, both voice and fire.


    And nothing remained but the pink salt turned to glass, like the painted church windows had shattered onto his fireplace. Alestor knelt, the pain still on his hands and throat. Burned hands touched the glass, it shattered in his palms.


    It was enough to make him cry for all that he had done. For all that he would do.

 Chapter 27

    Apollo


    July 20th, 2017


    9:00 AM


    "I think that''s our guy," Apollo compared the drawing in his hand to the man below him, the bald man catering the children with sweet talk.


    They stood at the edge of a rooftop, amongst the crows and cigarette buds and given the bleak suit, they blended in well.


    "Are you sure it''s him?" Dion asked. "What if we get the wrong guy?"


    "Then we''ll make sure he doesn''t snitch, one way or another,"


    Apollo stood, and jumped down. Dion stood.


    "Wait, what does that mean?"


    It didn''t take long for them to find a suitable spot to assault the bald man. After all, the man himself was looking for a suitable spot to kidnap a child (a small girl that he had followed down four blocks for the past thirty minutes).


    Apollo did not so much as even hide. He crossed his arms and peaked with the edges of his eyes, his back to the corner of a wall, his whole body itself within that same alleyway. He stared at his wristwatch, tapping rapidly with his foot.


    Dion waited, crouched.


    The girl came forward, she was on her cellphone.


    The bald man came a few moments later. Apollo swiped him immediately and pushed him into the deep dark of the alley.


    "The small black kid you kidnapped, where''d you take him?" Apollo asked.


    "What the fuck is this?" The bald man said.


    Apollo walked over and stepped over his shins. Apollo looked over the bald man''s face, to eyes that would not stand still for a moment.


    "You sure he knows anything?" Dion asked.


    He narrowed himself. The bald man kept cursing and kicking and trying to swipe with his hand. And Apollo held his gaze, firm and true.


    "Yeah, he knows something," He pressed down on the bald man''s knee.


    "Puta madre," Apollo said. He heard a crack. His knee cracked. It bent the way knees should never bend. With a pain that made the man scream the way, men should never scream.


    Horrified.


    "You mother-" The old man cried. "You mother fucker!"


    "Jesus Christ forgive us," Dion stood and grabbed Apollo by the shoulder. "You don''t even know if he''s involved!"


    Apollo put his other foot on the second shin.


    "Tell me what you know, or I''ll break every bone in your body until I finally kill you," Apollo said. "The kid. What''d you do to him? Where is he?"


    The man kept screaming in seeming agony. Dion tried to push Apollo off.


    "Let him go, we don''t do things like this. Not like this-"


    Apollo pressed down.


    "Alright, alright!" The bald man screamed. "I can tell you where I took him, that''s all I know man. That''s all they hire me for!"


    And Apollo turned his head to Dion, with a face he hoped was somewhere in between smugness and resentment.


    "You do things your way, I do things my way," Apollo said. "Got it?"


    La Croix Theater 4025 Mulbarry Drive, Havenbrook CO


    The address was written in bold. It lay crooked on the side of the fence now half-swallowed by high-grass. A chain link fence rattled in front of him, and within the cracks of the fence, Apollo could spot two cop cars parked outside. Random. He reached into his coat and pulled out his mask.


    ¡°You''re going to keep watch,¡±


    "I don''t like that," Dion said. "And we still need to talk about what you did back there."


    "Just text me if see something, alright?"


    ¡°I have the right mind to just leave you here,¡± Dion said. ¡°What you did was unacceptable, unchristian-like, inhumane.¡±


    Apollo was already halfway up the fence before he could talk.


    He stretched his neck out when he reached the top and scanned the horizon. He dropped. His body hung low. He surfed the field, looking more like a flash of black and white across the field. He found a gutter pipe and climbed it, heard it snap out of its bolted place and dug his hands into the brick walls. It wasn''t any better, any more stable. Each step up was a hazard. Bricks fell apart from his grip.


    He carried himself to a window and propped it open. He slid in, above the set and standing upon the metal lattices hung by rusted wire. He heard the policemen, and they heard him. The metal creaked. They looked up.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    There was nothing.


    At least, Apollo hoped.


    They flashed their light, dragged them across but no one was there. Apollo had hidden behind the large cardboard set piece, a giant cherub, red blushed with his bow and arrow pointing down to the four policemen in the room.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think this place passes infrastructure safety protocol.¡± One of them said. He fidgeted and hid behind the others. The ceiling dripped small chips of wood like brown hail.


    ¡°God knows how you passed academy,¡± The three laughed. "Why don''t you go on out if you''re so nervous,"


    ¡°Don''t expect me to help if this all comes down on you,¡± The nervous one said.


    ¡°How about you all go on outside?¡± The fourth, final policeman said. He had a voice of authority to him. He was hunched over too, pointing his light at a chalk outline. It was in the shape of a small boy.


    ¡°You sure sarge?" One of them asked.


    They looked at each other and shrugged, walking far off to follow the nervous policeman. Of the four, only one remained. A fellow that Apollo eyed keenly, watching behind cardboard cutouts of white clouds and blue skies. Props, now faded in color.


    The Sergeant moved. Apollo moved with him, climbing ropes with bags of sands at their ends.


    The Sergeant led Apollo to a small room, what looked like the dresser. He waited and kept still and saw the Sergeant feeling out the brick wall with his palms like a human seismograph, one ear to the wall and both hands to slap and feel the gaps in between bricks. He stopped at one. It did not look particularly unique, it was at the end of a long wall that had profanity and graffiti stretched across. ¡®DIE YOUNG,¡¯ in bold red. There was an Anarchy symbol right above it.


    It was a brick with a single purple flower growing out of it. The man took out a pocket knife, he chiseled around thick. The worn stone fell, he inched his fingers in the gap and put the brick on a counter near him. His arm navigated the hole and Apollo watched to see how deep the man would go. It swallowed the whole arm. And when it finally came out, so did the object of interest: a knife. Apollo was too far to tell its design, he could only see the crescent sneer like a cat¡¯s smile.


    The man looked for a pocket to put it in, he was about to tuck it in when he heard a sound. His body snapped and looked up. He was licking his lips, the nerves grew on him. His steady hands descended into a quiver. His shoulders looked like bad drum symbols, rattling and shaking sporadic-like.


    He looked up again. That was the last time before his chest slammed onto the floor. His hair was held by its length, Apollo stood on top of him with his knee carefully placed on the Sergeant''s back. It was lodged against one of his shoulder blades. And Apollo grabbed his weaponized hand and squeezed. Squeezed until his wrist popped and the knife came out.


    ¡°What do you have for me here, hmm?" Apollo asked.


    The man did not respond. He tried turning his head, but it was locked in place. He tried rolling his eyes to their corners, but Apollo slammed his head on the ground for even trying.


    That was the kind of violence that gave Apollo away. Because even if they didn''t know his name or face, they knew his method and violence. Or at least heard the stories.


    The man got even quieter, as if he wasn''t even breathing anymore.


    ¡°What is that knife for? Who¡¯s is it?¡± Apollo asked. He could hear a chuckle and slammed the face down on the wood. The floor cracked, the boards fell down to the stage-trap area. He raised the Sergeant again, stretching his neck as far as it would go.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you tired, Vicar?¡± The Sergeant said. ¡°Aren¡¯t you tired of this circular life?¡±


    ¡°What the fuck does that mean?¡±


    ¡°There is no secret to it. I asked, are you tired? Living life moment to pre-destined moment? Living the same existence over the infinite period of the universe," The man whispered. A man, who must have been in his early retirement, with white covering his face and trimmed beard. "I''m sure you hate it as much as us. Not knowing, not being able to escape. Haven''t you wondered if someone could break the circle? If someone could give us more - just a bit more, just enough to make it all worth something-!¡±


    Apollo could feel himself sweat. He slammed his face into the floor once more.


    ¡°Shut the fuck up.¡± His breath was heavy. ¡°Who does that knife belong to. What¡¯s it for? What''d you do with the kid? Why are you covering it up?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve known about you two. We¡¯ve known for a while now," The Sergeant spat out blood, it trickled down his chin. "He told us, He knows everything.¡±


    Apollo slammed down again. He could feel the officer''s mouth wobble and yield, his lips shaking and swelling.


    ¡°Who the fuck knows?¡± Apollo asked. He out-stretched the officer''s arm. He started pulling, stretching the bone and tendons of both his arms. He kept going, stopping just about the point of tension where the Sergeant''s arms would get dislocated. But he didn''t even blink or scream. His body, by contrast, felt flexible and even limp.


    ¡°You¡¯ll meet him soon. You don¡¯t have to worry about it, it¡¯s already been destined. Astyanax has willed it so,¡± The officer curled his broken face into a smile.


    Astyaax?


    His grip loosened for a moment. The man freed one arm and rushed for the gun in his side. He caught him, midway, and held him by the neck to stand him.


    The Sergeant screamed. "Over here, he''s in here!"


    Shit, I wasn''t paying attention.


    ¡°Put your hands up.¡±


    Apollo turned. The barrel was in front of his face. The Sergeant was still in his choke hold, held in front of him.


    ¡°Let''s take it easy,¡± Apollo said. Breathing behind his mask was hard, he could smell and feel the heat. It felt like steam, and it made his heart race. The Sergeant in his grip gargled blood. He spat, clearing his throat. It sounded like the vomit of a geyser, and looked it too as the blood splattered everywhere. The Sergeant smiled. His pearl-white teeth laid out on the floor.


    ¡°It doesn''t matter, Vicar," The Sergeant said. "Nothing does,"


    Apollo switched glances between them. They both look at each other, the officer pointing and the Sergeant held. They gave themselves the type of look...the type of look of whose conviction spurred a nervousness within Apollo.


    The officers nodded to each other.


    He didn''t feel good. Not pained, not even worried. But anxious for a kind of accident he wasn''t ready for.


    ¡°Nam amor sui,¡± The Sergeant said.


    ¡°Hold on,¡± Apollo let go of his hands and reached for the one pointing. He was too far.


    ¡°Nam amor sui,¡± The armed officer said. A shot. Blood splattered across the graffiti. Apollo put his hands forward to block.


    When he reviewed the scene, after a few moments after the shock, he realized he wasn''t even hurt. No. The Sergeant lay dead, his brains scattered.


    And the shooter stood in front of him, now pointing the gun to his own temple.


    "Wait-," Apollo shouted. "Wait!"


    The shooter''s body fell, the contents of his skull spilled out from the bullet hole, an open dam now flooding the wardrobe room with the raging red waters.


    Apollo didn''t know what to feel. What to do. He heard the other two fast approaching, nervously screaming out their names (he couldn''t even remember their names, not in the remission of surprise).


    "Oh god," He shook his head. Slapped it a bit. "I gotta get out,"


    His head shifted left and right. He stopped his search at a particular piece of floor, the spot where he had slammed the Sergeant''s face repeatedly. The floorboards were weak there, and he felt a draft coming off from the newly formed hole.


    They called in support the minute they arrived. The nervous officer screamed, vomited and when they were done, they flashed their lights and screamed for the perpetrator (Apollo). But not one was there, not with them at least.


    Because Apollo was low, below them, through the trap door of the dressing room. Below the floorboards that now dripped with the blood of both lambs. The suicides, who were promised.


    Alleged chosen ones.


    To Apollo, they were just idiots. Sad idiots.


    He made his way out, to another door on the stage, where he climbed the ropes and the metal lattices, to the outside world. In one pocket, his cellphone raging with warnings as the squad of police cars rolled in. In his other pocket, the sacrificial knife and another mystery.


    Who was Astyanax?

 Chapter 28

    Sophie


    July 20th, 2017


    1:13 PM


    ¡°Do you know anything about this boy? His name was Pip,¡± Sophie held the photo to the twenty-fourth bitter face she had seen today. And this motherfucker was ugly, a trophy amongst the gallery of ugly people she had been forced to interact with.


    Detectives have it hard.


    He nodded his head, Sophie bit her lips and made the scorn clear with a groan.Useless.


    The ugly-face walked away, and she wandered, next to one of those toy metal unicorns. The ones you put a quarter in so they could endure the weight of a small child and rock away. Well, it was supposed to be a unicorn. But it looked like someone had sanded down all feature and paint, a kind of deformed, burn-victim of a unicorn. She sat on it. The rusted coil underneath whined. She put her feet up the quarter-taking mechanism (a small black square box) and rested her eyes. The heavy bustle of laundry machines churned behind her.


    All day she had to tolerate their faces. Mostly homeless, especially at this hour. And of those homeless, mostly the drunks. Because they would be only ones to stop and listen.


    ¡®Why the fuck should I care about this kid?¡¯ She remembered an old man saying such. A homeless (though not drunk!), who she had found throwing out lottery tickets like breadcrumbs at the park. Just scratching them out, groaning, and ripping them to small shreds. She wished he¡¯d been the last of the assholes. But this homeless ended up being the first, of a long, long, long line of dispirited assholes. She didn¡¯t even mind calling them assholes anymore, though she felt guilty at first (considering most of them were poverty-disease-struck people), but over time, it seemed even her soul was corroded.


    ¡°Hey, who¡¯s there?¡± She saw the flashlight some paces off from her. It was a light bright enough, a voice commanding enough, to have her fall on her ass.


    The unicorn waved back and forth. She ran out and towards the street.


    She walked with her map out and paid so much attention to it that she didn¡¯t even notice the empty bottles she kicked around. Artisan Lager, one of them read. It smelled of urine. And it rolled down the corners of the block, it led her through the streets and the growing noise and the bustling groups of people.


    There was a buzz in the air from the red fluorescent lights. Then the air moved from bass from the nightclubs opening up all around her. She could feel it on her skin, vibrations in the form of tingling. Her hair rose from the back of her neck. And she wasn¡¯t the only one experiencing this, the people with their tight pants and low tops seemed to feel it too. They made small dance and smaller talk.


    As she progressed through the street and through the night, she began hearing the noise of smacking lips. In the alleys, on the street, hell, she even started to hear it in the gutters. The next sensation to attack her was the smell of nicotine. Her nostrils flared up. Then alcohol, the nose-hair burning substance. And to relax her from the sudden barrage of sensory information, marijuana, that for some reason (she didn¡¯t understand) made her calm.


    Then there was vomit.


    It was distinct. Bile. And that¡¯s about the time she realized she had made it to The Devil¡¯s Tail. This is where the scum is. She looked at the club, one of the broken windows had a grey tarp over it. The air pushed it in and out. Graffiti littered the brick, cheap lights flickered on and off. She felt her confidence retreat. Weird people with weird hair and even weirder tattoos came in and out.Could gel do that?She looked to the men.Where do their tattoos end?One of them had a Baphomet on their neck. She shuddered.


    These were the last people she wanted to interview, but they sure as hell seemed like the guilty she was looking for. And she hoped, for a brief moment, that reason would overrule her sense of justice and that she would run back home to her mom.


    She squirmed and contemplated it, walked back and forth. She raised her shoulders and made herself small and started, but only started to walk back. Within minutes she was back.


    She just couldn¡¯t let it go. All she wanted was an answer, she¡¯d settle for a hint of Pip. Sophie took a breath, fixed her over-alls and dragged her blond hair into a ponytail. She took a step into the alleyway, leading to a short line and a bouncer idling below a flickering light. She aimed for his direction but stopped. Someone passed her, he dragged a breeze with him. She looked up. He was studded head to toe, a robot with too many buttons, glistening brighter than the stars.


    He showed her teeth and unhinged his jaw for a laugh.


    She stepped on the laughing man''s shoes and dug her heel deep in his toe.


    ¡°What are you laughing at?¡± She asked. He held his foot and the people around her, hanging by the walls of the alleys, began to stare.


    She clutched her pocket and traced the outline of her knife with her fingers. People came off the walls to her direction, she ran deeper into the alley. Her hands were to her pockets, her eyes dashed along the shadows of the walls and the irking sound of people dragging their feet. She turned back to catch the fleeting feeling, the stalking sound of people. Nothing. Her hands trembled, when she caught them, she punched herself. When she heard the loud creak of a straggling cart, she ran.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    She wasn¡¯t looking. Something struck her. Her body fell, a crash of metal resounded out.


    ¡°The fuck is your problem?¡± A man yelled.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­¡± She rubbed her head and without even looking, asked, as if that was the only thing she could think of at the moment, ¡°I¡¯m looking for someone.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Someone asked. The same person, she presumed, who put a hand on her shoulder. It gave her chills, she tried to run.


    ¡°Where are you going?¡± This same person asked. He clenched his hand harder on her shoulder.


    She wanted to amputate it off her. It felt like a parasite on her that leeched from her all strength. An infection of the touch, a bite from Medusa¡¯s head, petrifying her. Sophie turned her face, slow and careful. He wore no tattoos and no studs and was not particularly strange, and that frightened her the most. The black shirt, the shaved face, and teeth that showed through the darkness. His hat was thin and crooked like a birds beak. She felt like a worm.


    ¡°You¡¯re looking for someone I hear? Maybe I can help you. Why don¡¯t you give me a shot?¡± His beady eyes looked into her, black and empty, as if a dying man was staring at her. His breath too, was putrid. She could see the toxic stench as fumes, watched them go up like a spirit leaving a body. She moved her hand, and the photo of Pip escaped her arm. It fell. The man picked it up, and Sophie stared at him. She hoped the bouncer would help now, perhaps throw this man out into puddles, far away from any of them. But he was not there, only the door and the swishing sound it made as it went in and out.


    The man tilted his head and blew out his nose. Sophie wanted to leave, but could not. She knew his kind, knew what running would cost her if she didn¡¯t make. She put her hand in her pocket, she looked for her knife.


    ¡°I¡¯m trying to find out what happened to him. Do you have any ideas?¡± Her heart beat fast in her chest. Louder than the music inside the club, louder than the far-off laughs of fools and drunks.


    ¡°I might,¡± he said. ¡°I might¡¯ve seen him somewhere, sometime. Maybe you can help jog my memory.¡± His breath was hot, wet.


    ¡°You¡¯ve either seen him or not,¡± She breathed quickly, in arrhythmic pace.


    ¡°Were you his friend?¡± He smiled. ¡°Girlfriend, maybe?¡±


    She felt her blood freeze. The man threw the photo away. His palms extended out for her.


    Sophie clutched her knife, she varnished the small blade.


    ¡°Get away!¡± She swung. Horizontal, across from her. It cut him, and he took a step back to hold the palm of his hand. The wounded dog.


    ¡°You fucking bitch.¡± He sucked on his wound. He was very much a stray dog with his famished frame. The small wrists and necks. He was a sick man, she figured, of mind and body. She held the knife to her side as she faced him. They looked like two crabs locked in dance, with wide hands away from their bodies. She lunged. He was cut, after all, he screamed it as much. Like a howl. She looked around for help, but there was no one conscious, not the frenzied men and women inside, not the drunks outside sleeping on bags of trash. Alone. Alone she fought. Stabbing, slicing, the small feral cat against the hound. She cut him and tattooed his arm with scars. But he pressed. Angrier each time he bled a new way. He backed her to a wall, and she screamed when she felt it against her back. He grabbed her at last, and she could feel his hand bleeding onto her own.


    ¡°You¡¯re like everyone else, ain¡¯t ya?¡± His breath, it smelled of that nose-hair burning stuff. ¡°Everyone thinks I¡¯m funny.¡± He grabbed her neck. His hands were rough, bleeding, full of contours from his ripped skin. He brought her in closer. ¡°Come on, fightlikeyou did before. Fightlikeyour life depends on it, I like that shit,¡±


    She swung. He took it to the chin, but did not flinch. Rather, smiled. Her heart sunk. But she kept going, kept trying. Laughing. Swinging. Squeezing tighter. She felt her last breath leave her body, and she stopped trying to swing by then. She just clenched his fingers, just tried to pry herself free.


    A thunk.


    He fell face first into the floor.


    Face first into the mud and asphalt, nearly dragging the girl with him. He shook violently, his eyes rolled up his skill. A police officer with his flashlight lit her face.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± He asked. He dragged her out of the alley and towards the street where he screamed at the club goers. ¡°Nothing to see. You hear me?¡±


    Another officer went to the direction they walked from with cuffs. She read the name tag of the man guiding her, Officer Palas.


    ¡°He¡¯s yours,¡± Palas said.


    And then it was like procedure. Stuffing her in a car, putting a blanket over her. Asking, over and over, are you alright? Are you hurt? So on, so forth. Inspecting her (as well as an officer could) then finally, smiling and assuring her that it would - quote on quote - never happen again.


    As if little girls would never get hurt again, in all of man¡¯s history to come.


    As if.


    He took her to the car and sat her and immediately began typing on his computer screen. He wrote some things, heard the radio and talked into his shoulder.


    ¡°I had a call in about a girl causing trouble at the Laundromat, then I got another from an anonymous tip. Found her here, Devil¡¯s tail. Yeah. Yeah. She was in a fight.¡± He smiled. ¡°Yeah, she held her own. Yeah.¡±


    He turned to her.


    ¡°Glad we found you when we did,¡±


    ¡°Me too.¡± She looked down and her depressed arms.


    ¡°You know what freaks are running around town at this hour. Why would you think of running aroundlikeyou did?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m looking for a friend. I think¡­or just trying to learn something, I guess,¡± She presented the photo in her hands. He grabbed it. His eyes widened.


    ¡°Oh,¡±


    Were his hands trembling? Probably not, right?


    He started the car. ¡°You¡¯re the one who started a fight with the cops before, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen him in reports, which makes you the stubborn girl. Stubborn like a mule,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s what they nicknamed you after your little show. The Mule. I hope that¡¯s not embarrassing, aha.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not ashamed. I was just trying to figure out what happened to my friend.¡± She lied. She felt her cheeks go red. He laughed then saw her and stilted his humor with a cough. They went off and followed the golden-yellow lines.


    ¡°You should really let the police handle investigations.¡± He started off with his arm dangling out the window. ¡°Some answers aren¡¯t worth finding out. The truth hurts, you know?¡±


    ¡°I can handle it.¡± She said. Her eyes narrowed. He had a tattoo, on his shoulder? On his bicep? What was it?


    ¡°It¡¯s rare to see someone as young as you actlikeyou do,¡± He smiled. ¡°And that¡¯s a good thing. It¡¯s good to be tough and to be stubborn. Even if it gets you into trouble.¡±


    He drove down to a red light. It reflected off his eyes, the red. The air was cold. As cold as his smile and calm veneer.


    ¡°But boy is it stupid huh? To do something like that in public,¡± He said.


    She could not move. She was held by fear as she looked at him. She couldn¡¯t quite put it, the strangeness of the man. The tattoo, the glean in his eyes, the way he reacted at Pips picture.


    ¡°Where are you driving?¡± She asked. ¡°Don¡¯t you need to know where I live?¡±


    He turned and smiled. Chuckled, but said nothing.


    Her breathing stopped, and she felt her pocket for where the knife should have been. Fuck. He confiscated it, didn¡¯t he?


    ¡°Homesick all of a sudden?¡± The windows rolled up, he threw down shoulder radio onto the back seat. ¡°I thought you wanted to know what happened to your friend, didn¡¯t you?¡±

 Chapter 29

    Dion


    July 20th, 2017


    12:28 AM


    Dion found Apollo winding around the corner. His car radiated heat and fumes from within an alleyway, next to him a dumpster.


    ¡°You look pretty bad,¡± Dion said. He ate a chocolate donut, large bite after bite, the half-finished box behind him and the crumbs all over his lap.


    Apollo jumped in and slammed the door.


    ¡°Sorry it¡¯s messy, I got hungry waiting,¡± Dion said. Apollo fixed himself and checked his cuffs. There was blood on his white shirt.


    ¡°Oh boy.¡± Dion pointed to the drops on his tie. Apollo grabbed his scalp and pulled his hair. He slammed his fist down on the air conditioner, which turned it on, then slammed it again, which turned it off.


    ¡°You alright?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Just shut up,¡± Apollo said. He put the knife in the glove compartment. Which, as it fell, stabbed the interior of the compartment. It sounded like paper shredding with how sharp the knife cut through the hard plastic of the interior.


    ¡°What was in there?¡± Dion started the car. His head glanced left and right as he drove out, sirens made him jump. ¡°Can¡¯t imagine it was any good. The place is lit up.¡±


    ¡°Two officers killed themselves,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Shot, straight themselves right in the brain.¡±


    ¡°What! Why?¡± Dion asked.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Probably to stop themselves from telling me anything. Though they mentioned a name,¡± Apollo fiddled in his pocket for cigarettes. He couldn¡¯t even grip the box properly. ¡°Astyanax. I think that¡¯s what they called him.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s Astyanax? Usually, it¡¯s all for Satan or something.¡±


    ¡°Usually,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Usually people don¡¯t summon demons, either. So I¡¯m going to take a guess and say we¡¯re not dealing with the usual run-of-the-mill cultists.¡±


    ¡°So¡­where do we even start? Astyanax.¡± Dion rolled into a stop. The brakes creaked. ¡°Where do we go? What do we do?¡±


    He drove aimlessly, just to drive.


    ¡°We should get fingerprints right? Or something, blood samples?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Does it look like I have a forensic lab in my back pocket,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Slow down before you add two more to the body count.¡±


    Dion stopped. The red light flashed above him. The momentum swung at them, his neck went forward. It felt like a pulling a muscle. And in front of him? An old woman wandered slowly onto the street, glanced at him with her lazy eye, and moved on


    Apollo sighed.


    ¡°Let¡¯s not get hasty,¡± Apollo said. ¡°We can¡¯t make any moves that¡¯ll send ¡®em back into hiding.¡±


    ¡°Too late, no? You already killed two of them.¡± Dion said. ¡°Besides, we can¡¯t stop them if we don¡¯t attack first.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think you get it. We literally can¡¯t do anything. There¡¯s nothing. No clues, but one fucking knife.¡± Apollo finally found his cigarette. He stuck in his mouth.


    ¡°What?¡± Dion pressed down on the wheel. The car honked. The old woman jerking and fell. ¡°So we¡¯re just stuck then?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Apollo let his shoulder fall and nestled his hands on his lap. He slunk inward, deeper into the seat. He looked like black ooze.


    ¡°We can¡¯t just wait.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t. I am. Imma look up this Astyanax guy, redraw the maps, re-evaluate every source and tip.¡± Apollo¡¯s head tilted out of the window.


    ¡°How about I do some investigative work then?¡±


    ¡°You?¡± Apollo laughed. ¡°You? Investigate?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, right now too.¡± Dion pulled over. ¡°I¡¯m going to go look around the city, you can go off and wait if you want.¡±


    Apollo stepped out onto the noiseless street, a trail of smoke was warping the air and filling his lungs with the taste of tire.


    ¡°Are you serious, what¡¯s your plan?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m patrolling the city.¡±


    ¡°In that?¡± Apollo pointed to smoking Volkswagen.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Dion said. ¡°Have a little faith, would you?¡±


    Apollo rubbed his forehead.


    ¡°Just¡­if you get in trouble, give me a call. Can you do that at least?¡±


    And Dion drove off.

 Chapter 30

    Sophie


    July 20th, 2017


    12:43 AM


    The first thing Sophie felt was the suffocation of a damp blanket, like webbing wrapped all around her body. The second thing she felt was the gag in her mouth, and how it pressed her tongue onto her teeth. She wished she could vomit because the blanket tasted of gasoline and of salt.


    She gasped. Gasping made her choke faster. Choking that made her struggle.


    She looked like a silkworm in its cocoon as she wriggled to and fro in the back seat of the police car. Rope bit into her legs and arms. She could not see anywhere her and only knew they were moving and that the trip was rough because every few feet she would jump in the air.


    ¡°Fuck,¡± She tried to say. She coughed more than she could speak. The car came to a stop, and she rolled off the car seats and onto the floor. Her head struck first, she felt the blood trickle down. Then she felt the aches all around her. Sharp, swollen pains across her chest and head. It felt like jumper cables strapped right on to her, connected to a voltage cranked to the max.


    More than hurt, she was angry.


    ¡°You fucking moth-¡± She started mumbling. The car came to a stop though, the momentum made her jerk and hit herself against the seats.


    She tried standing, lifting herself off her knees, but found the rope too constraining to help. The doors opened, she couldn¡¯t even make it all the way up before someone else grabbed her. It pissed her off. Everything pissed her off.


    It didn¡¯t help that she felt so much pain. Somewhere along the line, her rib cage must have gotten hurt. Because roaring, and screaming and just breathing felt like a thousand prodding needles stabbing into her lungs. She waggled her legs around. The rope cut deeper into her legs and thighs and arms.


    Hands grabbed her by the back of the neck, then the leg as she was lifted up.


    ¡°Get off me.¡± She said between the fit and struggle. It was hard to be afraid, though she should have been. Anger was just too damn overwhelming, maybe that was a blessing. Better to be angry than afraid, better to struggle than to wait. Behind the fabric covering her face she could tell that wherever she was, it was smoky. Or dusty. Because the air made her choke and cough and the mouth gag did not help. She kicked someone. They dropped her. She wiggled on the floor. They grabbed her feet and dragged.


    ¡°It¡¯s like fishing,¡± She heard someone say. A man.


    They went to a building, concrete. They traveled through rooms, her face hitting every bump along the way as they dragged her through. And finally they made to stairs, and then she really felt it. Each sharp angled step, hitting and smacking her face as they dragged her up. Her nose bled through the cloth. It made it stick to her face and made it even harder to breath, like a kind of self-waterboarding. Finally, they stopped. Opened a door. And they threw her. She landed on¡­ something. She couldn¡¯t tell what it was. The floor? No, it was elevated, her feet hung. A desk then? She could feel something rough, like splinters. It must have been wood, old wood. It was sturdy.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    It was a good thing, the gag came undone from the throw. But she didn¡¯t speak, not yet. Couldn¡¯t give it away. Sophie bit into the sack around her face, gnawing and chewing on the bloody cloth. She ripped a hole open, swallowed the cloth and spat it out onto the floor. She stuck her nose out and breathed. Wherever she was smelled damp and aged, with small particles of dust effervescent in the air around her. It was like a tomb, and her, the great sarcophagus. Another sniff. Mold. Asbestos.


    Ash.


    She stuck her eye through the small hole. She saw the figures. Long, shadowy people with great garbs of all black. Masks, some of them wore, with horns and antlers. Others wore shawls. All of them adorned a particular flower. Purple? A purple something, with large pedals pinned to their shoulder or chest.


    They looked human but were anything but. Because they laughed like hyenas and acted like madmen.


    She looked up to the grimly dressed figures, walking shadows in the light of the moonlight that seeped through broken windows. They adorned white clothes, covering them over their eyes. Handkerchiefs to blind them? Strange. Their movements and dances, stranger then. Now she wished she was still angry. But the eeriness, the child-like dance and the laughter and the masks seemed¡­all too much. She took a deep breath, they caught her. All three veiled eyes in the room looked back.


    They didn¡¯t even care that she could see. Or talk.


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t there already a sacrifice yesterday?¡± One of them said. ¡°Who¡¯s the girl?¡±


    ¡°She was snooping around, asking about the boy.¡± A woman spoke, her lips were yellow behind the thin white cloth. A man nodded next to her, he had fat on his chin that shook with him, like a prideful turkey with its hanging neck.


    ¡°Do you think Dr. Alestor will be happy?¡± The woman was more desperate, giddier in her speech. She skipped next to Sophie and knelt down over the table to see her. Sophie spat at her cheeks.


    And the woman, smiling, licked it off.


    Sophie felt her stomach drop then and there. The blood in her cheeks dropped. That was about the time she actually struggled and wiggled herself off the table. She hit the floor face first and groaned.


    ¡°You¡¯re just so obnoxious, aren¡¯t you? A young girl should be a polite girl.¡± The fat man said. Sophie shimmied her way in the direction of the door. It was just so slow, so pointless. She only made it halfway before she realized the futility of it. She laid on the dirty floor, feeling what appeared to be sharp, broken tiles and glass puncturing her. A man dragged her back, through the glass and tile, which scraped her arms and chest and face.


    She really screamed. Mostly for the pain she felt, and a little for the fear that was beginning to float up within her.


    But still aware and though her arms and legs were tied, she opened her hand. She felt something stab her palm and immediately closed it.


    She had a small shard of glass, sharp, but just enough to hide in her hand. She gripped it hard and felt her hand bleed. It didn¡¯t matter. Nothing mattered, but the time she¡¯d be able to use it, the patience needed to wait, and the will to act.


    They plopped her on the table, face up. Arms behind her.


    ¡°Is she ready yet?¡± The woman asked.


    ¡°No, soon though. Very soon.¡±

 Chapter 30.5

    Dion


    July 20th, 2017


    12:41 AM


    Throughout the whole day, Dion had done nothing but errands. By his count: he had stopped four muggings, had helped two old ladies cross and by evening come, had finished three different bar fights. As a note here, he hadn''t even found a single piece of information regarding the Vampire of Havenbrook. Or the cultists. Or any demons, at all.


    No. He had just played superhero. Acted it, too. He sat by the edges of rooftops, looking down with his pale mask on and wondering when trouble would come. It wasn''t bad, but it wasn''t what he thought he''d be doing. His tired eyes wandered, he stretched his stiff legs. The night came early today. And when it got late, things usually happened. Bad things.


    He was in the epicenter of the city, where the music was loud and the drunks even louder. It was a party night, he guessed.


    He waited by one particular rooftop, staring down at a specific set of drunks. And, as he narrowed his eyes, a little girl too?


    "Ah, boy," He watched her. She had spirit. And she attracted trouble (as spirit often does). Drunks, punks, all manners of ill. One of them put a hand on her, tried strangling her, grabbed her and pulled her.


    "She needs help," He stood up from the rooftop and measured how far down the drop would be. And just about the time when he was about to jump, someone came. Police.


    "Oh, thank God." He gestured the cross in front of his face. He watched the small girl enter the police car and watched the drunk beaten and bashed and cuffed on the floor. He didn''t feel an ounce sad about that.


    A crowd formed. People watched, and the girl was put into a car.


    It should have been a relief. But as they stayed in the cop car and the criminal was taken away, and the people dispersed, something else happened too. The girl and the police hadn''t moved from their spot, hadn''t so much as even spoken words it seemed.


    And the girl appeared distressed, shaky. Her shoulders were high above her neckline.


    "That...doesn''t look right at all," He looked at the girl, and the growing dread. Those familiar faces; the wide eyes and the tight-lipped mouth and pale face. And the way she turned away from the police officer.


    It looked...weird. But it must have been a natural reaction, right? She just got attacked, right?Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Maybe he just couldn''t believe it.


    And maybe he was just so damn focused. All other noise, bass, and chit-chatter of horny drunks percolated through the filter of his focus. Such that, even with the bedlman-noise of the club below, he was still keenly focused on the car as it drove down the street. He leaped rooftops. Following.


    And when the police car stopped, he stopped.


    And when the policeman dragged the girl and tied her up, he almost felt like jumping himself and tying the prick up.


    But he stopped almost as quickly as he started.


    He remembered, he took out his phone.


    "What? Apollo asked.


    "There''s a cop here," Dion said. "He''s tying a girl up."


    "Wait, what?"


    "I''m not lying. I''m watching him right now. He''s got her roped and stuffed in the back. A police officer." He bit his lips. "She can''t be older than fourteen."


    There was a pause. A breath, exasperation leaving the body.


    "That''s something," Apollo said. "The guys who killed themselves were both cops. It''s not hard to believe that kind of corruption is in the force. I can''t imagine a badge would make you impregnable,"


    "You''re saying he''s one of those cultists?" Dion asked.


    "I''m saying he might be," Apollo said. "Is he driving still?"


    "He''s starting his car. I can stop him right here, right now,"


    "I can''t make that judgment call for you, I''m not there," Apollo said. "It''s your choice though, let him drive off if you think he''s a lead or stop him right now. It''s on you."


    Dion looked down. The roar of the engine, the smoke from the car hood like a dog''s hot breath in bleak winter dark. Cold, so cold even without snow. The wheels skidded and ran off like the start of a drag race. Lights off, too, so that the police car itself looked like an invisible monstrosity amongst growing darkness. All noise, but absolutely hidden in the light-less streets. He made a sharp turn. Dion followed, each turn forcing him to leap to the other side of the street. He felt his knees in burning pain.


    "Listen." He breathed hard. "I''m letting him go." Another turn, damn. He jumped off, barely caught the edge of a cornice.


    "I''llgiveyoutheaddresswhenhestopsalright"


    He said it so fast so he could just fit his phone back in his pocket, so he could just use both arms to lift himself to the edge of the building.


    "You know, you''re reliable when you want to be." He heard the final lines. "Or maybe you''re just lucky."


    And the phone hung up.


    He carried his body up at last and sat looking down, the cop car had finally stopped. And people came out to greet it, with shifty looks and strange clothes.


    Lucky?


    Lucky. A strange word, maybe applicable. He had a knack of finding oddities. Rare things like death and violence. If you could consider that kind of bloodhound-like discovery work lucky, then yeah, he was lucky.


    His narrowed at the building opposite. The massive, overloaded with wreckage, and in extreme dilapidation.


    It was a building with layers of chain link fence to discourage people. And with even more layers of graffiti behind the fence. Bottles, glass, tired and torn tiles scattered everywhere. There were holes the size of grown men. It was exactly the type of place child kidnappers would hide in. The kind of place that looks so god awful that even looking at it could count as a kind of abuse.


    He watched them drag the girl through the floor and into the building. She wore a cloth wrap with rope tying her together. Mummified.


    A sign below him read,


    4564 Malibu Dr.


    This didn''t look like Malibu. He texted the address anyway.


    And he rubbed his knees and took out his gun because Dion knew, he wouldn''t wait long.

 Chapter 31

    Apollo


    July 20th, 2017


    12:56 AM


    He got the call to the good fight.


    Right there in his rear pockets, the rumbling phone that glowed with the bold letters.


    ''4564 Malibu Dr.''


    He looked out the window. It''s time.


    To his side, the ceremonial dagger. On his other side, a table loaded to the brim with papers and stacks. And on the bed, with a weight so obscenely high that the very mattress shifted inwards; his sword.


    It was chipped. Uneven. Blunt. The fights had done it, the explosions of Arcane magic had done it. Age. Wear.


    His sword looked like it was dying.


    The edge, jagged. It looked like a set of uneven toddler''s teeth. It''d do. He grabbed it from its handle and sheathed it within his coat, all ten feet of steel disappearing like the rabbit in a hat. From the other side of his coat, he took out his mask.


    Hopefully, we¡¯ll catch him today.


    He opened the window and climbed up to the edges. His heart raced. He tried swallowing his spit, but his throat was dry and clogged.


    I don¡¯t think we will, though.


    He galloped along the buildings, his neck bent downwards onto the street signs. And he noticed as he approached the address, how worse and worse the city got. The writing on signs become less and less legible. The buildings, growing more and more in disrepair. They say old men have one foot in the grave. Well, the town had both in, and they were here. On Malibu Drive.


    He arrived. He knew he was there, the cop car was nearby, and there was unsettling quietness. The type of unnatural quiet you get only when you''re trying to be silent. There was not a creak from rusted pipe, nor a scurry from rats. Nothing.


    He jumped over the fence and made his way to the front of the building. He looked up, a sign read,


    ''New Haven Press''


    If this was the New Haven, he didn''t want to see the old Haven.


    He brought up his phone. ¡°Where are you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m almost on the third floor,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Wait there,¡± Apollo said.


    Inside, immediately to his rear were the clay pots. Most of them broken or housing dead trees. Some of them were turned over, the dirt disseminated and blended with the floor. There were small flowers, purple with large pedals. These grew out from the patches of soil. The main stairway was blocked off, the cement stairs collapsed inwards as to blockade them. He went the opposite end, towards a rear stairway and along the way had a good look at the machinery. Levers and dials and small spots underneath the machines, just big enough to fit a kid. He remembered reading about that, child laborers. And he remembered reading how often they lost their fingers and small little limbs.


    I don''t think much has changed. Kids still get hurt. I should know.


    He came up behind Dion who had his back against the wall.


    ¡°What have you found?¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Jesus Christ!¡± Dion turned, gun pointed to Apollo. Apollo ducked. "Oh, no. Forgive me father for using your name in vain." He made a cross in front of his face.


    "Don''t sneak up on me," Dion said. "And... - And be quiet!"


    He put a finger in front of his lips, and both turned around the corner. In front of them was a sprawl of offices and small alleys and doors. And around them, nothing but the wind and the sound of rusted doors shutting and crying from their hinges. It was a high pitched sound. Apollo went forward, hand in his pocket. Nothing.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    They went through the small offices, printing presses laid corroded on collapsed desks. There was raunchy graffiti, beer cans, and bottles on the walls. A condom, Apollo stepped on it, and the mystery liquid it pooled in. It looked like a tapeworm growing out of the floor.


    A bottle popped and broke.


    Dion put his guns forward.


    ¡°Fuck,¡± Apollo said. "It was me."


    He knocked the bottle away. It went out the window into seeming obscurity.


    There was silence, they lowered their arms. They stopped bobbing their heads and wobbling and eased their tensed shoulders.


    Then static struck them. Then, a loud, long-winded high pitched noise. It sounded like a megaphone, and it came from the corners of the room.


    "The Vicars are here.¡± The voice said.


    Their eyes illuminated red.


    ¡°They know we''re here,¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Really? You think so?¡± Apollo said.


    "Don''t be sarcastic-"


    "Where are you, where are you?" They heard barking in the background. It bled into the cackle of a voice and static of the megaphone.


    ¡°What was that?" Dion asked.


    "It doesn''t matter. It''s all trouble," Apollo looked at the foggy windows and put his ear to the wall, he was looking for sounds. "We just need to know when it''s coming."


    ¡°Should we split up? I can climb the side of the wall. I figure there are twenty floors, I can come from the top and rout them down to you.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°No. They don''t sound scared. Though they should be,¡± Apollo started walking to the stairs. ¡°So either they''re bluffing or...¡±


    "They have something to kill us with." Dion followed Apollo.


    He covered the flank. They went up two fleets of stairs before seeing another blockage. On this floor, they have small cubicles, tall screens once white now darkened with age. Behind these cubicles could have been anything. And maybe there was anything behind them.


    Because, on his tip-toes, Apollo could see the horizon. He saw the hooded heads of figures run into the maze-like set of cubicles.


    Dion saw them too, he was first to run.


    Apollo grabbed his shoulder. ¡°Together.¡±


    Dion nodded. They kept their bodies low as they went through, Dion on one end and Apollo on the other.


    He stopped though. Stumped his leg on something (or thought he had), a snag or piece of furniture. He looked down. It was a plastic bag, white and with something bulging out from the sack.


    He couldn''t even breath.


    He knew what it was, he knew that familiar smell. His mouth dried.


    There was dried blood on the bag, wasn''t there? And a toxic yellow-green from decomposed flesh, wasn''t it?


    And that sharp thing, the thing he hit. That was bone. Bone. A femur.


    ¡°Don¡¯t fuck around, Dion.¡± Apollo turned his head with tact, with an almost pained expression behind his mask. ¡°These are our guys, Dion. I''m sure of it.¡±


    They had made it to the other end of the room and where the walls narrowed into a thin hall and a thinner set of stairs.


    ¡°The Mad Hatter must have designed this shit hole,¡± Apollo said. They put their backs against each other. They took a step, something bustled. It felt like the ceiling would fall on them. Or maybe the floor. Because each step onto the concrete seemed to make the cracks larger.


    The megaphone turned on again. There was just laughter now, and some old ragtime song. Scott Joplin.


    "What the fuck," Apollo said. Through the stairs, up each room, through the intersections of the office building, the music blared. Warped. Echoed.


    They made it to floor twelve. That was the second time Apollo saw a hooded figure. He saw him vanish through an editors office and ran after him. The door closed. He put his foot against the wood, it caved in. His foot was stuck, the wood was just too old. So he tackled it instead. Dust covered the area.


    Dion, who followed, who was nearby let out a gasp.


    "Behind us." He said.


    Apollo turned. He saw a figure pass his peripheral.


    "They''re fucking with us." He said. It was like a dance, with people come in and out of darkness, coming in and out of frame. Behind them. In front of them. Through the doors, out of them. The music blared. Now jazz. With scratches and pops and a tonal quality only describable as cold and sharp.


    ¡°They¡¯re just people, don''t worry.¡± Dion grunted. He put an undisciplined finger on his trigger.


    The cultists danced, their steps like a kind of bass-line to the barrage of noisy jazz. Steps, twirls, so loud it almost sounded like heavy rain.


    And like rain, there''s a crash of thunder.


    "Get over you prick." Apollo took aim at one of the cultists. He ran after him. Closer. Almost close enough to grab his coat, he missed by a few inches. And the man turned another corner, and Dion came up behind him.


    The man was gone. And now they were in an odd spot, in the center of a crossway between four different directions.


    The music stopped. The cultists stopped. Or maybe...they all...just vanished.


    Replaced by something worse, something approaching like a roaming dark cloud.


    Something drew closer. Something with a droning growl. Something pawed and clawed, whose dragging footsteps made a scratching noise against the wood and tile. And this creature, whatever it was, sniffed the air with long-drawn inhalations.


    ¡°Dogs?¡± Dion asked. Apollo couldn¡¯t answer. He took out his blade, it was too large to manage in the closed space, but he thrust out anyways.


    And from these four sides, they saw them.


    The hot jaws of death that made their way around the corner. Narrow creatures, with bright fangs and claws. Single-eyed, four-legged, sharp-furred beasts.


    With a wide maw and breath so terrible that Apollo could feel the noxious fumes. The musk in the air, so thick that it wrapped around him like a lasso or noose.


    "Kill ''em all." Apollo''s voice hurried. "Shoot. Shoot. Shoot!"

 Chapter 32

    Apollo


    July 20th, 2017


    1:02 AM


    The Vicars did not see the hellhounds coming. Only felt them, the wind that rushed past them with each of their violent passes through the doors around them. They saw glimpses of them. Eyes that they traced, that looked like lines of blue and yellow across the black void of the building walls.


    They saw their fur like wild weeds growing into tangles of black knots. Dion shot out at a hallway. The bullet raced down, illuminating the area and eventually coming out a wall and into the abandoned building neighboring them. He hit nothing. They saw everything. Jagged teeth, snouts so elongated as to look like whips or tusks. They were deformed, awkward, drooping. Diseased hellhounds. With long, flat faces. Wide too, especially as they turned and tried napping at the two. Apollo stared inside their mouths and saw nothing. A void.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to get cornered.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°We already are.¡± Apollo spat. His blade was resting on the wall he had just finished crushing. It was atop the pile of rubble.


    ¡°We need to move.¡± Dion kept his body low. He was breathing hard behind his mask, the fumes came from underneath his jawline.


    ¡°On my count.¡± Apollo said.


    "One." He looked around him. No exits near him, the doors were too far and there were three dogs in between them all.


    "Two." His eyes raced. He felt the wall with his sword. Like a walking stick, hearing for the low tap of wood. For any fragile walls.


    ¡°Three.¡± He shouted. The three dogs rushed at him, north, west, east. Apollo rose his blade to the south and let it fall, down. The floor exploded. The rotten wood and pipe fell burned, smoldered, melting around Apollo and Dion who sank further down. They were in the cafeteria, atop the tables and chairs now dented or lying injured, arms broken around their fallen bodies.


    ¡°Did you get ¡®em?¡± Dion said. He was digging out wood from his legs.


    Apollo said nothing. He tried to stand quickly. He couldn¡¯t. The dogs were coming down, from the red, smoldering ring. Like fish in the lake of fire, jumping, flapping around.


    But they bit. They bit hard.


    The first thing eaten was Apollo¡¯s hand. The jaw dug deep into his bone, into the veins that gushed violently, into the marrow slurped and sucked and dried. Then it climbed up. His forearm was gnawed it, it was meatier. More satisfying. And only when his flesh lay in ribbons in the air like some gory wind chime with its whistling tune did Apollo finally strike back. His sword lay on the floor, his only other arm was swinging strong. His fist was in the shape of a hammer as he brought it down on of the four-eyed great dogs. He dug deep into the furred darkness, he ripped hair out. He looked at its flesh, a cloudy mixture of gray and black. They were dead animals, demons, that much was sure. Apollo stopped punching. All four eyes looked at him and they bit harder into his arm. He couldn¡¯t help but moan. It seemed to call the second animal. This one looked hungrier, he aimed at Apollo¡¯s rear.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    A bullet shot it down. The second dog spun in the air from in the impact, a ballet toss, and collapsed. It whimpered. One of its legs flew away. Dion smiled for a moment. Apollo struggled with the parasite on his arm. Then they both stared in awe as the leg regrew, as the dog mounted itself again.


    ¡°Don¡¯t just stare in awe.¡± Apollo screamed. His voice was strained, high pitched. ¡°Watch out for the third.¡±


    He grabbed the beast with his only free arm and swung it down. Both Apollo and the monster fell, he slammed it harder again. It let at last, pinched between a punch and the wall, its mouth opened and Apollo retreated his arm. He stared at it, his face looked dull. It was different. White and red all across, he couldn¡¯t tell what it was. Splintered, eviscerated. He screamed, at last. Apollo held his shoulder, it was the only thing that wasn¡¯t hurting.


    Oh, his arm was terrible. How it drooped on his side, lame and dead, and how it made him stand lopsided. He could not bear to look at it. He stood, his eyes focused. They were attentive. His body tried healing it, what little it could and the smoke rose up between him and the animal.


    Apollo reached with his left to the sword fallen near him. He walked or rather the dog let him walk. He put his sword back inside that insignia in his jacket and there, dropped the jacket as well. He ripped something from it, black cloth from the suit. Cloth he held, cloth he wielded inside of his blade. And then he faced the animal. Handicapped.


    They were both low, both primed and high-shouldered. They were breathing and sniffing the air and running around each other in their private dance.


    The dog flew out. Like an arrow camouflaged in the darkness. Apollo moved forward and in the middle of its trajectory shot his only good hand out. It broke the beast''s teeth and the shrapnel shot out. It cut his cheeks and left him with a Glasgow sneer. And his arm was inside the mouth of the beast, his only good arm. He wiggled, he scratched the inside of the beast mouth and felt his arm beginning to hurt and stab. The weight dragged him down and the hound pulled, hoping to leave him armless.


    Apollo smiled. He bent his knee. He rubbed something in his hands, inside the steam and wet flesh of the hound''s mouth. It was the very cloth of his jacket, sticky and damp. It was a special piece of his make. The only piece that mattered, the arcane symbol. He rubbed the embroidery of the design and his hand slipped in. Deep inside he thrust his arm and deep inside he removed the blade from its small scabbard. It was the magicians trick, the pull of the rabbit out of the hat. And he would pull it all out.


    The beast growled. Then expanded as if to vomit. Apollo smiled, he kept dragging the blade out of the arcane symbol. it was too late for the hound to spit by then. It exploded. Too small to eat arm and blade. It was just too full.


    The dog cried out. It rained. The lower half was scattered about, the mouth, the face just stared off and away from Apollo, all eyes looking at each corner of the earth, a cross-sighted death. Its grip became limp as the muscles eased and Apollo dragged himself out. His own arms fell as well. He could not move them, he only looked at what was left of the hound. His eyes were heavy and the sounds of violence and of Dion¡¯s struggle were low behind him like a shout in an empty tunnel, fading away.


    Apollo shook his head. He looked deeper into the body of the monster, he found the glow of the philosophers stone and rubbed his mask upward with the knob of bone hanging barely on his wrist. His mouth salivated, his chin felt cold in the open air.


    Apollo reached down and dunked his head into the body of the animal. A carnival game, he almost laughed at the thought. He was bobbing for apples. And it wasn''t difficult, there wasn''t much left. He rubbed his mouth past some organs, past the stringy flesh and muscle, past the ropes of guts.


    He found the gem, the sweet fruit and swallowed it whole. His arms returned to him, muscles regenerating first, then skin. Barely healed, barely moving. But there, at least.

 Chapter 33

    Alestor


    July 20th, 2017


    1:08 AM


    They sat on their bellies and rolled on the floor with an intensity that made Alestor cringe, lost pets dragged themselves on the dirty floor with mouths hanging from their covered faces and the hope and want in their bloodshot eyes. They took steps forward, like lizards chasing the hot sun that had passed through the sky many hours ago. They were here for worship. Of Astyanax, of that demon who promised their family names the world and who had delivered nothing but the false hope and the anxiety. Still, they would worship. Perhaps he would listen today and even Alestor began to believe it. They were close, that was sure.


    The most excited for today''s offering were those in the front, their knees were bleeding and their pants were ripped and stained with old floral wallpaper made to rot. They looked like scabs of the earth now, black and brown stickers that stuck to the worshipers as they slithered up the room. It was an office meeting once. Once, now it lay lopsided and uneven and on the end where an old projector screen once flapped around, was the makeshift altar. A collection of candles, of scripture and of those yellow flowers in broken vases. The cheap dollar candles stood lonely like acolytes in church. They flickered and illuminated nearly nothing. The worshippers came up. They picked candles and held them close to the heart. Like awkward pirouettes, they rushed round the table, the heartbeat of the fire shaking left and right. The tailcoats died at last and they stepped around to the maggot half-eaten roundtable to their rear. They propped them one by one and set a human femur in a certain place. They were forming crosses, tearing yellow flower petals and putting strands of hair onto the spots where the arcana symbol had been etched in. Unholy worship, unholy sacrifice.


    A cup. A goblet, bejeweled and stained looking, shaped awkwardly, like a dented half circle. Alestor came up to it. He put it at the very center of all the pretty sticks and bones and flowers.


    He looked back, the veil on his head was purple. Far different from the white they all wore, the eight others.


    Alestor looked back at the girl, Sophie, lying in the corner of the room in a complacent manner. Her deep breaths sucked in the sack and blew it out like an artificial lung.


    ¡°Bring the chair.¡± Alestor said. One of the degenerates rushed to the other end of the room. There was a chair there, somewhere in the intersection of moonlight that broke through the metal bars outside the windows. There Alestor could see the chair, the feet dangling from its high legs. The worshiper titillated the chair, rocked it some. It did not move. He dragged it and Alestor could hear it cry and moan as it came forward. There someone there. Someone young, long passed. The life bled out of her, dripping down one side. He raised the cup and put it under her. The blood would not come off the wood and he raised her hand and rested it inside like a siphon of her life force. Vampires.


    She did not move.


    ¡°Fuck.¡± Alestor began to sweat. I don¡¯t want to kill another one. He thought. He felt the vibrations from under his feet. The struggle was continuing and his fingers were tingling with worry. Needle prickles, all across his chest, like his lungs, had become a living puffer fish. It seemed to pain him. He heard a man scream. He heard a dog cry. Now the other nine worshippers looked around, the seeming calm around the room somehow discomforting as they played with their hair and bodies like concerned children.


    But what¡¯s another one to the mound? What¡¯s one more sin? Alestor thought.


    It was time and he was closer, he could not wait and it seemed the world could not either. He looked to Sophie.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    ¡°Those hunters have made a martyr of you.¡± Alestor said. ¡°They pushed me to this. Day in, day out with their nosy pickings. They dragged me and hurt me and forced me. Perhaps we could have used others. More deserving people than you, girl. But I don¡¯t have that luxury anymore.¡±


    He brought himself up and shuffled his feet to Sophie. His whole body was opposed to the action with rigidity. He stopped all of a sudden. Sophie¡¯s hair stuck out from a cut in her sack, her lips showed, she screamed at him. He almost forgot there was a person under there. He wanted to forget there was and felt his cloth slip from his face. His nose, his large forehead, and chin couldn¡¯t keep it any longer and he shook. Two gaunt eyes showed back, Sophie saw.


    ¡°You killed him. Didn¡¯t you?¡± Sophie asked. Alestor reached down for the cloth. He wiped his sweat and put it back on. It felt dirty like grease rubbed across his face and all of him felt slippery. Unable to stand, unable to move without feeling a need to fret and fumble.


    ¡°Shut up.¡± Alestor said. He reached for the hood and grabbed it. She was heavier than he thought and his knees buckled at each step towards the chair. One of the members offered his help with extended hand.


    ¡°Don¡¯t. She¡¯s mine.¡± Alestor said.


    ¡°I¡¯m no ones.¡± Sophie screamed.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you gag her?¡± He screamed at the eight. They nodded and looked at their feet and pleaded with open hands.


    ¡°Just be quiet.¡± Alestor hunched over.


    ¡°My name is Sophie and you killed my friend, Pip.¡±


    ¡°Be quiet.¡± Alestor said. Names make it worse, just shut up. He thought. He stopped midway to the chair and let himself catch air, he looked up around him to the broken glass and the dirt and the furniture scattered like deforested lands. He walked over to one of his men, he ripped a piece of suit from the right sleeve of the follower.


    ¡°If you can''t do your job then I¡¯ll gag her.¡± He said.


    ¡°Why? Why not just send her off? We can do it quick¡± Another said. His voice was firm, booming. A natural orator. The mayor perhaps? Commissioner? What little importance, the sin was just as grave for either.


    ¡°Fuck you.¡± Alestor screamed. ¡°I need to keep her quiet.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t keep the dead silent.¡± Sophie shouted. Alestor reached for where he thought her neck would be but could not figure, he grabbed a nose instead, a head that kept slipping from his grip. He pulled her. She wrestled him. His mask fell off again. His hair broke. Chaos, a tussle between the weak old man and the young girl. Lunge. Punch. Headache. Pain, slow, pain. Sharp.


    He finally took the sack from her. He hesitated. A young girl, just a young girl. His eyes narrowed. Her fierce expression changed his consternation. She had their eyes, the hunters eyes, though human. She had that resolve or seeming resolve.


    "No one forgets. The world doesn''t, you''ll see." She said. "You''ll face judgment, everyone does."


    His heart raced with that same worry and he reached for her mouth to shut it. The rope from her arms now dangled from her, the other eight stared in that Mexican standoff, unsure if he could handle such an unruly child.


    He got close, inches. He felt her bitter breath down his wrist like the hot knife. Up his sleeves, nothing hid.


    She shouted. She revealed the glass knife. She cut him. The world shook.


    The ground, the table, the bones, and candles all went dead and the room was filled with a renewed darkness that swallowed them instantly. It was a pop, a large jump that made them all fall. All furniture was pushed outward like an ocean wave had just washed them out and away. They rubbed their heads, all nine and looked around. The girl was gone. The door was rattling violently from its broken hinges like saloon doors. She was gone.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go catch her.¡± Alestor rubbed his scalp.


    ¡°What was that explosion?¡± One of them said. Another looked outside, put his hands on the bars and faced down. The whole second floor was erupting with flames from the windows with the fury of Vulcan''s furnace. Something was being worked, they all heard the noises of steel and of flesh and of mighty shouts.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± Alestor said. ¡°Just get out, any way you can. There are plenty of escapes, you know them.¡±


    ¡°And what if we can¡¯t?¡± A young woman said.


    ¡°Then you do whatever you can to preserve our security." His eyes looked cold in the darkness. "Anything.¡±


    One of them raised his head and stepped forward


    ¡°Paradise waits for us. Why worry for any temporary suffering?¡± He reasoned.


    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± Alestor said. He rubbed his nose, blood was leaking. He walked up shaky like a pyramid of cards desperately trying to rebuild itself. The parts would not click. He fell, shattered. His face landed down, towards the cup and he felt it in his hand. Goblet in hand, he composed himself, his courage was with him. He felt it, a guardian devil over his shoulders. He walked out the door. On one end were the sounds of violence, of hounds and man. On the other, nubile footsteps. He retracted a knife from his belt and went to work.

 Chapter 34

    Dion


    July 20th, 2017


    1:16 AM


    Dion heard his gun drop before he felt the bite on his shoulder like a bear trap had been clapped on the bone hinges of his arms and left there, to bleed him and to drain him and to leave him weak on one side. A bullet shot off as the gun landed on the floor. It made a hole through three walls, through pipe and concrete that spilled dirty water all over the floor. Dion pointed his other gun towards himself. He screamed, he aimed it at his shoulder and felt the beast fly off. Chunks of his body went with it. It did not die. It shook its wide, misshapen head, like a giant fan those Egyptian kings and queens used to satisfy themselves in heat.


    Dion could feel the air it blew, the smell of its rotten skin and then heard it growl. His arm was teetering. He could not move it.


    He shot at air, the smoke and the sound filled his ears with buzzing and made his nose stuffy. He turned his head to see where the creature ran as it dodged. It bounced around, it blended in with the darkness of the room and when he finally got a sight. He pulled. Click. Nothing, his gun was empty. From a distance, he could see the creature growling, four yellow eyes facing back. It looked like a piece of the darkness, a cancer that grew out from the corner of the room it hid in. It was facing him, he could see it and the intense expression on its face like Lucifer¡¯s wrath.


    It did not let go of its gaze. It kept its lock on him. Dion looked down, he searched for the other gun that had slid away a while back and now he was searching the floor for nothing. A piece of wood. Dion¡¯s face tightened. His legs locked, his knees were bent. He could feel cold from his legs to his thighs as if he had been submerged in the ice-topped waters of the arctics. And the mass had broken. He was sinking. His body felt colder.


    The dog lunged. The air whistled as its sharp face headed towards Dion. A torpedo, a giant nuclear warhead dedicated to Dion¡¯s complete annihilation. Slobber, hunger all over the dusty air. Dust shot out, it painted the windows brown.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    ¡°Ass. Down.¡± Apollo shouted.


    Dion ducked. It was easy, his broken shoulder was already weighing him down. His whole body fell ragdoll like a puppet cut from its strings, he just laid there. He saw the giant sword in the air, spinning, like helicopter blades. He saw it hit the dog and go further out. Go through one wall, two, before landing in a hall, have submerged into the asbestos and the cheap wood. It exploded. A torrent of fire ran out.


    Dion could see it, go through the ceiling and the pipes. It looked like an engine exhaust, the way the flames flew out from the holes like clarinets filled with glycerin and brimstone. They made no beautiful music though, Dion covered his ears. It was nothing but crashing and violence and the explosion of metal and the ricochet of that metal. The shock wave made him deaf.


    When his eyes woke up he looked to where the blade had been shot. Apollo was coming up. Both his arms were in rags, of skin and of suit. He was going through the holes and now shot out smoke. He disappeared in that darkness, his outline becoming a deeper shadow in the pillars of smog. The fires were just beginning to grow. And from one of the mighty torrents, from one of the waves and licks of the fire wisps, Dion saw a philosophers stone thrown out. It broke off and Dion eyed it. He ate and when all limps and weapons were accounted for, he ran through the fire. It felt like a carnival game, the burning ring. He wished it was just a ring. But every inch of the second floor seemed about to be swallowed. Glass broke from a distance, the floor was holed up and he walked on thin planks. It felt like an ocean vessel, tipping and cradling a wound that had destined it to sink.


    "Where''s the other dog?" Dion''s eyes skidded. His posture became low, again.


    "Who knows. We really can''t go back now" Apollo said. "This place is going to collapse."


    ¡°Then let it, we''re demon hunters, not construction workers. Let''s go hunt.¡± Dion said. He ran to the stairs where the fire had not reached.


    "Take it easy. I''m sure he''ll be up there, with his master. They''ll all get theirs. Trust me." Apollo said. Dion eased. He coughed a bit.


    "The Priest won''t like any of this." He said.


    ¡°Fuck the Priest. We¡¯re not here for him.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°You¡¯re right. You''re right...¡± Dion''s eyes came up to the third floor, small clouds of black smoke were finding their way through the broken windows of this particular floor.


    ¡°I want them, to let the people sleep easy for one night. If I can at least do that, everything would be worth it.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°I just want to get the fuck out of here already. The sooner the better.¡± Apollo said.


    They surveyed the land. They pressed their ears against the walls, they could hear the fire eating away at everything. But Dion heard something else. Coughs, choking. And he smiled.


    ¡°They¡¯re like bees.¡± Dion said. ¡°A whole lot of fuss until you smoke them out.¡±


    Apollo scoffed. They put their wrists to their mouths and walked.

 Chapter 35

    Sophie


    July 20th, 2017


    1:21 AM


    It was a long struggle Sophie put up before she came to the spot of her death. Though she did not know it yet.


    For at the moment all she knew was the sharp pain in her lungs from cold air. It transformed, it went to her lower body from a stiffness of her ankles and difficult twist as she came around a corner. She fell. The glass knife in her hand cut her palm. She switched hands, rubbed her ruined skin on her garments and wrapped it with a piece of her sleeve. So much of her body ached, it felt pricked and prodded as if returning from duress in an iron maiden.


    "Where are you girl?" She heard in the distance. An echo of an echo, her body slow and steady as it came up. Her bruised knees were made to shiver and she looked side to side. Half the wall was ripped and laid to ruin to her right. On her left was a small hole in the wall, she ran into it. A toilet blackened with the years lay on its side. Its contents spilled, tar or coffee looking fluid that smelled of something septic. She crawled away from it. In front of her, there was another door or the door frame at least. There was nothing there really, just a small stake on the side of the wall. There were stalls and there were sinks. And she ran past them all.


    ¡°Come back sweetheart, I need you.¡± She could hear him. Closer now, a voice that boomed and seeped its way through every nook and cranny. She swore she heard something else, a bloodhound. Tender steps of something tactile slapping away at the floor. She came to the cafeteria, it was down the hall from the bathroom. Some tables were still there and the plastic bright blue colored chairs were there too. They fell into clutter and she held her breath for fear. Sophie looked back to the halls. She couldn¡¯t bear the thought of watching him come through the hallway. She ran for the kitchen. There was a bar of sorts, a serving station that separated the two areas and she hid behind, where the rusted metal ovens now slept.


    She passed her hand past a handle. She jumped.


    The oven door opened and the pilot light rolled out. She could hear her heartbeat, felt it too, in giant pulses through her veins.


    He was coming. Running, screaming inside. She raised her blond head and saw through the broken glass of the food concession stand. It was empty, most of the kitchen was stripped. There was a hose, like a snake, dangling from the wall. A few pots laid about.


    ¡°It won''t hurt.¡± Alestor screamed. ¡°I won¡¯t hurt you, I promise. I¡¯m just going to slit that tender throat of yours.¡± His hair was wild. His face, a blustering mess of grunts and deep breaths.


    Sophie held her mouth again. She begged her body to hush. Past him, past the madman, she saw the dog. The dumb faced lazy legged dog. Wide and grinning, slobbering over the floor and biting the concrete floor into granite. The mass of tendril-like hairs and darkness. It was tasting for her footsteps. Her body felt torn, tackled in two directions. To fall, to run. A seizure of her heart.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    She stepped over the pilot light. Oh, how she cursed, fuck, fuck, fuck. Maybe they hadn¡¯t seen it? They turned. They knew it, though they could barely see her form and the fear shot into her skull, two wide, white bullets where her eyes should have been, they knew it.


    She ran for it. The metal sounded off like a barrage, like a coming army onto the fielding. Canon fire, the screams of the dead and dying.


    She ran to the exit. Ran past the leaking restrooms and the despondent libraries and the offices of writers and of editors and past the ocean of desks now breathing dust into the air.


    She ran to a window. Thought to jump, saw the smoke and the flames and thought otherwise. Fine then, up further, up as high as the sky. She ran. The stairs nearly fell on her but she ran anyway past the shattering floor and its shifty steps. The rubbled she shot down sounded off like a rolling rock down the great temples and mountains.


    The fire exit lay ahead. She pressed her body. Screamed.


    ¡°Open.¡± She yelled. The doors budged, the moonlight came in and her vision blurred. She fell and crawled a bit before her vision of twos cleared, zeroed in.


    Alestor was there. All the loose robes and gowns on him pushed west. He looked like the dying sail of a sinking mast, the ship sunk. Her heart sank. She looked back. She could see four yellow eyes in the now obscure darkness. She didn''t know how she managed to run through the nothingness, she didn''t realize how bright the night was.


    ¡°It didn¡¯t have to be you.¡± Alestor said. ¡°You were just the one most convenient to us.¡±


    She punched the floor.


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have snooped. You should have just let things go. Don¡¯t blame me for this.¡± Half anger, half morose. Alestor''s voice died and inflected with the confliction.


    ¡°Your murderer.¡± She said underneath her breath. Alestor leaned in.


    ¡°Wh-what was that?¡± His hands shook.


    ¡°You murdering son of a bitch.¡± She repeated. Her nose dripped, her eye lids felt hot as if a hot ring was pressed against both sockets.


    ¡°I do what I do for who I love.¡± He said. He was screaming at the sky. ¡°This isn¡¯t the end. Trust me.¡±


    ¡°Shut up you liar. Shut up, shut up, shut up.¡± She stood.


    ¡°There¡¯s more past this, you little parasite. And it¡¯s more than you deserve.¡± His mind was made up. His guilt and his fear shook off, Alestor gripped his knife.


    Sophie gripped her own. Glass, just a piece. She felt the weight in her hand and repeated as she had done on the school grounds, with the other bullies. With Pip.


    She cocked her shoulder back, she brought her arm down and with one final throw, chucked it at him. The knife cut Alestor across the cheek. She cut the sympathy from his heart.


    ¡°Where are you looking at?¡± She asked. ¡°You freak.¡±


    He touched the line of blood. His blood must have been glycerin, gasoline, something explosive because his face was red. His head, shaking and on brink of exploding.


    ¡°You ruined my face, you bitch.¡± He said. He came to her. And she stood still, proud for a moment, that she was not begging. Not in fear, and only just beginning to cry.


    She felt the knife run through her. A warmth came to her that spread across her body. A strong sting spread across her belly. The air made it worse. She put her hands up, they fell limp after a while though she did not know why. Her brain and body struggled, split. She wanted to talk, couldn''t. She wanted to move, but her limbs refused. The struggle ended after a while and she fell, face first. But it didn''t hurt. Nothing much hurt. She tried moving her face, nothing. She was becoming a statue, a museum piece locked into some stubborn pose. It was all guesswork after that, to see what moved and what didn''t. A toe, fingers. That didn''t last long.


    And she went stiff.


    And the burden of life seemed cut from her. The bark and the fire, the moaning and the screaming. Faded. Color faded. Of all things to last longest, she was glad it was her memories and her imagination and her dreams and her feelings.


    The grainy film of memories in her head didn''t know where to go or stop. So she thought of her mother and grandfather. That kept them focused and she was happy. And she was frustrated. A little worried and very sad.


    Sad, but relieved, that she was cold now, cold and calm.

 Chapter 36

    Apollo


    July 20th, 2017


    1:30 AM


    ¡°You¡¯re surprisingly calm.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Well, we¡¯re working, aren¡¯t we? I¡¯ve already messed up enough to know what it feels like to get burned.¡± Dion came around the corner, barrels pointed to the hallway.


    Apollo turned as well, finger pointed to his lips. They both stood on opposite walls, ears to the walls. They could hear breathing. The house was alive. They opened the first door and looked around the room so dense with darkness and mold that breathing felt difficult, it was the dusty wreckage of the years harassing him.


    ¡°What¡¯re we doing here?¡± Dion asked. ¡°The fire is rising.¡±


    Apollo hushed him again. They both looked around the room and the curtains that wafted lazily, they hung by one metal ring and dragged across the floor. Apollo watched them again, eyed them, and the contours they made. He came up to them and they breathed out. It was a quiet voice, like a mouse, an auxiliary creeping. He dragged the curtains out and watched them fly towards the hallway centerfold. A man was behind it, his suit ruined, he was on the floor with both arms to his face.


    ¡°Look at what we found.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re in trouble.¡± Dion rubbed his chin.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare, I¡¯m being watched over. He¡¯ll punish you.¡±


    ¡°Who will?¡± Apollo laughed.


    ¡°Astyanax. The king, he knows and his eyes are everywhere. His form everywhere, he is the universe.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± Apollo looked around at the silence. ¡°You worship demons and you¡¯re telling me he¡¯s everywhere? Ready to strike?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡± The man spat at Apollo¡¯s shoes.


    Apollo kicked him with it and rubbed it in his face. He dragged him out and towards Dion, threw him. He cupped his hand and put it to his ear.


    ¡°I can¡¯t hear his voice. I can¡¯t see his face. I can¡¯t feel him onto him. Well, shit, I think you just got conned, buddy.¡± He twisted the sole of his foot into the man¡¯s belly and watched the breath come out of his lungs.


    ¡°It¡¯s time to get judged.¡± Dion lifted him. He put him over his shoulder and felt him slump.


    They came out of the room. It was a small study, was, now it was torn and thrown along and soon to be burned along with the rest. The stained books and sheets of wood would go with the building, they knew as they looked out to the window and the weary fire now growing.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    They came to a corner where the smoke was dense and saw someone trying to run. Desperation was in his eyes, he held a white cloth over his mouth and kicked the rusted knob of a window. It would not lift. Apollo came closer to him and offered his hand, he broke the lever and broke the glass and reached his neck around to meet the man¡¯s horrified face.


    ¡°You looked like you needed a hand.¡± He said. The man screamed. He fumbled towards his belt and took out a knife, dropped it, picked it up again and looked to stab Apollo. He was inches deep into Apollo¡¯s body. His scream was wild, a doe caught out in the woods on some maze of branches, with the bristles choking him out.


    He looked up to Apollo¡¯s mask, a little proud. He saw nothing. No pain on the dark, lines around the eyes, nothing on the white porcelain. Apollo simply removed the knife and chucked it out. It fell. It clanked when it hit the floor. And the second man began to sink.


    ¡°Say.¡± Dion said. ¡°Do you think he knows where the rest are?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a great question. It really, really, is.¡±


    They both looked down at the slunk man and his sucked-in face. His neck was fat and he looked like he was frowning three times over.


    They were done. Four of them were caught, three in a rusted chain, bound together and hauled around like cattle. Apollo held the chain. The other was hog-tied on Dion¡¯s shoulder.


    ¡°This one went better than usual.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°We burned a house down.¡± Dion climbed upstairs to the final floor, and from there, the exit at the rooftop.


    ¡°Yeah, those things happen in this line of work.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just glad we caught them.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just glad we¡¯ll have someone else to talk to when we get back.¡± Apollo grabbed one of their chins and rubbed it like a small child, an encouraging nudge.


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to torture them, you hear me?¡± Dion said.


    ¡°No, no. I promise.¡± Apollo yanked on the chain. ¡°It¡¯ll just be a firm, very firm, interrogation.¡±


    ¡°Please, stop.¡± Dion shook his head.


    ¡°This could have been done sooner if you didn¡¯t lose your cool the first few times we came up against their little monstrosities.¡±


    ¡°Well, I kept my cool today.¡±


    ¡°Only because I was here every step of the way. I doubt you would have done it yourself.¡±


    ¡°Why can¡¯t you just appreciate some good fortune for once?¡± Dion pumped the head of the man on his shoulder. It knocked him out. ¡°See what you made me do?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just glad that soon, I won¡¯t have to see your ugly mug ever again. We¡¯ll finally be leaving. I can taste it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re already assuming one of them will talk. I hate that arrogance about you, it¡¯s uncouth.¡± Dion walked up the stairs.


    ¡°Oh, trust me, they¡¯ll talk.¡± Apollo stopped at the fire escape door. The rooftop was in front of them.


    ¡°After you.¡± Apollo pointed the way. Dion rolled his eyes. He put one hand on the door. He pushed. They were silenced. The fire burned diligently, it ate and ate and in the quietness, they could hear the digestion of the building. It sounded like brimstone, like hell.


    In front of them was the last hellhound and next to it, they saw Sophie. And in that burning heat, in the smog and smoke, in the warping fumes of the flames of the fire, they both stood still. Frozen.


    ¡°Dion.¡± Apollo grabbed Dion¡¯s shoulder.


    But it was too late. All he saw was red.


    And all Apollo saw, beyond in the horizon of the dark, was the blue meteor bullet shot out. It lept from building to building, eviscerating them with its fury. It stopped, finally, at a sign. A man holding a donut, and it exploded into a swarm of sparks. Like a migration of red doves had finally made their stop and scattered.


    It burned. And the destruction was laid out in front of Apollo. He tried lunging for Dion to stop, in fear that it would not end with just the wreckage. But he was punched, hit in the jaw and he laid on the floor, absorbing with red eyes, an oncoming darkness.


    He was unconscious and stayed that way until Dion was done with his maddened massacre.

 Episode 4 - Chapter 37

    The Priest


    July 24th, 2017


    5:03 AM


    At five in the afternoon, for the last three days, the Priest was always at the ready. He stood in front of the door and knocked. And by five-twenty in the afternoon, he would leave. It was like that. He felt like a debt collector.


    It wasn¡¯t unreasonable. He just wanted to know what had happened. The news didn¡¯t share much information about anything, other than the number of corpses found and the destruction wrought by the burning building. He wanted to hear it from Apollo. But Apollo would not say it. He did not open his doors. Not until the fourth day, when he had patience, when the bags of his eyes receded into soft wrinkles. His body was slop. His hood dragged down on his back, sweatpants tore at their bottoms, made him slide as they wrapped around his feet.


    ¡°What in God¡¯s holy name is this.¡± The Priest entered the door. Apollo had just unlocked it and had not even given him the courtesy of opening it.


    ¡°You¡¯re a mess.¡± He said. Apollo sat in his chair, marking maps and throwing empty white bottles of orange juice to his side and into the trash can. He rimmed them, though did not land them. They lay, the bottles, in groups like dead seagulls at the shoreline.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Apollo asked. He was drawing circles over pictures of men. Suspects, the Priest presumed. There were other papers on the floor, ripped in half or stained black with coffee.


    ¡°What do I want?¡± The Priest walked forward, past the desk and to the window. The blinds were closed and lay stuck at the bottom by a truss. He broke the rope and the handle and watched as the cloth ziplined up and all around the room, the cold dark air thanked him. A ray of gold cut the murk like a water jet, slicing through the coal-colored darkness. The dust particles were illuminated, they flew gentle and serene and dissipated.


    ¡°It''s like a temple.¡± The Priest looked to Apollo. ¡°And you¡¯re the mummy living in this sarcophagus.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need a nanny, I don¡¯t need a maid. Why are you here?¡± Apollo asked again. He ran to the table, he wrote a number down. His hairs were uneasy, he hadn''t slept. Unwieldy.


    ¡°We haven¡¯t spoken in a few days. Though I always expect that of you.¡± He said. ¡°It¡¯s Dion I¡¯m worried about. I haven¡¯t seen him come to church to pray, I haven¡¯t spoken to him at all.¡±


    ¡°Why do you care?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°You called him an animal the first day we were here. Or was it monster? I forget. Anyways, are you surprised he doesn¡¯t want your company?¡±


    ¡°So what? I don''t feel ashamed one bit by saying it.¡± The Priest stepped in front of Apollo. ¡°I still think you two are monsters. Half-demons, ridiculous. Agents of god, they want me to call you that.¡±


    ¡°Not half-demons. Only part.¡± Apollo walked passed him. He tore a taped photo on the wall, it looked pixelated. ¡°And for the second part of your question. It''s not my business to know what Dion does, as a matter of fact, I think it''s for the best.¡±The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°He¡¯s your partner.¡±


    ¡°Was. We had another spout.¡±


    ¡°You always have a spout. Your like cats, like children."


    "Like animals or monsters?"


    "Yeah, but at least you''re half sensible. I trust you more than I trust him." The Priest said.


    ¡°Not my problem.¡± Apollo said. He looked around, his eyes fell to the floor. ¡°Not Dion, not this city. None of this is my problem.¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± The Priest asked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me what to worry about. My coming here for Dion was only half the issue.¡± The Priest dragged a chair around the room. It was a small complex but it felt bigger without Dion, without the presence of his laugh or his kneeling body on the bedside.


    ¡°I¡¯m here to talk about the fire.¡±


    ¡°What about it?¡±


    ¡°So you admit it¡¯s your fault. Is that why you¡¯ve dodged me? So you wouldn¡¯t have to answer for it?¡± The Priest asked.


    ¡°We burned a building down and captured four degenerates. Rats, they weren¡¯t even people.¡±


    ¡°And then?¡± The Priest¡¯s eyes focused on Apollo. He could feel his stare burning the back of Apollo''s head. A magnifying glass.


    ¡°And then the place burned down and the four went down with it. Or five. I forget.¡±


    ¡°There was another body though.¡± The Priest rested his head on his arms and leaned forward. ¡°A small girl. Do you know anything about that?¡±


    Apollo stood. The pen-marker in his hand fell and he looked to his side for it. It rolled some paces away and he went to go grab it but the Priest grabbed him. Held him firm.


    ¡°What happened?¡± The Priest asked.


    ¡°A murder happened. Dion lost it.¡± He undid the grip. ¡°He knocked me out. Prick has a nice right hook."


    "And then?"


    "Then, well, I don¡¯t know what happened after that. I woke up a few buildings away. In a dumpster, of all things. There was no one left. Just a howl of sirens, firemen, police... Paramedics.¡±


    ¡°The bodies were mutilated. You think he had anything to do with it?¡±


    ¡°Ask him.¡± Apollo swerved from him. He went to his suitcase laying on the bed. It indented the mattress and left it concave, the springs recoiled into a harsh swing up as he picked the pounds. He was looking for shoes, a shirt and undid his hoodie. The sweater revealed his lanky body. Thinner than the Priest imagined, scarred too, burned, mostly. Striped like camouflage, like the rouge of soldiers and commandos in the thicket of the wartorn jungle. Zebra striped. Brown skin, black marks.


    ¡°I want you to answer to me.¡± The Priest stood. Apollo walked up to him, he fixed his tie and set his tired eyes on his face. The air in the room felt swallowed, vanished and the Priest could feel his head empty as if in a vacuum. He was waiting, wondering, if his eyes would pop out, if his eardrums would shatter into bloodshed.


    ¡°I answer to no one,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Not to the girl, not to her prick grandfather. No one. Fuck this city. Fuck it¡¯s deranged people, fuck you. I¡¯d let it all burn if it wasn¡¯t tied to my payroll, believe in that.¡±


    The Priest would have been afraid. If he didn¡¯t notice his eyes blink, shift, scatter under the word girl. He rolled a bead of his rosemary. A prayer, not for him. For Apollo.


    ¡°You¡¯re lying. I smell it. I¡¯ve sat through too many confessions to not tell the quiver in your conviction.¡± The Priest said. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter though. Lie or not, finish your job. I don''t care what you fight for. Alright?¡±


    ¡°Stop bothering me and I might.¡± Apollo went to the door.


    ¡°I don¡¯t expect anything else from you."


    "Yeah." Apollo''s voice was faint. Exasperated, the air was cold and steam came from his breath.


    "I guess my prognosis was correct, huh?" The Priest said. "Your kind really are more demon than man. Degenerates.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, you old fuck. I guess you were right.¡± Apollo waved his hands. "Aideu, shithead."


    ¡°You machine man. With your machine heart. Follow your programming. Do your damn job.¡± He screamed out the door. There was no one there, just some footsteps that faded into clatter down the stairs. He slammed the door shut. Then realizing it wasn''t his home, opened the door in shame and shut ut gently.


    "At least lock your own door." He shouted down, to a car driving away. It skipped a red light and roared down the road.

 Author Blog Post - The polls, dont trust the polls.

    If there''s one advantage being on the internet has over traditional publishing, besides anal gape porn, it''s the ability to be transparent. I thought I''d share some information on the series and hopefully get some feedback.


    As far as schedules go (assuming I don''t get assassinated by the CIA in the next couple of months), we are reaching the midpoint of the first season of this book. So if we just multiply the amount of time it took to get here, it should take, probably, two months and a half. Maybe three. Then we''ll be wrapping up this book. Looking back to what I''ve written, I start to cringe. A lot of it is messy, there are too many places of unvaried sentence structure making the flow a little sloppy, the metaphors and technical work is a little off. But I''m glad I''ve done it, I''ll probably go back and do some micro-editing anyways.


    The important part about all of this is that I do intend for this season to end. So for those of you who enjoy the series, the important question is, what then?


    And the answer of course is, book two. I''ve already penned some characters and I hope to make my characters a bit more "tri-dimensional". Which is really just saying, I want to make them better. lul.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    I also plan to start a bit of an encyclopedia, something like that. If any of you have read Infinite Jest, I plan to take some of the ideas of the footnotes and the telling of the universe through footnotes as a source of inspiration. So again, the question I''m sure you have.


    Why the hell do I care? What do you need me for?


    Going forward I want a more consistent schedule with consistent writing with consistent quality. The key part about that is, of course, the schedule. As it is right now, I usually post Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at pretty much, whenever hour I want. But this is flexible, I could post all of my writing on one day as a megadump. I could divide it into two days and create two thicc chapters. Hell, I could write flash fiction and post it up every day. But to know what you want, I need to know what you want. So I''d appreciate it if you''d take some time and participate in the poll, at least so I can get a better feel as to when posting my writing would be best for you, the reader(s). If you want a more particular time, then comment below. If you don''t care, well then, I just wasted your time! : )


    Asshole.


    Just kidding, mostly. Thanks for reading.

 Chapter 38

    Dion


    July 24th, 2017


    7:03 AM


    He grabbed her by the mouth and looked like he would not let go with that iron grip pinching the corners of her moaning gasp. By the fifth thrust, she began to wiggle away. By the seventh, she had enough and with one hand against his chest, pulled him out of her and let him stand in the naked, cold air. Erect and sweating.


    ¡°Why are you rough today?¡± Ophelia threw a wet pillow at him.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Dion went towards her for a hug. He thought, at least, that it was just play and crawled back on the bed with his belly and elbows. She pushed his face back, kept the predator look at bay.


    ¡°I mean what I say. You¡¯re rough. You were much more gentle the first time. Now it¡¯s just¡­like a god damn dog, what the fuck?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m just, distracted.¡± He looked down. ¡°Some things in my mind have come back up.¡±


    ¡°The things that made you come here?¡± She nodded her head. ¡°I knew it. I knew this was a bad idea. I knew the moment I saw your crying, moping face.¡±


    Ophelia stood up and reached for her clothes that hung by the edge of a bleached-oak countertop. A tank top, some pajama pants. She started working her hair into a bun and Dion just stared, with the rose water smell in the air and the velvet underneath like smooth, warm sand, his fingers dug into it and the mattress and he watched. He was naked, flaccid, and outstretched.


    It was cold.


    Amongst the hot room, amongst her radiated warmth, that made him think that her pink cheeks were some kind of candle flame (for they looked the part in the way they bloomed), he was feeling cold.


    She turned around and sucked in her lips. She could only massage her scalp as she looked at his sullen expression. He looked like a child, some lost animal wandering and shaggy with the dirty look of the streets caked like mud on his face. A heavy mud, a mud that made him downcast.


    His forehead, his nose, his eyes, all down. His breath, sighing.


    ¡°Before, I didn¡¯t ask you why you came here.¡± Ophelia said. ¡°It just sounded like you needed a place, and I owed you one. But now you¡¯ve been here for four days and I¡¯m starting to get the idea that you don¡¯t want to leave. So I have to ask, why are you here? Where did you come from?¡±


    He looked at the pretty cabinets and the reflection of the pleasant pink lights radiating from the corner room, a giant fixture in the shape of a salt rock or a totem. He couldn''t tell. His clothes were in a corner and in a square plastic box, the faux-lion carpet beneath his feet felt comfortable, a massage of fur for his toes and a panacea for the growing tensions in his muscles that made his calves spasm.


    There really isn''t a cure for nervous ticks though. Just suppressants, but no cures.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to tell you why I¡¯m here.¡± He said.


    ¡°Yeah, you said that.¡± She turned away, opened a drawer and took out a cloth. She left for the restroom and seemed to take the glow of the room with her. Dion put a pillow against his face to suffocate, it seemed, the last of his hope.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry I put this on you.¡± He muffled.


    ¡°Why?¡± Ophelia asked. ¡°I made the choice just as much as you did.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re married though.¡±


    ¡°Was planning to marry, actually. And you were depressed and I was stupid enough to give into that maternal instinct of mine, and well, here we are.¡± She said. ¡°You can beat most things, not biology though. It follows us from the womb to the grave. A slave master, a whip, and a reaper all at once.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re starting to sound like someone I don¡¯t like. Please stop.¡± Dion said.


    "That Apollo guy?" She said. He groaned.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry I ruined your marriage, is what I want to get.¡± He said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t feel guilty. My ex, he''s probably fucking some other girl too. He usually does. Cat calls he calls business trips. There isn''t a whore moan in this city I can''t trace back to him, like a radiation trail. You find the hints over time, hairs, smells, neck marks. Then you confirm it, for me it, it was just a look. Or the lack of one. Like he couldn''t even tolerate to look me in the eyes like the space between us grew, centimeter to centimeter."This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    She threw water at her face. Dion saw her imperfections. Freckles, a lazy eye, the years of strife on her forehead that made her wrinkle early. Imperfections like anyone else. And it made him sad to ever think her anything else but human.


    ¡°You know? When you helped us at the club? I kind of wish you didn¡¯t. I wish my shitty man, if I could even call him my man, was beaten up just a bit more. Just enough to let him know how I feel, even if only vicariously.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t mean that.¡± Dion said. ¡°You¡¯re better than that.¡±


    ¡°I wonder.¡± She said. She rubbed water on her face. She walked back in and sat next to him and rubbed his cheeks with tender hands. Then frowned. Dion went forward with puckered lips, she pushed his shoulders back.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad you came, really.¡± She smiled. But he knew what the tone meant. ¡°You made me realize I wasn¡¯t ready for marriage.¡±


    ¡°With him, right?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°With anyone.¡± She said. He frowned.


    ¡°But. We¡¯ve, well, we¡¯ve been together?¡± He asked. ¡°It¡¯s meaningful, what we¡¯ve done. It¡¯s the consummation of love, you know? It¡¯s sacred.¡±


    He put his sad mask on again, the face he made that made her think of the night four days ago. The wrangled dirty boy. It was an innocent sadness then and it looked like it again, now.


    ¡°Dion. We had sex a couple times. That¡¯s it.¡± She said. ¡°You haven¡¯t even told me who you really are. You said you were the son of a pastor, here to sell bibles.¡±


    ¡°I am. I¡¯m selling something, I guess. Was...¡± His hands fell.


    ¡°You expect me to believe that?¡± She went to the closet and the small square package of clothes. A new dress shirt, some new shoes. She took the bundle and put it to his lap.


    ¡°I expect you to understand.¡± He said. He turned away from the clothes.


    ¡°And I do. I understand you were just a passing moment, I understand that I¡¯m one too. For you at least. You¡¯ll move on and I¡¯ll move on. Like two passing trains.¡±


    ¡°Well.¡± His shoulders sagged. ¡°The difference is you know where you¡¯re going. Me. Me...¡±


    Dion wiped his forehead.


    ¡°Me? I¡¯m fucked.¡± The word came out difficult. It dragged, the curse word, it seemed to burn because he touched his mouth afterward and rubbed his lips and closed his eyes in silent prayer. She narrowed her eyes. He was strange.


    ¡°I can let you stay the night but you have to go home by morning. I thought you were with that one guy anyways? Uh.¡± She rubbed her head. ¡°Apollo, that¡¯s all you talked about. Apollo.¡±


    ¡°The prick.¡± He said. ¡°I hate him and I¡¯m afraid if I see him again, I¡¯ll hate him even more. If that''s possible.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s the only person you really talked about.¡±


    ¡°Well, when you get to know someone, whether they¡¯re pleasant or not, they seemed to stick with you. Like a ghost.¡± He said.


    ¡°Or like toilet paper under your shoe.¡± She laughed. She rubbed his arm, just a child, she thought. He started fitting his clothes and finding them to have shrunk, so he tugged on the ends of his pants and his coats to fill the draft where the cold air was coming through.


    ¡°You''re just a runaway.¡± She said. ¡°You look like it like I just found you crying in the middle of a store.¡±


    ¡°Are you calling me a kid?¡± He fixed his cuffs.


    ¡°I¡¯m saying that you have somewhere to be and it isn¡¯t here. Like me.¡±


    ¡°And where¡¯s that?¡± He asked. She smiled and fixed his tie which was sloppy and slanting to the side, and fixed his collar which was puffed up like a cautionary cone for a dog. She turned him and pulled up his coat tail stuck to his belt. She reached for his coat flaps, put a finger on them and he pulled away. Another secret, she thought.


    ¡°Right.¡± She laid on the bed and watched him from the meridian glow, he stood by the door frame and his face was cross sections, half in, half out. ¡° Where am I going? I¡¯ll go back to school, I think. I hate this real estate shit. And you? I think you should go back. Consider couples counseling or something.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re one to talk.¡± He shook his hip. His clothes felt tight, his whole body looked wound up. An explosive with a fuse that had run out days ago.


    ¡°We all have things to settle. Maybe it won¡¯t be so bad when you settle yours.¡± She said.


    ¡°What I¡¯ve done? What I''ve done.¡± He tried to remember, his eyes rose to the corner of his sockets and the baby blue painted walls disappeared. The picture frames of smiling youths, the vases and their flowers around him warped, the sofa across from him, a tomb. The flat screen television sounding static, a giant stone. Here marked Sophie. He shook. The images would not leave. One after another, so far down he went into the memory that he began to feel the heat of the room and his gun and the burning screams of the cremated like their long nails were up to his neck and making him sweat.


    His eyes opened. She looked sad and distant and he looked away. ¡°I don¡¯t think I can be saved from what I¡¯ve done.¡±


    ¡°I can tell that¡¯s what you think.¡± She said. ¡°You¡¯re giving me my ex-fianc¨¦¡¯s look. And I¡¯ll tell you what I¡¯ll tell him; you won¡¯t know if you can be saved if you don''t even make the effort to try."


    ¡°How can you say that? You¡¯re calling off you¡¯re marriage, you¡¯re not forgiving him.¡± He moaned.


    ¡°All apologies are selfish. You don¡¯t do it for the person wronged, you do it for yourself. It¡¯s like cutting a weighted rope. Yeah, you''ll keep the scars but at least it won''t be so heavy anymore.¡± She sighed.


    ¡°I''m supposed to be the pastor''s son. The lord''s servant.¡± He blew his hair and rubbed his scalp as if caught with lice. He couldn''t stop scratching his hair


    ¡°You know, this is coming from me, but don¡¯t act so holy. It¡¯s not like you¡¯re guiltless." He said. "I mean, you cheated too."


    ¡°You¡¯re right. I¡¯ve got my problems to face too. And I¡¯ll face them. But will you?¡±


    "You''re sounding like him again." He said. "But he''s a lot meaner. Less caring."


    He turned around. He put his hands in his pocket and went past the vases and pictures and other novelties, a bass fish that sang with a button press, a collection of postcards from all they¡¯re favorite vacations, history on top of history she was willing to throw away, and it began to anger him. Like the strength of will in her was somehow stronger than in him, and he kicked the door open. And he kicked a garden gnome in half and watched its broken feet teeter from the sidewalk into the gutter. He kicked the dirt. She watched from the window, not mad as much as she was curious about what or whom he would kick next.


    So he went out, into the streets from the white painted fences and into the broken roads, from the orange u-haul trucks of the rich as if wandering life buoys, to the miserable with clutch children behind barred windows, drowning, but too scared to try to swim. He looked to the sky, the sky was just setting. He kicked the floor and wondered where Apollo was, or with whom.

 Chapter 39

    Apollo


    July 24th, 2017


    10:24 AM


    Apollo was irritated. It showed in the way he scratched his neck and how he slicked his hair strands back and tugged on his suit with that firm and bitter touch. Pulling, rapid pulling and scratching. He had felt this way on in the early dusk, all throughout the gray day. The sky had not done him favors. It seemed like everything ran thin, sunshine, patience, emotion. Days that ended too fast, nights that outlasted his dreamless sleep. He wanted the antihistamine for his ruthless insomnia, the soft pillow, the clearing emptying chamber for his heavy and full heart.


    It was Sophie.


    He didn¡¯t say it or even think it. The opposite. He repressed the memory, the scene of red. Forgot it, pretended to forget it. And now it was hurting, not in the way of a dagger strike that cuts and stings and bleeds, but in that harrowing numbing wave, starting as a drop of mercury, now a shower that poisoned the ocean of his consciousness. His mind was deteriorating, the animals of his devices dying on the shoreline with their long purple tongues falling out of tired mouths and their gills sucking aimlessly at harsh arid airs.


    His head hurt as he looked down. An old cable antenna was to his rear like a pitchfork to the sky or perhaps a lone hand in prayer. He could hear the person below him watching, laughing, a heckle he thought, aimed at him. Apollo bent the antenna. The man screamed at his static-filled television and Apollo jumped from the edge of the roof. The birds scattered to drop shit elsewhere, but not here, not anywhere near the lone figure in the night. His slick mask, cracked and glued with gold. He slid across the cornices, kicked off of statues that split and broke. The gargoyles looked away, faces down in shame.


    He was following a car. The license plate that read ¡®AS5MAN¡¯, the juggling pair of dice below the car spoiler that somehow managed to stay on even through the wild turns that screeched and skidded. Like testicles, old, saggy, desperate. Apollo followed the car and the skittish hands within that he saw through the rose-tinted windows. It looked like four hands driving the wheel. He looked just as timid as Apollo, but unlike Apollo, he was guilty. And to Apollo, this man (if you could call any monster a man) might as well have been Shiva. He sure left the trail, smoke, and smog that made all the sad and small homeless cough and turn. But he was guilty of something more.


    He was a drug dealer. A particular one. One Apollo had confirmed after many an interrogation and many a threat. And he was coming around the bent, trying to catch the freeway, going through the mountain range and wrapping around the black serpentine track. Drifting, slithering. Apollo followed him there.


    The pines glared at Apollo like a platoon of archers. He was above the trees. His hands injected into the earth, his feet dragging his anchor like the swimming of sharks, his body a kind of rapid moving fin that shredded through earth and shot it out to the street. He was fortunate there was no one else driving. He looked ahead of himself and predicted where the driver would go, he saw the sharp turn up ahead and how it was flagged by a rebellious pine tree. He ran on the wall, ran ahead of the car with that inhuman speed and strength. He waited then, it wasn¡¯t long. It was only a few minutes. He could feel the air vibrate with that masculine car engine, the assault of a two-thousand fifteen Dodge Hellcat. And Apollo knew, all the engineering and strength of that vehicle would be reduced to nothing. For it was just metal. Metal and fuel and sparks. Science and man, the devil¡¯s instruments as he was taught. And they were right, for tonight he felt that same Luciferian anger.


    His eyes flashed red as the car came around. He challenged the headlights. His shadow moved. Darted, he sped faster and faster and the car could not turn. The driver screamed, but his closed windows left his voice powerless. The car turned right, Apollo tackled right.


    It flew. Five feet into the air. On its side. The tires flew out, the sparks shot out like a derailed train. Apollo laid on the floor. His shoulder was feeling it now, hot and bleeding and dislocated. A tire rolled passed him and spun circles, undecided before it finally sat next to him. He stood. With his only good arm, he found his bicep and rolled his arm around to find where the socket was where it was supposed to be attached. He could feel his bone click, rub, and with one strong push, snapped it back in. Pain and relief. A bulge of bone receded. It felt like the harshest bruise he could imagine, the feeling of muscle and nerves twisted and shredded and forced to work again. But it healed. Like most of everything in his body. But no kind of healing, regeneration, miracle, could fix that wound in his heart. The solemn denial. The bad dream.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    The car was on its side. The hood touched the ground and the tree and the guardrail, it was bent in. All of it was. Apollo heard the man groan, he saw the door prop open in the air and he followed the sight and the markings of wheels before he was led back to his feet. He picked up the lonely tired next to him. When he saw the man move his arm up like a white flag, Apollo aimed for it. He saw it bent and break, the elbow pop out. The driver retreated back inside. But there was no other exit, the front windshield, like the webbing it was broken into, caught him. He tried kicking it. Apollo heard the faint struggle of the broken man. He came up the car and let him try, almost taunting him. After a few minutes, he finally brought the whole car to the ground again. They both assessed the damage, the red car now compressed, the headlight dangling out like an eye falling out of its socket. A constant flicker, a hopeless flicker of the headlights. The driver looked at Apollo.


    The same strobing light lapsed in his own eyes as he faced Apollo¡¯s grim mask. He looked for his keyhole and turned it and begged the engine that no longer worked. It couldn¡¯t roar, it couldn¡¯t even purr. It coughed then went quiet.


    ¡°What the fuck, man. I thought - ¡± The driver spat blood. ¡°I thought I ran you over, man.¡±


    ¡°You must have me confused.¡± Apollo pulled him out of the car. ¡°I am no man.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you whatever you want.¡± The driver tugged Apollo¡¯s arm the same way a child would at the father, pleading, in prayer. Apollo dragged him to the tree.


    ¡°I know you will.¡± Apollo said. The car was on fire and Apollo was brought back to that night. He grabbed the drivers twisted arm and turned it even more. He could see the skin in the light and how it turned green, diseased. The driver did not scream though. It was a silent expression that emptied out of his mouth, his mouth was open, his eyes rolled back. It was the point in which he was wishing for death.


    ¡°You will live tonight. I promise you that.¡± Apollo said. ¡°How you will live afterward, however, will be your own decision. Yours alone.¡± The fires fanned in his eyes. The child, for all Apollo felt and thought, was here, bleeding again. And the heat of passion now drove him more than he would admit.


    ¡°I want a name.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Anyone! I¡¯ll tell you anyone.¡± The man said. His stray teeth stained his purple blazer, his watch hung on his broken hand and with tears, he moved himself to offer the watch. Apollo stood still. The driver looked in his pockets and when his eyes and hands came up with the burning money, when he saw the face of death, he knew the gravitas of Apollo¡¯s wrath. That impassive, silent rage.


    ¡°Every drug on the streets of Havenbrook have seen your hands or passed your inspection. You have every route, every small-time dealer and big-time drug trafficker in your phone book.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Who? Who do you want?¡± The man cried.


    ¡°I want neither. Not your constituents, not your employees. I want the man you sell your hallucinogens too. This man. This man alone will suffice.¡±


    ¡°I have so many who buy them.¡± The edge of barter was in the driver¡¯s tone now.


    "Give me your largest consumner." Apollo said.


    The man bit his lips. He shut his eyes, in pain or in the imagination of a pain.


    ¡°Promise me, at least.¡± The driver said.


    Apollo reached for him, he dug his hands into bruised skin, cut through the purple blazer and the black dress shirt. His fingers wrapped around a gold chain, then they went deeper, into the ribs. He had not penetrated the skin, only barely, instead he found one of those long curbed bones and, with dispassionate glare, broke it. Crack. Apollo put his arms to cover the driver''s mouth. He felt his fingers bit.


    He detached himself from the man again and let him scramble to the wound.


    ¡°You are the polluter of this temple. You are the beast, the whore, and the money-changer all at once. You will not be forgiven, but you may yet find another life after today.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Silence suffers you. A name? A name buys you a future.¡±


    ¡°Alestor.¡± He shouted. ¡°Doctor Alestor. He always used an assistant with his deals. But¡­¡±


    ¡°But?¡± The fire roared.


    ¡°I spied on him. I tracked him, he¡¯s into freaky shit man. He wanted to kill me once he found out I tailed him, he would have. But I promised him to keep selling. To shut the fuck. To help him.¡± The world muted. Apollo heard the words and he felt, immediately, like drowning. Like he sank to the bottom of the ocean and all the stress and pressure collapsed on his ears. The muffled, rock bottom silence, the drowning silence of the ocean above him. He helped, Apollo thought.


    ¡±Man, you got to keep me same from him. Fucking shit, man. Do me that at least? He does things, things you wouldn¡¯t believe. It¡¯s fucking magic. I swear, no one believes m-¡± The driver reached for Apollo¡¯s legs to plead. Apollo picked him up. He slammed him against the tree.


    ¡°You will survive tonight. I promise. It is not my place to execute a man.¡± He said. The driver cried, thanked him, his nose dripped. Apollo let him go and let him weep for a moment of innocent joy.


    Then he took off his jacket. Then he lifted his sleeves and showed the veins of his arms, the rivers of violent passion that now pulsed through him and through his heart.


    ¡°But I will judge,¡± Apollo said. The man went quiet. The fire crackled. ¡°You deserve no tribunal, you will get no tribunal. No. This is no righteous beating.¡±


    The driver looked side to side. He almost forgot his legs were broken.


    ¡°I look upon you the same way a farmer would look at the harvest or a shepherd, his livestock. Because this, like any other bounty or burden, is just a chore.¡±


    He looked at Apollo and the way he leaned in with that gaunt and gaudy mask. His mouth quivered and he took a deep breath. He would need it, for his crying howl into the night.

 Chapter 40

    Dion


    July 24th, 2017


    11:38 AM


    Dion had called Apollo with no success, he had left a voice mail, texted, harassed the Priest who ended up harassing him back with questions. It wasn¡¯t until four hours after the episode with Ophelia, four hours of walking and talking, of pointless wandering that he finally got a message back. An address.


    He followed it. Uphill, it all led up, where he could see clearly the city for what it was. The rolls of hills, the waves of trees and of metal industrial chimneys that poked the sky. He could not tell what was cloud and what was soot. It was all gray, then black as he went higher up and the hour changed to nearly midnight.


    The streets were better, cleaner, the cars sleeker. The chain link turned to white fence, turned to the giant bars of steel and the giant hedges. Every house was a kind of island. He could see the lights of their million dollar homes from the small, topsy-turvy streets. They were like the small glowing orbs of schools of fireflies. They moved around and looked outside at the wandering man, suspicious of him. Of Dion. It was practically a different city.


    He stopped at the address and looked in front of him. There was no fence, at least. But the front yard was wide and upon it was a concrete fountain left to dry, there was a statue of a man holding a cornucopia but there was no water. It cracked and its cracks were filled with vine and grass. In that sense, it was different from the rest in how neglected it was. Past the statue, past an oak tree casting off its leaves, was a door. There was no stone path and Dion¡¯s feet sank in the weak grass. The unruly nature of the house was made up by the fact that the lot was so large.


    He opened the door, the locks were broken in already. There was no security system, the house was too old for it. The floorboards groaned and shrieked, the chandeliers shook from the rough shutting of the door. It seemed like a strong wind would have knocked the house down, the blow of a wolf maybe. And as Dion came to realize, the wolf had already done just that. In the kitchen he could hear the destruction of the house, the opening and removal of cupboards, that clunky cacophony as if the house was being reclaimed by scavengers. Apollo was turning over a drawer, spilling knives and forks all over.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised you came back.¡± Apollo said. He turned the fridge over. ¡°It¡¯s undignified to crawl back after what you did.¡±


    ¡°I stand by what I did. I¡¯d do it again if I had the chance.¡± Dion¡¯s eyes narrowed.


    ¡°You killed three people and left two to burn alive. You stand by that action?¡± Apollo looked underneath the table, went around, through a door underneath the stairs and peered inside the small safe room.


    ¡°You saw what they did. They killed a fucking girl.¡±


    ¡°Involved in the murder of a small girl, we don¡¯t know if they did it or not and we never will.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?!¡± Dion slapped the wood. A piece of the stair guard fell on his head and landed on the floor beneath them. Apollo came out of the room, picked it up and looked at Dion.


    ¡°I don¡¯t really disagree with your choice. I understand it, really, I do. Even after the fact that you knocked me the fuck out.¡±


    ¡°I made sure you were safe.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± Apollo said. He inspected the wood and the nice chipped end of which it came off of. It had been crushed.


    ¡°Did you tell the Priest?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°No.¡± Apollo climbed slow and steady up the stairs. ¡°I lied.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Dion climbed after him.


    ¡°Because what the Vatican would do to you would be much worse than any jail or any harassment that the Priest could ever give you.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Death would be a very, very, merciful thing for you. If they caught you, of course.¡±


    Dion stood. His throat felt dry and no amount of swallowing spit lubricated it. A hot dryness as if he had swallowed a handful of sand and let it chafe his insides.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°What¡¯s the point of apologizing, to me of all people?¡± Apollo stood at the top of the stairs. ¡°You¡¯re much more tolerable when you actually commit to something. Even if it¡¯s murder.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t call it murder.¡± Dion walked up past him. ¡°I killed child killers, they weren¡¯t people.¡±


    It almost made Apollo chuckle. He went up, through the hall where the chandeliers fell close to their head, where it shook and spread their shadows out like and rotated them. Like a night lamp casting shadow puppets, thrown and left spinning on the floor. The light stopped and Apollo¡¯s shadow fell upon a door, ivory oak. He put his hand to it. It would not move. Dion came to help but Apollo stopped him, instead, put his foot below the knob and pushed. It caved in. He took the hinges off with him. Dust flew back, wrapping around the falling door and hitting them with the antique smell of books and history.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m just asking this, it makes me feel stupid, but why are we are?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s not just a feeling, Dion, but I¡¯m glad you¡¯re reflecting today.¡± Apollo said. Dion groaned. ¡°We¡¯re here to find the man who killed the little girl, Sophie. Or, the alleged murderer.¡±


    Dion flared up again, eyes red. Apollo shook his head.


    ¡°He¡¯s not here, so relax. When I first came in I noticed a struggle and a missing car. The fight came from one of the lower bedrooms, into the garage, out the driveway. I thought I could find something of a clue in the kitchen. Nothing. Then you came.¡± He said. "Are you wearing gloves?"


    ¡°No.¡± Dion said.


    Apollo handed him a handkerchief.


    "Well, make sure to wipe your evidence off everything. Everything.¡±


    Dion rubbed aimlessly, nervously, as Apollo inspected the room. He passed him glances now and then, looking where he searched. He knocked on the walls. Looked over the stacks of books, lines of them, some midway removed. Nothing. He looked over the tops of desks and of cabinets where the film of dust had been disturbed. There was a clean stain in the shape of a circle and they both only wondered.


    Dion came in at last. He went over to one end of the room and looked down at a rug.


    ¡°Don¡¯t touch anything.¡± Apollo said. It was too late, with that wide mouth curiosity, Dion flipped over the skin of a bear and made it moan as he threw it off to the side with its body depressed.


    Apollo nodded his head and they both looked. The arcana symbol was on the floor, smudged a bit but there, visible, an imperfect circle. Apollo knelt to inspect it.


    ¡°It¡¯s amateurish.¡± He said.


    ¡°Well this amateur is giving us a lot of trouble.¡±


    ¡°You think he¡¯s getting help?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Astyanax.¡± Apollo said. ¡°I looked him up. Son of Hector of Troy, he was stabbed in the belly by the Achaean¡¯s and thrown over the wall of Troy. Or Ilium.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Ever read the Iliad?¡± Apollo tilted his head. ¡°Have you ever read at all?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s too boring.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Right.¡± Apollo sighed. ¡°Well, I thought it was just fiction. But who knows, maybe who we¡¯re talking about is someone else. Probably a new prince in the upper levels of Hell, perhaps.¡±


    Apollo looked back to the symbol, the geometry that was sloppy and the letters in Latin and in Hebrew, misspelled and misplaced. Amon was written there, at the bottom. On top of it, more Hebrew.


    ¡°I only know Latin.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°It says.¡± Apollo squinted. ¡°Formless and Empty.¡±


    ¡°Oh, oh. Bingo!¡± Dion yellowed. Apollo put his finger over his mouth to hush him. ¡°Jeremiah four twenty-three, I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and void; And to the heavens, and they had no light.¡± His voice was booming, his chest pumped like a proper preacher at the holy edifice, above the crowd and above the bible stand.


    ¡°Right.¡± Apollo said. He shook his head and put his hand against the paint. He removed it. Electricity shot out. A loud bang that popped the glass and left them deaf. Apollo opened his eyes, his jaw was moving uncontrollably in muscle spasms. He was shaking his hand, blowing air against it. It had been burned, the nails completely burned off and the concussion leaving large bruises all around him like a brown Dalmatian.


    ¡°Fuck.¡± Apollo couldn¡¯t hear his own curse. His ears were still ringing, Dion hadn¡¯t suffered much of anything and was clearing his face from smoke. He looked at Apollo¡¯s wound, watched him try and blow away the pain. He was the first to look outside and nearby. No one cared, not the rich and their lighted houses. They were too far to care. He looked back to Apollo who picked himself up, then to the floor and missing glyphs.


    ¡°Fucking fuck.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Self-destructing piece of fucking shit.¡± He was nearly foaming in his anger.


    He lugged his body around like a rag doll, holding his hand low to the ground. His mouth was scrunching hard against itself, Dion could hear the sound of grating. They both looked to the broken window, to a docile albino crow. It scurried away. Apollo looked up. His hand was getting better, he could walk now.


    ¡°Let¡¯s look elsewhere.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Before something else annoys me.¡±


    They wandered a bit. Apollo kissed his hand. It healed, mostly, and all that was left, mostly, were the twitches of damaged nerves. Those took longer to heal. The finer details always did.


    They came up to an end and to nothing. The light switch at the side did not work, they looked back at the hall now dark. Apollo was holding his hand, Dion was looking around and putting his ear against the wood.


    ¡°Do you think the house can talk?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Well, I saw you knocking. I thought I might hear something.¡±


    Apollo nodded his head. He moved a bit in the darkness, then felt something over his head. A string perhaps. He raised his hands, the ceiling was too far from him. So he yanked the chord, Dion shuffled away. Stairs descended with what sounded like an annoyed croak of rusted metal. The sound of something wanting desperately to be ignored. And from what, both of them suspected, they would find out soon. It was immediate, almost.


    The smell of death. Light came out from the small square in the ceiling where the smell came from.


    ¡°Are you sure you want to come up?¡± Apollo asked.


    Dion¡¯s face went still. His eyes focused, weighted, like they were a burden on his face. Two giant balls of cold, black steel.


    ¡°I¡¯m used to it already, right?¡± He said. Apollo looked away then climbed.


    Dion followed and he looked nearby at another beaded string. Dion pulled this one. They reeled back at the image.


    It smelled of rotted pig, left to disintegrate in the heat of a dumpster. It almost smelled sweet, that same pig, drawn out and on top of it, cheap sickly sweet perfume poured over. A carcass, both rotten and sweet. A body dressed in that disingenuous sweet smell.


    There was a corpse in front of them. There was a knife lodged in his back. Both of them could not tell who it was, for the body was too engorged and glossy red to tell. It seemed like a giant ball, ready to pop, foaming red where the bug-eaten holes were formed.


    ¡°Just another victim. Ten days old, it seems.¡± Apollo said.


    Dion¡¯s eyes fell.


    ¡°I want to pretend that he was the first. But that would be a lie, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Probably.¡±


    They both went silent. There was no need to inspect, there was nothing that could tell them who it was. All they knew was that it was somebody, all the knew, was that it was one amongst the many, a pile, a wall, that grew and grew and grew.


    And they felt for some reason, that this body was just another promise, the promise of more death.

 Chapter 41

    Alestor


    July 24th, 2017


    12:35 AM


    "This would be your thirteenth. Thirteen isn''t that far from twelve.¡± The voice said.


    The candle dimmed in front of Alestor and the cool wind blew across from one end of the car window to the other. The hairs on his arms stood. His nose dried, he could feel it, smoke congesting him and filling his skull with the musk.


    ¡°This one isn¡¯t just one more.¡± Alestor said. ¡°He¡¯s my son.¡±


    ¡°More of a reason to get rid of him, the betrayal of the son ought to be punished.¡± The voice said. ¡°He¡¯s sold you out once. He¡¯ll do it again.¡±


    A candle (or maybe more apt to call it the telephone or receiver) sat in the glove compartment, eating string and releasing the smell of hot burning wax. It dripped on its sides and absorbed into the seats like white ink on for the draft of some great proclamation.


    ¡°You can¡¯t say that with certainty.¡±


    ¡°I can say it with good faith. I''ve seen it, in the church steps, in the quiet solitude of the small room he''s called haven. Some dusty hotel, with the whores and abusers to his rear, moping and crying and contemplating with his loose tongue what else to say. And to whom? Oh, Alestor. This is good faith I speak with, and good faith is all you''ve ever needed.¡± The voice said. ¡°He told the Priest, he¡¯ll tell the journalists, the police, the world. And the few who believe in that mortal, flawed law, will fight for him. Fight against you. Few is all anyone ever needed to start a war. Or end it. You should know that.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not fucking helping me!¡± Alestor slapped the dashboard and watched the radio compress and change its tune. ¡°Just orders, always orders. For what? The promised land?¡±


    ¡°Paradise. Not just any land, but the land, the only land worth fighting for. To breath air and not feel death creep upon you, to live without the anxiety of the day to day. The mocking, the sadness. To live with your wife. Paradise. And it has room, room for your son. You know that, don¡¯t you? Death isn¡¯t the end. It¡¯s a new journey.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve lost so much. How could I give you the only thing left?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re still thinking in terms of what is lost and what is gained. You lose nothing but stand to gain everything. Don¡¯t consider this a murder. It¡¯s a displacement. You¡¯ll see your son, you¡¯ll see your wife.¡±


    ¡°You say that.¡± He reached into the glove compartment. He found a flask and drank. ¡°But can you prove it.¡±


    ¡°All I have is my word. But was it not my word that saved you from the Vicars? Ten minutes, ten minutes sooner would have killed you.¡±This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    ¡°And maybe I deserve to die.¡± Alestor said. He drank, it felt hot down his throat.


    ¡°Maybe. But if you die, so does the dream. I can¡¯t help you when you¡¯re dead, not like your mother and your son. Paradise needs its key and you¡¯re sitting on it, waiting on it. All it takes is one more death, blood for heaven. A cup, filled. That¡¯s all this has been for, the chalice and your happiness.¡±


    ¡°This¡­¡± He held his nose bridge. ¡°This is my son.¡±


    ¡°Your son, your faithless son. The modern Judas. I think he¡¯d have more nobility in his sacrifice than his life. You know that to be true, too.¡±


    Alestor teared up. They fell down his cheek and with it, sense, reason. The dribble, the stream, like a faucet on his chin. All of it, draining down that black hole.


    ¡°What¡¯s it like?¡± He asked. ¡°Is my wife there. What about my baby girl? I never got to see her first birthday. Never got to see her fall, or walk, or yawn or cry or laugh. Never got to see her face for what it could have been.¡±


    ¡°She''s beautiful. Blonde, like your wife. It¡¯s all beautiful.¡± The air nipped at his neck. ¡°Joy, happiness, like a drug. You''d think it''d be boring. But they keep going, smiling, laughing. There is no feeling of tiredness, no boredom. Just a stupid, pure, joy. Ecstacy. The fields of grass, the marble temples. It¡¯s holiness. As best as it could ever hope to be.¡±


    Alestor drank and with each drink, falling deeper into the words. A whirlpool, spinning and flushing him, crushing him, tearing him.


    ¡°The sky is like a bubble. It feels so close, it wraps around you so tight and snug and comforting. A blanket of clouds. The weightlessness of it all. It''s so close, the sky, you swear that by just standing, you might be able to touch it. The world feels so big here yet so small that you might be able to hold it in your hands. It''s a goodness that swells your heart and that hurts me most. That you might not get to feel this. God has not promised you this land, God will not give you this land. I will though, I will, because it is birthright. All suffering is birthright to everlasting joy and you have suffered. Haven''t you?"


    Alestor''s eyes glazed, he tilted his head up and down.


    "It waits for you if you¡¯re willing to fight for it, if you can muster the stern stuff to take it.¡±


    ¡°I feel weak. I¡¯m scared. I¡¯m chased and worried and waiting, waiting for them to kill me. Those fucking hyenas, the smell - My scent - The know it. My name, my home. They¡¯ll chase, and chase, and chase. And it feels like the more I run, the more my feet and my body break away. It hurts, it fucking hurts.¡±


    ¡°Then let them find you. Let them come and face judgment. And you? You will be there too. As jury, when my guiding hand strikes upon them an endless fury and an endless pain. I promise you.¡±


    He took a final gulp. The car turned on, the shield wipers sprayed and dragged across the foggy window.


    "Remember. It was your son that brought them to you in the first place." The flames flickered with the finality of the tone.


    "Is it necessary? His blood."


    "Yes."


    Alestor cleaned his face on his sleeve.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need to make it hurt.¡± Alestor said.


    ¡°If only you knew what little pain means for true, good and proper eternity.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯ll be quick.¡±


    ¡°If that will make it easier.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t leave Isaac, not for a second. ''Till the very end.¡±


    ¡°As a father should. That''s true devotion."


    ¡°Make me humble, please. Take me to him.¡±


    There was a silence. Alestor rolled up the windows and listened in the privacy of his car. To his side, an old cabin in the woods. A forgotten summer home. Nostalgic pain. The holes were plentiful on the dark wood planks that boarded the home, the patches to those holes were few. The whole house rumbled to the car engine and in front of the door stood the porch, slanted and sinking deeper into the wet mud. Loose foundation.


    A swing rested on the porch, next to a potted collection of roses now turned to rough, brittle black sticks. A swing set, two white ropes, and a dirt-colored plank. It jumped in the front of the porch. It swung. It went up, creaking, and fell down. Like the checkered flag fall of a race, Alestor drove. Like the pendulum fall, he chased.

 Chapter 42

    Isaac


    July 25th, 2017


    4:26 AM


    The high screech of cars was out in front of him. He could hear the police chases like the wound up machinations of the gear rotations of the great clock. One tick, another dead, a second tick, two now. One after the other in the interim, all driving to the same place.


    He could feel it, not so much know it. Consciousness can only take so much from the murky waters of its underside before it has too much and he had too much. Isaac was moving, turning, not thinking of the future in precepts of months or days, not even in hours. He was thinking in minutes, thinking, with the sweaty upper lip, how he could make the best of the next five minutes he had.


    There was an argument off, somewhere in the other room opposite or next to him (the noise was too hard to tell in distance or location) and he put his fingers inside of his ears to try and concentrate. He shut the blinds, watched the keyhole on the door and let public television run in the background. An ad, a plastic smile. Two men staring back through the tube. They were selling turkey shears. Hundred dollar turkey shears. Fucking scissors.


    Fucking everything. He had his hands to his neck with the tight pressure of a man holding a wound, though he did not bleed. His neck sat on the incline and the air conditioner stopped breathing out from the ceiling panels above. He was in a cheap motel, with the cheap flower wallpaper and the cheap carpet gone coarse and blotched in spots from whimsical cum stains, perhaps a stray spill of lean. Isaac thought about it, the only thing he could think of that would cheer him up. He wondered if he was under the influence himself, his body felt that wrong disassociation, like his stomach had gone up and flown away from him. No. Fear was the real drug here.


    A fear that he got when he looked at the screen of his phone and the lone message from his father.


    Whre r u at?


    He needed to leave. It came to him when he reached into the midget fridge and the beer bottle inside.


    It wouldn¡¯t be hard to leave, there weren¡¯t any memories to keep onto. But for Isaac, the problem wasn¡¯t the idea, but the execution. It wasn¡¯t where he would go, he had enough money in his debit card to survive him the month. Nor was he in want for any particular luxury, a bed and roof and food were good enough.


    The hard part was the how. A bike could only take him so far, he reasoned with those two long fingers against his chin, rubbing the juvenile hairs.


    The police would find him. And the police would not help him.


    So the hard part was finding the car, and finding the car was what he did. He ran. Slipped on his long jeans, then ran again to the yellow book in the corner of the room. A taxi service, he looked for one, a foreign one. One he could not imagine ever existing in this city.


    Ishmael and Friends Taxi Service, Family owned since 1964


    He rung them. Did not hear so much as a voice as he was too busy screaming out his address until he ran out of breath and was forced, exasperated, to speak clearly again.


    ¡°I¡¯m at the motel six. The one next to the bowling alley, yes. I need to get out.¡± Isaac said. ¡°As fast as possible, to the nearest airport. Train station, whatever is closer.¡±


    ¡°Airport? Airport. That¡¯s long way.¡± His accent was thick. Polish? It didn¡¯t matter. Except it annoyed Isaac, so maybe it did matter. With how often he had to repeat himself before the raspy metallic voice could say a-ha, yes, done deal.


    He walked out, the rusted door flicked its loose handle back as if the room wanted him out too. He locked the door, at last, pushed it in a bit, then left. His neighbor came out, a young woman raised her middle finger then turned to Isaac.


    ¡°Fuck you.¡± She spat and left.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡°Have a nice day.¡± Isaac said. His eyes were open, it was more of a murmur in the buzzing night, the fluorescent lights would not hush, the flies would not stop zapping themselves and dropping like small bits of ash against the beige floor.


    He ran out, down two separate sections of stairs, past a couple kissing, past a young boy being slapped upstairs by an angry grandmother. He went down to the parking lot and the car, green with a white stripe, that honked at him. Isaac lifted the trunk. There wasn¡¯t much in his hands, he never had much, just a backpack. In it, a copy of Paradise Lost and some underwear, a flash drive containing in it, in no order, lesbian porn, pictures of a book called Goetia (amateur demonology) and a PDF file with some plastered bible verses across the page. He held the small flash drive and then thought, Though I walk through the valley of shadow and death, I fear no evil. He slid across the back. Fell. Fixed his hair and entered, it looked like the motions of a salmon in the middle of its heated lust, dashing through the air in an arc.


    "The airport. As fast as you can." Isaac slapped the back seat.


    "Alright. That hundred dollars, long trip."


    "That''s what I''m hoping for. I''ve got the money, don''t worry about it. Get me far away."


    "Alright, sir." And they were off. Through the streets bustling with life, the drunk drivers swerving. He heard all manners of noise, tribal, animal, human, so similar to one another he could not tell them apart from beast or war. Bass, so loud it shook glass, women hollering, men reeling into purses and bags reconditioned into vomit bags, the taxi driver screaming out profanities into the honking streets where people refused to drive slow. They turned two corners, five until they were on and about the highway that bled into the forest. The trees looked calm in the still air like bulwarks, guardians. He hoped to see some kind of protector, elf, fairy. Lord knows he needed one.


    He spotted a night owl, white and docile, who wrapped around a branch and turned its head a full a hundred and eighty degrees. He swore its eyes followed him as they got closer down to the ground floor and the mountaintops became the mountain floors, where the loose dirt skidded and broke underneath tire and metal.


    A blaring noise.


    A honk. The car turned, nearly bled paint as it touched railing. They were still somewhat high, the arrow tops of trees told him so. They were so close, Isaac could feel it.


    "Ah, fuck, third time today." The driver said. A police officer blinded Isaac with the blue and red in the rear mirror. He could barely see into the car and did not notice the two men that came up to the driver.


    "Step out of the vehicle, sir." One of them told him. Isaac could not tell them apart, they seemed like two brooding statues with the stone faces hidden behind night veil. Or maybe it was sanded off.


    "For what, What''d I do?"


    "Can you please step out, sir." The second one said. He was smiling, Isaac could see that, the teeth at least. He saw the fangs and his stomach turned with the feeling of disgust. The creeping of it, like his stomach was an overflowing well with the poisoned water slowly steeping out and killing the grass and flowers and trees. Isaac studied their face, it was beginning to boil in him. Nauseas fear.


    But the driver, he did not know better. He stepped, couldn¡¯t afford another infraction after all. His hands slapped each other as he bartered.


    ¡°Come on, it was dark. I sped a bit, let it go, would you? No one here.¡±


    And the police officer smiled at him. One of them grabbed him. The other rose his hand and brought it down, a swing of the baton, like a scorpion bite across his neck. The noise of his skull hitting the floor was low, like a tremor in the floor, a tremor that rose to Isaac¡¯s hands and feet. He turned the handle, nothing. He kicked, nothing. He kicked harder, the glass broke, trapped his legs and made him squeal with blood. Dragging his stabbed leg back made it worse, like tiny razors danced across his foot.


    The two were just finishing their beating. The sound of skull and brain turned to the sound of mush, the beating of ground meat. Isaac could not see, did not want to. He held his leg and tried with the other. He reclaimed his leg, prepped it fire but stopped. The glass above him broke, scratched him and he saw the batons. Shredding, pulling away from the sheet of glass. He was grabbed by the hood of his shirt, then by the neck and slowly they worked until his whole body was out. One of them got the idea to open the door from the made hole, and by then it was too late for Isaac.


    "They ain''t ganna find you." One of them said. "Who knew all you needed were a couple orange cones?"


    ¡°Fuck off me!¡± Isaac shouted. The birds flew from and reduced the forest desolate. He threw a piece of glass at one of them. It made a wound, nothing more, a small cut on the lip.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get so mad, sweety.¡± He said with a low wisp. ¡°The game was rigged from the start.¡±


    He looked down at Isaac. Pitied him, maybe. Isaac couldn¡¯t tell what the bleeding smile/frown meant. He couldn¡¯t stop to see it close enough to tell. He was shaking, shaking up until they tazed him in spasms and cuffed him and forced him to watch the taxi driver and the car speeding off. A brick, all you needed was a brick to kill a man. To hold down the pedal of the car, to make it raise off and through the railings. To explode it, into a shower of metal, like meteor showers of prehistoric days. The driver and the car, burned. The splattered brain, stained. And Isaac, Isaac with the two maniacs in a car engine roaring that bloodthirsty yell. Like a predator, warning others, with the lamb gripped by the neck, this one is mine. Steer away.


    They did not speak much. Laughed, some. It was terrible. What terrible fate, to be surrounded by people yet to feel so alone.

 Chapter 43

    Isaac


    July 25th, 2017


    5:03 AM


    He was led through the muddy floors of the forest where the wheels of cars stopped and rolled endlessly into the flutter of brown snow. It made the trees dirty, with the sputter of mud. The car engine went on for a bit in its mindless anger. The police officers slapped the wheel, nodded to each other and opened the back door. They pulled him from his feet like some kind of fish dragged about on the port floors, floundering and flopping the dark waters all around. He was gasping. His face was scratched and it went on for a while, hitting branches and snagging himself against shrubbery before one of them got the good idea of lifting him up. They cuffed his hands this time and undid the cuffs on his feet.


    Isaac''s first instinct was to kick. He did. Felt proud even, in having done it until he received two kicks to his stomach. Air escaped and he opened his mouth for the silent groan. He was led through the forest where the animals knew well from where to steer away. They observed, small auxiliaries, mute animals with their curved spines facing up to the three pairs of footsteps that sloshed around wet ground. Isaac turned to see them, a squirrel holding a nut now dashing through a fallen log, the log itself half eaten and a haven of spiders and of snakes.


    The birds were the only ones uncaring. They stood and sang atop the pines. The trees were shaved. They did not rustle much, they seemed to get skinnier the closer the three got to their destination. A lake house. He had never seen it before or at least never remembered it. Below him, he could feel with the hole in his shoes, a trail of dirt left behind by wheels.


    The rust-colored pick-up trucks were waiting. One of them flashed his headlights and they nodded, made some sign with their hands and walked inside. Cranberries were floating on the surface of the water, Isaac noticed the red from the small slits made along the boardwalk. There were vines peeking out. It smelled of fall though it was summer, it smelled of the late of the year where the bright flowers and the bright trees die, where the snowfall covers all and leaves the grounds desolate. There was no snow though. It was summer, after all, a strange summer he began to think. The mist jumped along the steady waters and it carried with it the parting fruity scent that felt more of a memory of a smell.


    When he came inside he saw all around him the white shawls and the suits and the bright yellow flowers atop their heart. A pledge.


    The cobwebs were forming in the corners of the rooms where the fishing hooks and rods lay. The head of a deer was across from him, a glass counter to his rear with the round patina stained bell that no longer rung the call. It was an empty, dead store. A fish on a plaque reminded him. Its weight and name were rubbed out, filed out by time. He was taken further to the back. Through a hall and past a bathroom and some kind of storage room. He was brought to the garage (if a fishing store could ever have a garage) where the boats were docked and held. He waited inside with what looked like six other men, three women.


    There were four boats, three were rudderless. He looked to his side and where the small room bled out to. The placid dark waters and the cold winds that shook trees out of their summer bliss. Now he understood why the trees looked like starved wraiths, the lake was killing them. Sucking them, draining them. Like their very life force was pulled out of them and thrown into the water.


    Isaac faced westward to the black lake, more a chasm than a mass of water. There was no sound from it. No sound of life, at least. He remembered there were fish here once, that constituted the very shop he was in. They were gone now.


    His father came in a bit after five thirty five, two men behind him closed the metal sheet and covered the lake from their view. The waters were silent below them, they only heard the creek of wood and the light bumping of boats hitting each other. A fight with slaps, like playground children would.


    Isaac was silent.


    Alestor came up to him. He looked at him and put his hands on Isaac¡¯s chin. He jerked away.


    ¡°What have they done to you?¡± He asked. No one answered. Everyone looked at each other and Alestor¡¯s nostrils flared, he faced the two men behind Isaac.


    ¡°Do you think he¡¯s a farm animal? Do you think it was right to treat him like one?¡± He asked. They didn¡¯t answer. He slapped them, three times. Twice to make them think, the third to make them bleed. Their noses ran and they looked up with the white veil beaten off their face. They were middle-aged men who looked past Alestor and began repentance.


    ¡°I am sorry father for we have sinned¡­¡± They went on, practiced verse. ¡°And I plead upon the divine nine to deliver me from my weakness.¡± And it went on and on and on and on until Alestor slapped them again. A fourth to hush them. He yanked the keys from one of their sides and undid the cuffs on Isaac¡¯s hands. He looked down at them as if surprised he even had them with that childlike skepticism.


    Isaac looked to his father who had his arms extended to hug him.


    He punched him. Square in the nose. It sent Alestor back and made him hold his face as he landed on the floor, half his arm was in the lake water. Four men came to apprehend Isaac, Isaac who struggled and bit along their arms and who shouted.


    ¡°Let go, let go, let go.¡±


    It felt like a body cast, paralysis as the men held from him from feet to neck. A pool of pythons, suffocating.


    ¡°Let him go.¡± Alestor stood. ¡°He¡¯s not yours to hurt or to judge, you hear me?¡±


    They looked strange, surprised with the eyes behind their face masks low and beady. They hesitated for a while, kept close to make sure he would not attack but eventually turned away. And Isaac was back in the middle of the room facing his father, both of them dirty on the face.


    ¡°Come here.¡± Alestor brought his hand close. He was rubbing the mud and the dried leaves from his sons face. Isaac pulled his hand away and everyone locked up into that fighting stance.


    ¡°Enough with all of you,¡± Alestor yelled. ¡°He¡¯s my son, did you hear me? You animals!¡±


    And Isaac was torn in that moment. For his body wanted to run but his eyes showed that strange resolve, not necessarily courage but anger. Anger over the night he had snuck into the theater and bore witness to the death of Pip. Anger for the child. The memory ran in his head until it came upon the demon and his legs felt shaky all of a sudden.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°You killed a kid.¡± Isaac¡¯s voice was unsteady, between a high pitched shriek and those anger driven grunts. ¡°You did something to him.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯d you find out?¡± His eyes were wide.


    ¡°I saw you with the dagger and the table. You fucking stabbed him, over and over. You fucking killed him, dad.¡± Isaac held his mouth, his eyes felt those salty tears swelling. But his cheeks were fierce, hurting in how long they held that mad frown.


    ¡°I do what I do for the family, you have to understand. And not just mine.¡± Alestor extended his hand and spun to point out the room. ¡°All of theirs too. I do it for them as much as us.¡±


    ¡°Us? Are you fucking insane? What the fuck was that thing?"


    ¡°Thing? What thing?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t weasel out of this.¡± Isaac clenched his hands. ¡°The fucking monster, it came out of the kid.¡±


    Alestor drank his spit. His adam''s apple bobbed.


    ¡°The uteri, the heart, the demon.¡± Alestor rubbed his chin, undecided on which to start from. ¡°It was a womb. I was just giving it a Cesarean cut. That¡¯s all. A process.¡±


    ¡°Pr-process? Cesarean what? You fucking killed a kid.¡± Isaac held his father by the collar. ¡°Someone with a mother, someone with a father who had dreams and hopes and a promised life. Someone who could have been me.¡±


    Alestor pushed him away.


    ¡°It was necessary. It was tribute.¡±


    ¡°For what? I don¡¯t understand.¡±


    ¡°Because you haven¡¯t seen it. That''s the problem. The only problem. Yes, you haven''t seen it.¡± Alestor ran to the back. He took out his pink salt, his wax candle, his flint and steel. And the cup. A goblet with a mixture so thick and so dark it was hard to call it wine. It did not spill, it did not leave the rim, it did not move. An unholy concoction. ¡°If you see what I¡¯ve seen, you¡¯d understand. Let me show you paradise. He¡¯ll tell you everything.¡±


    He held it all in his chest and walked over to his son like a child with his box of toys, wanting to share, wanting to show. Isaac pulled away.


    ¡°Enough of this insane bullshit.¡± Isaac said. ¡°I used to think it was just drugs, a sniff and that was it. Too much acid rotting your brain. But this, this is much worse.¡±


    ¡°It started like that.¡± Alestor dropped to his knees and organized his materials. ¡°We saw something in a fire once, when I went out to burn your mothers clothes. It was the first week. The first... It was in the fire! I remember, I promise. After that we started taking psychedelics, I just wanted to re-watch what it. Heaven, I tell you, Zac. Heaven."


    "What are you trying to pull? You found god, is that what you''re telling me?"


    "No. God let me suffer, God let me go. It was the opposite." Alestor''s eyes flared. "Let me show you."


    ¡°Enough. I don¡¯t want to hear it. It¡¯s enough to know my father is a murderer, it¡¯s another thing to hear him pleading his excuses. Have some dignity! Admit to it.¡± Isaac yelled. "At least lie. Let me pretend, at least, that you still have a moral compass. Any compass."


    ¡°It was paradise, Zac. It was the best thing ever. Better than the trips to the Bahamas, better than the cruises or the old birthday cakes you used to get at the steakhouse.¡±


    ¡°Is it better than mom?¡± Isaac began to tear up. Alestor looked up.


    ¡°It is mom. And your sister. It¡¯s both of them. Let me show you.¡± He started the circle of pink salt. Isaac came up, his mud stained feet left the imprints on the wood. He looked at his father, his balding head and the crazy hair that flew down.He rubbed his feet and ruined the circle and kicked the candle into the water.


    ¡°You can excuse the act however you will, but you can¡¯t change it for what it is.¡± Isaac cried. ¡°Mom is dead and she took you with her, you¡¯ve been dead this whole time. I can¡¯t believe I couldn¡¯t see it until now.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve evaluated so many people on top of the couch, you never bothered though, have you? To put yourself on it, to see what¡¯s inside of the fucked up brain of yours.¡±


    Alestor lept up. He grabbed Isaac by neck and dragged him to the floor. The wood snapped and the plank fell into a plop inside the water. Alestor¡¯s hands were hot, gloved in black flame. It burned Isaac, burned and suffocated. The more he put his hands around his father, the more he burned. His tears were vaporizing but his body would not. It was an empty pain, pain without the wound or the actual burn. Torture.


    ¡°I am trying to fix everything, you little shit.¡± Alestor shouted. The men around the room looked apprehensive. The contention exploded. The storm of their hearts orchestrated their fear. and they began to look, with skittish eyes, for a means of escape. They contemplated, so afraid of Alestor and his fire and his rage, to perhaps grab him away. But they were afraid of that even more.


    ¡°What can I do with a son that can¡¯t see? That won¡¯t see? Ignorance isn¡¯t your sin, stupidity is.¡± Alestor spat. It hit Isaac¡¯s scrunched face. He was shouting with what little air remained. ¡°You¡¯d dig the knife into your father? You¡¯d twist it, wouldn¡¯t you? You did it before, after all. You sold me out. You think I wouldn¡¯t find out you shithead? Huh? Huh! Say something.¡±


    ¡°Off.¡± Isaac¡¯s eyes rolled up. ¡°Me.¡±


    Alestor looked at him. He undid his hands, he sat on top of Isaac now. Isaac who was wheezing for breathing, holding his chest to see if it would even work anymore.


    ¡°I wish you had died instead.¡± Alestor said. Everyone seemed still at the confession, their bones hollowed out and the marrow replaced with some jelly-like substance. Isaac most of all wanted to collapse. But he was too busy holding his neck and reviewing the markings of his father''s fingers.


    ¡°I could have replaced you with the other. I could have had more. And the piece of her that exists in you is nothing more than pain in me. You¡¯re acid. Corrosive, running through my veins.¡± Alestor stood away. He reached for chains. ¡°It took a while to finally get my dialysis. But I¡¯m proud to say my blood is pure now. I know the way, it was shown to me.¡±


    ¡°Killing people is the way? Selfish murder?¡± Isaac huffed.


    Alestor clicked his fingers. Two men came around and bound Isaac. Alestor reached and put the collar around his neck. He wedged it right, watched the skin spill out from the top and bottom. It would never be snug, it would never sit right. Every second Isaac would be reminded, with the yank and the pinch of the metal on his neck, that he was chained to the ground.


    ¡°I hate the son I have now.¡± Alestor said. ¡°But I hope, within the next few days, that you come around. I really need you to. For your sake, not mine. I¡¯ll come around every couple of hours to see your progress.¡±


    ¡°I hate you.¡± He cried. ¡°Let everyone fucking know, let the earth and the heavens and your gods and devils know. I hate you. Let it ring in your heart, I fucking hate you. A stab, a knife? Yeah, yeah, I wish I could right now. I wish I could fix you with the only way I can see you being fixed. I hate you, let the words ring you fuck.¡±


    Alestor looked down at him. An animal, all his son was. The rottweiler gone feral.


    ¡°It¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve disciplined you, hasn¡¯t it? Last time I yelled at you was when you were fourteen, just beginning to masturbate. You lied to me then. It seems as though I shouldn¡¯t have stopped with just a yelling. Your whole life has been one giant wank. An annoyance, you gluttonous fool. To be given everything, yet to be so spiteful towards your father. Disgusting.¡±


    ¡°What father?¡± Isaac said. ¡°I look and look but I can¡¯t find any man you¡¯d call a father. Only a fraud, a fraud with a belt. I can¡¯t believe I haven¡¯t stood up to you until now.¡±


    ¡°Well, our failures are the same. We never struck each other. You were never shown the man I could be, but you will learn. Consider this your therapy session, a correction to that faulty cognitive behavior of yours.¡± Alestor walked up to the door. The other men were beginning to leave.


    ¡°I really hope you¡¯ll come around. I can show you the things He¡¯s shown me. They¡¯ll really make you rethink this whole rebellious streak of yours.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t rethink a murder. You can bullshit that way, Alestor.¡± Isaac said. The defiance in his tone made Alestor lower his head. A hammer strike right on his head, he could feel the pressure of a headache building in him like a band around his head slowly crushing his skull.


    ¡°We¡¯ll begin your conditioning tomorrow. Have a good night, Isaac.¡± Alestor took a final look at the chained son. It was short and he was stuck to a water pipe running up along the wall. Isaac shouted at Alestor, growled and dragged his fingernails against the floor to try and gain terrain. He couldn¡¯t. He could not move more than four yards. He pulled on his chain, nothing. Steel was too much.


    Alestor sighed, put his hand on the light switch and pressed. The room went dark.


    But Alestor could hear his son. His shouting went on, like the waves of water rising high with the blue surf and crashing down into that loud bevy: Help me, help me, help me, please.

 Chapter 44

    Dion


    July 25th, 2017


    1:24 PM


    ¡°Try it.¡± Apollo said. ¡°It¡¯s the Mac-Dog. Seasonal.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s seasonal about it?¡± Dion asked. He looked inside the tray.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s just marketing shit.¡± Apollo said. ¡°It¡¯s half a pound of fried macaroni and cheese on top of a pure beef, quarter pound hot dog. With the house special Chipotle ketchup. All natural, fresh, charred.¡±


    ¡°How long have you been practicing that?¡±


    ¡°I''m a natural born shill. I get a quarter a line. Demon hunting doesn¡¯t pay the bills, after all.¡± Apollo laughed though it resembled blowing out air more than anything sincere. He sat down to unveil the mass like a giant golden turd, stuck along the red plastic. It was so smashed together it seemed like a small bundle of papers, spilling grease, and putting it against his mouth, he could feel the butter and breadcrumb topping drip down his hand.


    ¡°It¡¯s the only thing I¡¯ve enjoyed in this city.¡± Apollo said, pointing to the Colonel Weiner plastic stand atop the flat-topped roof.


    ¡°What does all-natural beef mean?¡± Dion took a bite.


    ¡°It¡¯s a phrase corporations shout to make you think this hot dog is anything but a cow¡¯s blended asshole.¡±


    ¡°Disgusting. They should be held accountable.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s fine by me. I don¡¯t mind ass as long as it tastes as good as this.¡± He was half way through and his bun was already soggy and deteriorating behind the pinch of his fingers.


    ¡°When no one cares, it¡¯s easy to get away with anything.¡± Apollo said. ¡°It''s the same with murder.¡±


    ¡°What kind of segue is that."


    ¡°It''s easy to get away with murder if no one cares. Killing completely random assholes won¡¯t get you caught. Ask any cop, they¡¯ll tell you that the hardest men to catch are those without reason. Because why wouldn¡¯t it be? Who the fuck expects random acts of psychopathy.¡±


    ¡°Well, there¡¯s a lot of random in this world. We should be better at safeguarding against it. Chaos is the devil''s tool.¡±


    "Chaos is the natural state of the universe. Don''t make such a blanket claim. That''s dumb bible studies shit." Apollo said. Dion rolled his eyes. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked inside the window to his rear. There was an old man mopping the floor, an old man manning the register. There weren¡¯t many teenagers at all. There was barely anyone at all and the building would have looked vacant had it not been for the occasional bobbing yellow cap running back and forth.


    His eyes came back outside to survey the horizon, the empty tables with the rickety metal table tops, stained by bird poop. The umbrellas were on their sides, they were yellow and red and they mostly blocked the wind. There was no sun. All grey, like someone, took an eraser to the ozone and removed every bit of detail.


    "I hope we''re doing good." Dion said.


    ¡°We¡¯re demon hunters, Dion. Not¡­¡±


    ¡°Not heroes. Not Superman, not super anything. I¡¯ve heard this already. I didn''t ask you to repeat it again.¡±


    ¡°I know but it goes in one ear - ¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Out the other.¡± Dion said. ¡°Don¡¯t you have any new lines or is this the extent of your pretentiousness?¡±


    ¡°How about this.¡± Apollo said. ¡°I found where Alestor worked.¡±


    Dion¡¯s knuckles tensed.


    ¡°But he wasn¡¯t there.¡±


    Dion slapped his head, he caked it in a layer of fat.


    Apollo finished his hot dog. He searched inside his bag and found another, like a rocket in his hands.


    ¡°Everything about him has gone up and left. Poof. He shredded his papers, most of them, he has no secretaries taking calls. It''s all gone.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯d you get in then, if it was totally empty?¡±


    ¡°Through the roof. I made a hole in the ceiling. There weren¡¯t alarms at all, the whole place looked archaic. A dungeon. Just books, Jung and Freud mostly. Some early stuff from his college years, I presume. And lots and lots of case studies. Most of those were shredded, last minute too.¡±


    ¡°If you didn¡¯t find him, why are we having this conversation? Why call me out to dinner.¡±


    ¡°First-fold. I need you to be aware of one thing going forward.¡± Apollo cleaned his mouth. Gulped, swallowed. ¡°We¡¯re getting closer to him but I don''t think it''ll be a clean mission, not anymore than it has been already at least.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean by clean?¡±


    ¡°I mean this. Alright? I suspect some people are going to die before we can find an answer. We can only follow a trail of blood and for that, blood has to be spilled. The unfortunate part is how cleanly this guy''s been. He¡¯s wiped all his data, he¡¯s gotten rid of all my leads. I couldn¡¯t find his son. I couldn¡¯t find anything, not an ex-college friend, not an ex-drug dealer. I just have a name, soem addresses that he''ll never come back to. That¡¯s it. The guy is slippery.¡±If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    Dion slammed the desk.


    ¡°That¡¯s not good enough. How can you expect me to just take that? Blood for blood? Be smarter. You''re the brain, aren''t you? Find this fuckers tracks. This thing, this beast. Think of the ruthless atrocity he''s capable of.¡±


    ¡°And ruthless charity. From the few pieces of information I picked up I can tell you that his last few patients, those still alive, all received free treatment. There were no invoices, it seems that our friend was getting ready for the war a long time ago.¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t treatment then.¡± Dion figured. ¡° It was recruitment. An interview. Who the heck would join him? Who would be as willing as he was to murder as effortlessly as he''s done.¡±


    ¡°One of those recruits, slaves, whatever which way you¡¯ll call them, was someone by the name of Selena Breyer. You killed her at the press office. Burned her alive.¡± Apollo said.


    Dion stood still, fries in his mouth. He put his head down almost in grievance and brought them back up in renewed conviction, anger almost, stubbornness in the righteousness of his action.


    ¡°She killed her kid a decade back before she even met him. I guess she wanted help all of the sudden. Or at least that''s what the records show.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°So she was already practiced in the art. Well, makes sense that she¡¯d go hand in hand with this creep.¡±


    ¡°She was schizophrenic. Took Olanzapine, probably stopped taking it when she killed her kid. Probably came to this town to forget she did, decided to see a doctor one day, then well.¡±


    ¡°It sounds like you want me to forgive this cunt. Doesn¡¯t matter how much you try to excuse her, she did what she did. Live by the sword, die by it. Kill the weak, die weak.¡±


    ¡°You truly are holy. Indiscriminate with your acts of piety as you are with your acts of violence. You can¡¯t justify everything underneath the holy book. That¡¯s not how the world should work.¡± Apollo said. Dion stood. He left his food unfinished and on the table, growing stale.


    ¡°If you¡¯re going to humanize murderers, I¡¯m going to leave.¡±


    ¡°I humanize them because the easier time you have in understanding how someone can go so wrong, the easier time you¡¯ll have in avoiding those situations in the first place. Better to learn through someone else than one day, wake up, realizing you¡¯ve become a monster.¡± Apollo said. Dion turned to walk. Apollo grabbed him by the arm, Dion who then tried jerking away from him.


    ¡°You hit me cheap last time. Don''t let it get to your head though, it was luck. This time you won''t get so lucky. So sit down and stop and think. Think of all the times in which you''ve gotten in trouble and how they all have one origin of sin, your stupid anger. So stop, sit, and think.¡±


    ¡°You and The Priest, all you do is fucking lecture.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Good, You¡¯re learning how to curse. And yes, all we do is lecture dumb fucks like you. Except he¡¯s an even bigger prick than me.¡±


    Dion took a deep breath and relieved his lungs. His nose flared, like a bull, and ended calm and round and red. For the nipping chill had made his face swell with warm blood.


    ¡°Don¡¯t mix your food up.¡± Apollo came down to push aside the fries Dion had stacked on his hotdog. ¡°The flavors get all fucked if you do that.¡±


    ¡°Now you¡¯re making fun of the way I eat, you jerk? You know what happens to people who feel overburdened, right? They explode.¡± Dion slapped his hands down. The umbrella wobbled and the wind circulated around it, Dion could feel it cutting through his hair and blowing it to the side, covering his eyes. Like the ocean wave, collapsing and in its fall, pushing and crushing sand out to the shoreline.


    But Apollo was a rock. Weathered, already used to the sanding of time and the coarse feeling of his outer shell being thrown and ruined.


    ¡°You¡¯re right. I am a jerk, and this isn¡¯t about food.¡± Apollo leaned back. ¡°I want to get back to my point. I want to catch him but I can''t predict the universe. Too much randomness. But I can predict men. I can imagine what lead this educated person to this part of the world, what terrible rolls of dice he must have had and what great love he must have summoned his strength from. Enough to grab the Dealer, to punch him and to reroll the weighted dice. Yeah, I know this Alestor guy. I''m sure I do."


    Dion stared.


    "When I find him, I need you to promise me something. Don''t kill him."


    ¡°I can¡¯t make that promise.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t make it then, fucker.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Just keep it. We are not here to throw down the executioners sword. We''re here for balance, the right of the blade belongs to one person, to -"


    ¡°God.¡±


    ¡°No. To the state.¡±


    They looked at each other with the intensity of the cold. The numbing feeling, the feeling of heat leaving their bodies from their breaths, steam, rising and becoming a part of the amalgam of the gray sky. A very cold, harsh, overwhelming intensity. Apollo found his pocket, he took out a cigarette and filled the air with the scent of tobacco. Dion put his hand over his nose and they looked out to the street, both having said their peace.


    ¡°We wouldn''t have to have this conversation if you just listened to what I said early on. Don''t get too attached." Apollo puffed. ¡°Vicars with big hearts always become big targets. Caring too much can kill you.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s what makes life worth living.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s also what makes life short-lived.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d rather live a short life with my big, boring, cumbersome heart that live with whatever you have.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s called logic.¡± Apollo said. ¡°I''m telling you what to do because I was like you, once. I know it''s hard to believe because I''m a younger man, but it''s the truth. I know what makes men and I know what breaks them, after all, they¡¯re the same thing.¡±


    Dion looked at him and the forlorn expression on his face, the gaunt in his eyes and the shadows the hollow parts of his face made. Apollo looked as if sinking into himself, disappearing into a singular spot, his event horizon.


    ¡°Those words sound loaded. You have something you want to tell me?¡±


    ¡°I know what caring too much means. I wasn¡¯t born callous, I was made callous. I''ve seen plenty of men who thought they had that true and honest courage. But as well know, a true and honest courage is only one that has been tested and unbested. Most people don''t have that.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Not me and I think, not in you either, no. I just want to keep your little mind safe."


    Dion felt insulted. Betrayed of his expectation of what Apollo was, he sneered and spat and denied all at once. His annoyed jerking, coughing, fidgeting ended with a dishonest laugh.


    ¡°Well if you care about me so much, why don¡¯t you explain what all this mumbo-jumbo means. What hurt you so badly? Hmm? Or are you saving it for your date with your psychotherapy friend. How Romantic.¡±


    ¡°Shut the fuck up.¡±


    The air went silent. The birds stop chirping and the wind ceased its howling and turned to whimper. Time to stopped and Dion lost track of the hour in that moment. He sat still, put his head down and waited for some kind of movement. Apollo did not move. He looked forward, into the streets and the buildings half-empty and now murmuring life like some diseased patient in the ward. There was a woman cleaning a carpet, wacking it against the wall from outside her window. There was a couple, screaming at each other. Otherwise, it was still and lifeless and Apollo carried that silence. Like Atlas, all the earth¡¯s weight in awful, awkward silence. And he carried it. Did not protest, only looked out.


    It wasn¡¯t until they heard a paramedics truck scream out that Dion finally breathed. Two cars followed the truck, they both crashed into each other. The harsh clang of metal like armored horses forced to butt into each other disturbed Dion who stood up. But they were alive, both drivers, uninjured even and he just watched, with Apollo. And he found himself more disturbed in Apollo, who stared at the angry people. He wondered if he saw something different. Dion nodded his head, annoyed, that he was even curious, for a second, at his partner''s frame of mind.


    Apollo stood. He looked to Dion and said: ¡°We¡¯re scouting tonight, every night, until we find them. Alright?¡±


    It was the only thing he had said all day that made any sense. Dion turned to him and in that same solemn silence, shared his answer. Yes, of course. We¡¯ll catch him.

 Chapter 45

    Jeremiah


    August 1st, 2017


    6:33 PM


    Jeremiah had been there when his partner, Officer Heinz had been stabbed through the abdomen and sent flying to the wall and he was there to stare, to open his jaw wide and gloat his eyes upon the scene of blood coming down from the wall in streaks, bleeding bark. The plywood breaking, Jeremiah breaking. His eyes falling upon the monster, a run and then darkness.


    Jeremiah had been there for the bid his partner had made in the comatose room, on the bed, tranquil and steady. The son who watched from a distance, the wife who came every now and then to share her hand. He had watched the family come together and around the machinery and body. Jeremiah shared some of that pain, too much he probably would have said. For it collapsed him like a star and left him dwarfed by the emotion. The son, the wife, both looking at Heinz every day for the last few weeks, hoping and brushing away growing hair from atop of his head.


    Jeremiah had been there for the blue comet. The bullet Dion had shot out, though, without the knowledge of the shooter, he thought it the wild gunslinging of the great almighty Himself. Just a comet from space, an act of God. The plastic donut man atop of a food shop had collapsed on the front of his car, melted plastic and melted metal mostly. It had blown his car to pancaked cinders and it was hard to explain to the insurance woman behind the line (some days after the fact of the ''accident'') that a comet had destroyed a building and that the sign or face of the building (he exaggerated) had fallen on top of him like some booby trap of a temple in the forgotten Amazons.


    The insurance woman thought it was just arson, honestly. He thought it was God. They were both wrong, it was just a man who had gone insane some miles off and who had nothing to lose in his anger.


    He never got the full claim on his car.


    Now, he was car-less. A few days later he turned in his badge and pistol, some part by the hand of the commissioner who had done his duty in hiding the details of Jeremiah¡¯s testimony of the transpired attack on Heinz. The commissioner thought about it, what could have happened; hallucinations, insanity, foul play.


    In the end, he (the commissioner) decided that the unruly trash (Jeremiah) had gotten drunk on the job and that on that certain night, in that particular place of the town, a group of gangsters had taken their turns at beating and stabbing Officer Heinz and Jeremiah was too disabled to do anything about it.


    And no one questioned the changes the commissioner made because no one accepted Jeremiah''s claim, that it was the work of a monster or a demon or a thing.


    Who would?


    No one. The next logical step was then to exile Jeremiah, the act of which exonerated Officer Heinz, who truly did deserve the honor of the medals and ribbons pinned to his hospital gown on his brain-dead body. Though, really, what merit of pride did any badge from the city of Havenbrook command? After all, respect is relative. Trash begets trash and the respect of thugs and murderers was not something anyone should ever be in want of.


    That¡¯s why it hurt so much for Jeremiah when Heinz died on July 24th, at around 5:56 AM. Interestingly, after a visit by the commissioner and after the doctor had made the claim that it was probably ''Colby Heinz would survive the coma.¡¯


    Well, he was wrong. Or right, so right in fact that the idea of a conscious, now dignified man, might have ruined the scheme the commissioner had made on behalf of Alestor.


    And so the scheme finally distilled here, reader, and I know it to be a bit of a stretch but you must understand then when you get into the heat of the plan, the details become finicky and messy. I won¡¯t describe the death (it involved needles and an IV bag), but I will say it happened.


    Here we are then, the plan funneled down to its natural, as the natural end of everything, at a cemetery.


    The bagpipes were loud and the men were playing with puffed and reddened faces. Jeremiah stood from afar at a healthy distance only describable as, cordial to Officer Heinz and his family but not necessarily to the officers and their loud bagpipes.


    He was behind a tree. With a his coat so long as to be confused for a trench coat, and with one eye peering out from the side of the birch as he looked onward to the ceremony. A graves keeper came around with his leaf blower, he brushed his feet and shot the lawn clippings onto his shoes and pants. It stained and the mild dew carried the scent up his pants so that even his groin smelled of fresh grass. The rest of the family of officers or of blood were out on folded chairs, either weeping, pretending to weep, or wondering why they were here in the first place with narrowed eyes. Jeremiah stared at them and in small intermediate breaks of the congression, took pinches of sunflower seeds from his one of his many pockets to eat. All he ate were seeds and whiskey like a drunk squirrel. Though that might be an insult to the vermin itself, Jeremiah was worse than a mess. He was a dying mess, a landfill refuse burning a hole through the dirt. Burning of guilt and of anger and of shame.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    ¡°I don¡¯t owe you anything.¡± He said, lips barely parted for the flask. He was looking at the falling coffin of Heinz. Then he looked at his child, the autistic boy. He wanted to take back what he said. That and many more things.


    He leaned back a bit and slipped upon a tombstone, its name faded out and a long crack running through the middle of the stone. This all we are, Jeremiah thought, bones and stone and dirt on top of dirt on top of dirt until the last tick-tock of recordable time comes to put a stop to the spade.


    ¡°What am I doing here?¡± He asked. No one answered, not the Priest staring from afar, not the graves keeper and certainly not Heinz. He stood up and wiped himself of dirt and stood like a pygmy, half-hearted with his spine curved and neck bent. His eyes were heavy, watering. The ceremony was coming to its end and the people were standing, strangers and friends and fiends, all grabbing dirt and pouring it over the body of Officer Heinz, Colby Heinz, or to his family, Colby ¡°Kobe¡± Heinz. The jersey went down with the coffin. Jeremiah remembered buying him that number, forging the signature of the famed NBA player too. He always thought himself clever. Heinz probably knew though, he always knew things and Jeremiah had always looked curiously and his factoids and strange love of hobbies and sport, he¡¯d ask, ¡°Is there anything you don¡¯t know?¡±


    And Colby would say, ¡°Well, my wife says I don''t know when to shut up.¡± And they¡¯d laugh.


    The silence hurt now.


    But he didn¡¯t know what to say, only watched as everyone around him left. He stopped hiding after a while and learned it didn¡¯t matter, he was a leper to the force now and perhaps out of pity, they ignored him. Or respect, or the appearance of respect to Officer Heinz.


    There were only three real people at the funeral by dusk hour. The son, the wife, and Jeremiah. And it was the son, of all people, his small black suited body, that came forward to Heinz. His pants were stiff and it was obvious he outgrew them two years ago. It made him wobble. A small penguin, pale-faced and black feathered. He came to Jeremiah and took raised his hand. He was holding a small bundle of dirt, his mother came up immediately after the reveal.


    She smiled at Jeremiah.


    ¡°He doesn¡¯t know how to act around people.¡± She said and tried with that I-want-to-appear-all-together-but-really-this-is-too-stressful smile to convince him the kid wasn¡¯t trouble. He wrestled out of her hands and threw out the fist again.


    ¡°Stop it.¡± The mother said. ¡°Stop it, Bartholomew.¡±


    He didn¡¯t stop. He threw the dirt onto Jeremiah, Jeremiah who instinctively strafed back.


    ¡°Apologize. Right now.¡± The mother said then. She slapped him on the bottom. He didn¡¯t cry. He was pouting and his face was scrunched. His lips were shut and his eyes would stare up to Jeremiah. When he looked back though, the boy turned his head though tried to keep his glare from the corner of his sockets. Jeremiah smiled. He looked like those painting in the spooky houses, though malfunctioning. More hokey than haunted.


    ¡°Your dad named you after a song. You know that?¡± Jeremiah laughed. The boy eased, his shoulders leaned out. ¡°I asked him what the band was, he said he forgot. He only remembered the song being good. Your dad was that kind of man, a little too free. Though you wouldn¡¯t know it from the way he worked.¡±


    Jeremiah leaned down. His eyes were still overbearing, his face was still drooping and he felt vacuous. His skin was pale and the dimples on his face looked like small puncture wounds. But he tried to smile.


    ¡°I saw your dad run two miles just to catch some guy who stole some playing cards, tackled him into a palette of dishwasher soap bars and napkins. He was always like that, free and honest and hard about what was right and what was wrong.¡±


    The mother loosened her grip on her son. Their heads fell as they mourned in unity and after a while when the sun had fallen completely and the white-beige light posts around the winding brick road lit up, did he bend over and scoop the black dirt. It was moist and gritty, it clung together like play dough and he morphed it into a ball as he walked towards the mound. To the side were the tracks of a wheel loader now gone. In front, the round mound. He dropped his handful of dirt and closed his eyes.


    He didn¡¯t see the boy running down the hill and the mother failing in stopping him. He skipped across, his pants ripped around his waist and his undersized white shirt stuck out from the hole like extra pockets. He came to Jeremiah and slapped his hand. He awoke.


    ¡°Tell me more about my dad.¡± The boy¡¯s eyes were looking down. His face was struggling, Jeremiah couldn¡¯t tell in what way it molded. The tectonic plates of emotions within him were moving and he did not know how to express them. The boy moving back and forth in a rocking motion as if in the cradle. A sedation for his troubled heart. A distraction, that went up and down. The mother ran down. Jeremiah stared and put on that face of the boxer with the mouth guard, prepared with a squashed face for the incoming impact of a hook.


    Bartholomew went flat. He struggled, his head fidgeted away. His mouth stuttered, but he said at last, what was fighting for his will the last few seconds.


    ¡°I want y-you to tell me what happened to my d-d-dad. How did he d-d-d-d-die?¡±

 Chapter 46

    Alestor


    August 4th, 2017


    9:22 PM


    Alestor stopped the routine flagellation and let his son catch his breath. He watched Isaac, clinging to pipe with the tight grip of both his hands as if hanging over a cliff. The desperation in his breath sounded heavy, a deep winding.


    Isaac''s shirt was torn into pieces on his backside, skin clung in small centimeter long tears of flesh at the bottom of each of his lash wounds. His back was red. Swollen and Alestor watched the blood ooze out. The right side of Isaac''s face was mutilated, bulged, as to appear as a second head altogether. It looked like an aborted Siamese twin clung to him and it weighed his head down.


    ¡°Just give it up.¡± Alestor pleaded. His breath was worse than Isaac¡¯s, his legs struggled to lock. His eyes darted and his grip was lazy, the threads and ends that now had fresh blood on them spilled into the gaps of wood and wet themselves in the lake.


    His son couldn¡¯t answer. He had his face to cold pipe that iced his bruises and wounds. Alestor could see him licking his teeth, what remained of them.


    ¡°Talking never did anything for you. You¡¯d nod your head, you¡¯d pretend to listen but the minute I turn around you¡¯d always backstab me.¡± Alestor threw the whip. ¡°You said you¡¯d be a doctor, you became an artist. I swallowed my pride. You said you¡¯d always work hard, you dropped out. I had to force you to go to school, to get a job, to do anything. You lazy brat. But that¡¯s not your greatest offense. You said you¡¯d love me, that you¡¯d love mom. I¡¯ve never seen you once at her grave. Not once! Not for her birthday, not for yours. Not once after the fact.¡±


    ¡°It hurts.¡± He spat blood. His eyes were shaken, a ship lost at sea swaying course-less to the rhythm of the waves. ¡°All of it hurts. All of me.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s no excuse. It hurt me too. You know that? I lost a daughter that day, you lost a sister. I lost a wife, you lost a mother. You never mourned them like I did, you never cared. And it¡¯s because of that, that I can¡¯t say I was surprised to find you ratting me out.¡±


    ¡°I wanted to understand you.¡± Isaac wheezed. ¡°Mom would have done better with you. She worked day and night with the rapists and the pedophiles, in prison asylums like this, hoping and squeezing what humanity they had left. Like fucking toothpaste.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t compare me to those degenerates.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± Isaac coughed. ¡°That¡¯d be an insult to the sick. No, you¡¯re worse. Some people can¡¯t help their nature, but you? You became this, you made this out yourself. Whatever you are. Child killer, murderer.¡±


    ¡°You think it was easy for me?¡± He kicked Isaac¡¯s legs. They were purple and no longer worked and he had no energy to move them, only flinched a bit at the sharp pain. ¡°Faith is never easy. I¡¯ve worked for a promise, do you think that¡¯s easy?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what makes you worse, doesn¡¯t it? I can say a psychopath has no choice in how he was made, but you? You do it out of love.¡± He looked up. ¡°What great fucking love you have. Can¡¯t say you ever showed any to me.¡±


    ¡°Everything is out of love.¡± He kicked his stomach and winded Isaac, Isaac who clinched and who laid out on the floor. ¡°I¡¯m doing this to save you, you fucking idiot. Ungrateful bastard. I don¡¯t care what you think of me or what I¡¯ve done, I just need you to make a promise. Promise to stay by my side, to never snitch. A promise to be quiet for the rest of your life. You can live any life you can so long as you do it in silence. You hear me? Change your name, change your background. I don¡¯t care. Just shut your fucking mouth.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    He was prodding his son with the tip of his boots, stabbing his elbow with the curiosity of a child and his stick.


    ¡°I can¡¯t promise that.¡± Isaac sniffed. ¡°I tried it for a week, let it happen more like it. I can¡¯t ever do that again.¡±


    ¡°You disgrace.¡± Alestor raised him by his shirt, all that remained of it at least. It resembled a scarf.


    ¡°I feel the same way,¡± Isaac said. ¡°If you ever let me out I promise I won¡¯t just rat you out, I¡¯ll fucking kill you.¡±


    Alestor held him close. He felt his son¡¯s breath on him, it was shallow and rapid. He could feel his eyes swell with the anger he saw in his kin.


    ¡°You¡¯d rebel? Against your father?¡±


    ¡°What father?¡±


    ¡°You have no idea how hard it is keeping you alive or how close you are to the end of the rope. I can¡¯t keep the others at bay so if I can¡¯t convince you, no one can. And if I can¡¯t convince you, then¡­¡± Alestor felt his legs shake.


    ¡°It¡¯s hard to convince someone when you argue as the sinner pretending to be the saint. How you convinced anyone is above you.¡± Isaac said. ¡°I don¡¯t think you ever loved anything. I think you loved mom the same way you loved work, with that calculating, cold, obsession. It wasn¡¯t only after you lost her that you even started caring.¡±


    ¡°Obsession is love.¡±


    ¡°A corrupted love. A narcissistic love.¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s the only olive branch you¡¯ll ever get from me. I want you to live, even if just to satisfy my ego, I¡¯d like it for you to have a family one day too. Maybe then you¡¯d have context about all of this.¡±


    Isaac laughed. His throat hurt, it felt caved in but he laughed with that crackled, agonized howl and filled the room with the noise. His face extended out, his whole body was still and the moonlight broke through the small interstices of wood planks to hit him. It looked like his face was being cut in two as the moonlight scarred him straight down the middle of the face.


    ¡°Whatever is in you must exist in me. The genetic curse. Why in the fuck would I ever pass that on to anyone else?¡± He said. ¡°I was so afraid a few weeks back when I first saw the killing, the stabbing, the bleeding. But I lost that in here.¡±


    He shook his hands and the sound of chains hitting and rattling broke silence.


    ¡°I don¡¯t fear much anymore but one thing, having to live with the fact that I never disobeyed you. That I let you run amok.¡±


    Alestor snapped, his eye twitched and he swore he heard from the darkness of the room, past the boats that jumped calmly on top of the water line, he heard the voice and the words: kill him, do it now. The son disobeys the father, kill him.


    ¡°Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up.¡± He roared.


    ¡°Talking to your imaginary friend again? What was his name? Stix? Ass?¡± Isaac said. He was forcing the laughter from his broken mouth, licking loose teeth, snorting blood and snot to lubricate a warm pain in his throat.


    ¡°Shut up, you fucking asshole.¡± Alestor screamed. He was slapping at the air, at the circus of sound. A carnival of noise wanting one thing, saying one thing. He pulled his hair, knelt and yearned for the black leather whip now camouflaged with the lacquered wood. He kicked it, heard it fall with a plop into the water and shouted again.


    ¡°One last chance, do you hear me, Isaac? One fucking last fucking chance.¡± He went out, through the door. Went past the hallway, past a bathroom and the sounds of fornication, four maybe five. He went further, through an intermittent room where two of his worshipers laid on the couch with their tongues out and their heads slanted. High on quaaludes or perhaps so involved in the illusion of their acid induced journey that they were lost.


    He knocked the couch with his imposing walk. They fell further back. He made it to the small room. A janitors closet once now re-purposed into a place of worship, an unholy confessional stall. To the front was the skull of a cow laying on its side, to his right was a metal table that rattled with the closing of the door. Everything shook. The beads, the bone, the pictures and most of all, Alestor. He was finding candles, finding pink salt, painting the floor with insignia and rubbing out the rough edges of his lines.


    ¡°Tell me. Tell me what to do, please.¡± He pleaded. Everything fell, the sand, himself. He lay in prostration. His hands dragged to his face to gather tears. He could hear knocking behind him and the collection of breaths waiting for him.


    ¡°Is everything alright?¡± One of the voices said.


    No, no, most definitely not. And Alestor held himself.


    ¡°Is it wrong to do bad for an ultimate good?¡± He asked quietly. And from the corner of his eyes, he could see the light shining and answer forming through the skull of the cow. A fantasy, maybe. Or perhaps, a vision of a better time.


    And Alestor smiled. With those crocodile tears, he smiled. He grabbed his chest and shouted: ¡°Of course, of course, that¡¯s it!¡±

 Chapter 47

    Apollo


    August 5th, 2017


    6:58 PM


    ¡°How long have you been up here, Batman?¡± Dion asked. He looked down to the streets where the crooked lampposts flickered into seizures of yellow lights. It was not dark out, only just beginning.


    ¡°It¡¯s the best place to get a view.¡± Apollo held a pair of binoculars to his eyes, he was sitting on his hams and to the side of his boot lay a book, ¡®The Corrux: The Fools Guide to Demonology and Vicar Culture First Edition, Vol. 1¡¯, half opened and bent on its spine. His eyes were set like a sentry, hovering across the horizon and scanning with those cold red eyes.


    ¡°Have you found anything?¡± Dion walked up. He used his hand to slant against a giant poster board where a car insurance firm had been painted over with penises and breasts, by children, both of them presumed.


    ¡°Or are you just spying on people?¡± Dion¡¯s voice was muffled and distorted behind the mask.


    ¡°No, I stopped doing that when you finally broke up with that girl. Ophelia, was it?¡± Apollo looked down.


    Dion¡¯s mouth was open but could not say anything. He coughed and choked on words, anger and shame and surprise.


    ¡°It¡¯s not right to spy on people, you¡¯re breaching our trust.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t trust anyone.¡± Apollo said apathetically. His neck was outstretched as he checked the corners and the small alleys.


    ¡°A woman had her purse stolen, there¡± He pointed to what looked like a small crack in the map of the city, there was a trash on the very entrance of the alley, it was pushed over and spilling into the gutter. ¡°Another man was mugged some miles off, right in front of his job as he was about to get into his car. There was also a fight in front of the police office up in Central Street. One of them cheated on the other''s girlfriend, some such other. Both of them lost when the tasers flew.¡±


    ¡°And you didn¡¯t help, I¡¯m guessing?¡±


    ¡°No one died. Nothing of value was really lost. You have to treat the streets like the Amazon, with abject curiosity. Don¡¯t touch anything and let nature take its course. They weren¡¯t our targets after all. They¡¯re not the pathogen, the disease we¡¯re chasing after.¡±


    ¡°I think you should have been hugged more when you were a child. Want one, buddy?¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re too loose with love. A bit of a manwhore, if you ask me.¡±


    Dion exhaled in quit intervals and stood upright.


    ¡°Whatever, jerk. What about the cultists?¡±


    The sky was setting maroon across the rows of clouds. The sun bled out and washed over them like the cut veins of a wrist. The light drizzled down, warm red. But it was not hot, not to the touch, at least. Dion pulled up his suit close to his neck.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t spotted anything. They¡¯ve been quiet.¡± Apollo said. He turned his gaze to Dion and put down the binoculars. ¡°But they¡¯re still here. I can taste the iron in the air. It¡¯s like my mouth is rusting over.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°I know what you mean, I can feel it too.¡± Dion said. Apollo looked at his partners mask and how he could not keep that straight gaze, how Dion turned and looked around and fidgeted with his hair. How his arm twitched, how he flicked his ears and scratched himself red on his crocodile-skin elbows.


    ¡°Have you considered what I said? About letting them live?¡± Apollo stood, he could feel the trapped air in between his knees pop. He picked up his book and set it behind his belt. ¡°I can pull some strings with the Vatican. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll be more than happy to send more capable people to arrest these disease people. FBI, probably. More capable people, at least.¡±


    ¡°Do you think a fifty by fifty concrete jail cell could hold any of these guys? Arcana, demonic possession. We don¡¯t know what we¡¯re dealing with.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°It could hold most of them. Alestor, we¡¯ll put him in a strapping chair. Maybe cut off his fingers, dress him in holy charms. Douse with so much holy water he¡¯d wish he was in Guantanamo bay.¡±


    ¡°Good. Serves him right. No one should enjoy the pleasures of life, he who acts in selfish desire and ruthless ambition.¡± Dion crossed his arms and laid back on an exhaustion pipe. Steam was coming out, they could smell Dim Sum and Chinese five spice. But they couldn¡¯t hear guests, or any noise from the streets. Only a mild rustle.


    ¡°All desire is selfish, Dion.¡± Apollo rubbed his chin. ¡°Don¡¯t be so vengeful. It¡¯s easy to throw the stone, it¡¯s much harder to imagine yourself as the man being thrown at.¡±


    ¡°Some people don¡¯t deserve empathy.¡±


    The red circles of Apollo¡¯s eyes narrowed as if laser scanners, going up and down and searching for Dion. Apollo closed them at last, seemingly having found an answer or evidence that he¡¯d never have an answer to Dion¡¯s aggression. He stretched his neck and could feel more pressure points pop and crack across his body. Four hours had done this to him, had cemented his joints and left him still and aching. He was only just beginning to feel the blood through his limbs and it felt like sand coming down his legs and to his toes and filling him, a giant hourglass of a person waiting and sitting for danger that never came but felt like it was always here.


    Apollo faced down, by the edge, where the threads of white mist were beginning to fret and leave, a giant drainage that went eastward. He did not know what it meant, but would.


    ¡°You know, the offer is still on the table, you¡¯re free to leave if ¡ª ¡±


    They both felt it on their wrists, they moved their sleeves and felt with their fingers the constant shuffling of their threads. The burning glow of yellow, the way the string tugged and suffocated their left arms. It was reacting to something, something in the air and in the direction where the mist had funneled towards, out in the forest and the lake that he could barely see and only knew because of the flicker and glimmer of blood red light. It was coming, something.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Apollo said. They both got ready, put their feet on the building cornices, felt the concrete crack behind the power of their kick. And suddenly, they stopped.


    ¡°What the hell.¡± Dion looked out.


    ¡°What are you waiting for?¡± Apollo asked. And for a while he did not get an answer, no, he had to look to where Dion looked. Eastward. There was a fire, a pillar of smoke that wrapped up and contaminated the air like an inverse whirlpool, spitting out darkness, death, and anarchy. It was an explosion in the direction of the police office. And the paramedics? The firefighters? Who ought have been racing across the lanes? Gone or confused. Scared, maybe, as they scattered. There was more fire. More smog. It was ten miles off but they could hear the chaos, it finally crashed on their ears. A loud bang like an invisible hard barrier had been working itself towards them and upon hitting them, had ran off, bearing the message to all willing to hear; death has come.


    It was the sound of screams. Of glass and of concrete blown and destroyed, a demolition. Soon it smelled of it too, gunpowder, gasoline.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± Dion asked. Apollo gulped and look at both ways, he looked at Dion¡¯s quivering hands and how they shook and unconsciously moved to his waist and his coat. The cowboy, reading up. And he thought, immediately, which terror would design more violence. The lake house from where the thread of life quaked and quivered or the burning bodies, the scared townspeople evacuating from the fire-licked streets, where he could hear the civilians, the police, and the help all screaming in a union; spare us. Spare us, please.


    ¡°Go to the fire. I¡¯ll handle myself.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Are you sure? I can fight.¡±


    ¡°You can also help.¡± Apollo jumped to the second rooftop, granite flew. ¡°Helping isn¡¯t my nature, anyway. Go on, Superman. Do your job.¡±


    Dion nodded and left opposite. Both unaware, ignorant, that in their adrenaline, in the reckless planning, they had never predicted the third attack.

 Chapter 48

    Isaac


    August 5th, 2017


    5:43 PM


    It was the last chance Isaac would get to live, he knew it, he read the silence in the room and the rattling of his shackles around his leg and his arm and his neck. They had been added throughout the days after every tantrum he threw periodically and now, half of his body was immobilized, bulging red from the chafe of the metal or from the bruises of his beaten flesh. He put his ear to the pipe, it carried the sound of the store. He could hear mild chatter like the chirping of songbirds out. Then there was a shuffling of feet like the rolling thunder. Then a curious tone, a debate and finally a conclusion. They spoke with an understanding and said; hmm, yes, of course, we¡¯ll do that.


    The meeting was done and it made the beads of sweat on Isaac roll down. The door opened.


    Alestor walked into the room. He shut the door behind him, soft with the precision of a concerned father afraid to awake his infant son. There were no babies here though, only beaten bodies. Isaac looked up, there was a swordfish with pale blue flesh right above Alestor and it stared down at Isaac with its pointer.


    ¡°It¡¯s time to make a choice,¡± Alestor said. ¡°And no one else can make it for you, it¡¯s a choice that¡¯s been waiting for you for twenty-one years now. You¡¯ve been making it all your life but now, not tomorrow, nor the day after, now. Now, you must make it. And please, make the right choice.¡±


    Isaac looked at him, with the only eye he had that worked. Half of his face was heavy and bloated with purple or yellow flesh. He looked like a leper and felt like a defeated boxer, still fuming but knowing it was all for naught. His head sat on an incline, his chin rested on his bent knee, his whole body against the wall. It was a position best described as morbid laziness. He just didn¡¯t want to stand. He tried moving his tongue to lick chapped lips but couldn¡¯t work it through his swollen lips, the bruised balls of blood planted underneath his nostrils.


    And yet. With his lethargy and his hopelessness, Isaac still found a way to summon his strength. It was strength born from anger. And anger? Anger can cure any kind of malaise. Isaac¡¯s head rose. He sniffed, he could feel blood travel through his nasal passage and down his esophagus. It tasted like metallic mud.


    ¡°Mom used to make me admit to the wrong stuff when I did when I was a kid. When I stole. When I got in fights. She always made sure I admitted the crime or at least gave my case. And she made sure to do it before the punishment came.¡± Isaac¡¯s knees buckled. ¡°She said it was important for a man to admit to the crime before the fact. Not after. Because it¡¯s what makes the answer genuine. So if you want an honest answer, I want to be treated like an honest man. Remove the chains.¡±


    The cronies arrived and they looked stiff at the front door, their white veils sucking in and out of their mouths. Alestor looked at his son, he swallowed spit and from his back pocket felt a key. He tossed it to one of the guards who held it with cupped hands and who went around to the pipe and the chain to find the pin to fill.


    ¡°I have to be reasonable, I hope this is good enough.¡± Alestor rubbed his eyes. They were swollen, bulging and dried. ¡°I want that answer. Will you join? Will you leave? Or will you stay? Those are good odds, Zac. Two out of three keep you alive.¡±


    Isaac walked forward and the felt the pull of the man behind him, holding his leash. It was a stern yank, it reminded Isaac to be gentile, to behave. He went forward anyway, shoulders pronounced like bullhorns, the hair growing on his sides and his neck falling down like a mane.


    ¡°What odds did I ever have? This isn¡¯t a coin toss, this is my life.¡± Isaac said. ¡°You made your peace a long time ago. I can see it in your eyes, you knew the answer before you entered the door.¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t.¡± Alestor said. ¡°You have to make it, right now, Zac. Say it. What do you want me to do.¡±


    ¡°What do I want?¡± Isaac looked around and rubbed his chin and his face and stretched them, so his eyes looked bigger than they were as he pulled down. His body felt heavier though he was sure he had lost weight, having starved in his enthrallment.


    ¡°I wanted what mom would have wanted, to move on. That¡¯d be normal, wouldn¡¯t it be?¡±


    ¡°We didn¡¯t get normal circumstances.¡± Alestor said.


    ¡°Of course we did. Death isn¡¯t special, there''s no conspiracy to it. No superstition. Sometimes it just happens.¡±


    ¡°Her death didn¡¯t just happen. It was organized by a tyrant who stopped caring about His creation a long time ago.¡± He spoke with flamboyant hands as if wafting away dust from the air, though there was none. His hands were twitching. The flesh was ruined, bleeding, cut open at the knuckles. It was the injured hand of a man who had spent a good few days beating his son. Alestor noticed the wounds immediately. He put his hands behind his back and looked for a pair of white-leather gloves in his pocket.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°That¡¯s insane.¡± Isaac shouted. ¡°Circumstance is circumstance, shit happens. And it¡¯s your choice in how you deal with it. And you¡¯ve dealt poorly.¡±


    He felt his chain pull and everyone felt an urge to pounce, but they did not. Alestor was moving forward, with the intensity of a bird of prey. He was taking wide strides and his hands were outward, ready to clinch.


    And Isaac moved back. Until he hit the leash-holder. And finally, when Isaac felt trapped between the two did he look at his options. What terrible ones he had, to fight or to surrender to a fate that seemed dreadful. And biting his lips (and how difficult it was to move his face), he grimaced. He turned. Punched the holder of his chain. The man groaned and leaned forward. Isaac bit his hand then and there. He almost tore through two joints, index, and thumb. The man screamed, let go, and all at once the seven spectators started coming forward. But they stopped midway. Isaac held them back, with his chain spinning and cutting the air with a whistle and the feeling of wind turbulence. He looked like a medieval knight, with his mace swinging wildly through the air like a helicopter rotor. He shot out it. The audience leaned back to dodge and they all lagged themselves under the threat. The spinning chain a weapon, a centrifuge that seperated Isaac and his anger from one another, materialized it into one, hopefully hurtful, end.


    And Alestor did not care. He walked forward. Hands out.


    ¡°Get away.¡± Isaac screamed. He sounded the mighty roar, but Alestor moved. The intent was clear in his eyes and it made no difference, weapon or not, he moved up. And Isaac realized this. He was losing ground. His foot went over the body he had just punched. Then it touched the wall and it seemed the whole room was out to crush him.


    ¡°Back!¡± Isaac screamed against the impregnable walls of the room. The shout didn¡¯t go far.


    ¡°Fuck off!¡± He flung the chain out. He felt it hit Alestor, felt the vibrations up to his shoulders and heard the rattle as it dragged around the floor. It was then that he himself was tackled down by some odd four or five (it was too much of a mess to count) and as Isaac descended, he could see from the corner of his eyes, Alestor. Falling. Both of them, falling. Isaac into the floor, Alestor into the water where his arms tried desperately to grab onto the edge of the boat. He missed, he sank.


    ¡°I split his head open.¡± Isaac screamed to the others who were confused by the act, they looked with fidgety eyes between Isaac and Alestor or rather the bubbles of Alestor that came through the surface of the water.


    ¡°Someone bring him up.¡± One of them shouted. Two volunteered to dive in. The boats shook as the three bodies descended. They waited. Their breaths were shallow, their eyes open and their bodies were sweating, cold sweat. There was curiosity, anger, in the bag of emotions, and for Isaac, a light pull of melancholy. It felt like the tug of the chain. The two came up.


    ¡°I can¡¯t see anything down there.¡± One of them said.


    ¡°Keep trying!¡± Another woman shouted. Her voice sounded fragile like a broken croak. They began to grit their teeth the more time passed, the more time their anger had to fester. They directed their gaze from the water to Isaac, Isaac who was still down on the floor, a knee above his neck and three different pairs of arms around his body. Isaac who had not taken a breath the whole time, who felt it hard to do anything but to watch. His eyes were glazed. He looked lost, caught in a light so bright as to leave him stupefied. They picked him up. They dragged him through the store. He did not move much, only dragged, like a piece of furniture. They set him in front of the fishing store, not in the porch with the half-rotted wooden pillars (that was too dignified of a spot for Isaac), they set him in the mud, next to a pile of old firewood and furniture, some of it cremated, some of it still wet from the morning mist. He felt the mud crawl up his body, splatter. It made him wet and cold, but he did not want a fire. He did not want much of anything.


    ¡°I killed my dad.¡± Isaac repeated. He was not proud, not ashamed either. His eyes were open. His skull must have been vacuous as there was nothing in him that or about him that resembled sentience. No, the silent death had left him silent. A scream, a person screams when the action inherent is to cause suffering. But a death, especially those intimate and quick ones, those are silent. Isaac was laid out on the floor like a sponge trying to absorb the seriousness of his action through osmosis. One half of his face (the half he could move) was open.


    There was crying for a moment, threatening, then screams. Calls to keep him alive to suffer, calls to kill him. And once again they debated. Once again they came to that conclusion; hmm, yes, of course. We¡¯ll do that.


    Four of them surrounded him like eagles at Prometheus¡¯s side, pecking at his liver. They were here now, to peck-peck-peck away at the solemn son.


    Isaac heard the click of a Glock. He felt the barrel behind his head. Smelled gunpowder. The bullet should have shot out, would have, had no one heard the sound.


    The sound of bubbling and of the splitting waters. The sound of a second Moses at the red sea, bloody red. There was an image of a man, one distorted and volatile beneath the undulating waters.


    Alestor.


    He was coming out, one heavy leg after another, breaking out of those swamp-like waters (or so they seemed in the horrifying evening) with nothing but downcast hair to lead him. The twigs, the dirt and the mud all on him like a placenta. He was birthed in the murk, baptized in it. Two people came up to him crying with joy. He sent them away as he stood on his own. He whipped his hair back and from his pocket, out came the sticky cloth. A large square, soft veil that contorted and stuck to his face. Yellow and black, the king in yellow. It was his crown, that small square of leather. It seemed glued to him now, a feature of his face in and of itself.


    Alestor came up to Isaac. Isaac could not look at him, only fidgeted in the mud. He was sad a moment earlier, now he was afraid. He didn¡¯t know what was worse, the feeling of killing or the feeling of death above him. It didn¡¯t matter. He knew both now. Alestor knelt down, he rubbed the hair away from his son¡¯s face.


    ¡°Don¡¯t make such a scene.¡± He said. ¡°Or we¡¯ll be late for sermon.¡±


    Isaac tried to scream. But there was no air in his lungs and simply laid mute as the two white hands wrapped around his eye and neck.

 Chapter 49

    Apollo


    August 5th, 2017


    7:39 PM


    It seemed like a stupid thing to do, running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop in broad daylight. But Apollo had thought it over, had imagined the world in which he did not run as excitedly as he did, the world in which whatever he was chasing after had got away. It frightened more than the prospect of getting caught.


    It also helped that there was a distraction. Miles away from him, the city was ablaze and any helicopter that could have spotted him was most likely there, dropping water on the inferno and any eyes that could spot him were facing elsewhere, at the spewing fires at the police headquarters.


    Apollo ran opposite of Dion, went west. He hit train tracks after ten minutes of his exhausting dash. Around him were the stares of sullen eyes that looked at what they thought was a strange masked figure in the middle of rusted train tracks. They were homeless. In the small carts they had shaped into lodgers, all of them too hardened by life to care for who he was but too afraid as to not mind him. Apollo looked back at them, at their dirty faces and the laundry hanging on the ends of broken cross guards. There were no demons here. He grabbed his arm and cursed.


    ¡°Fuck.¡± He kicked the floor, pebbles shot out into the backdrop of trees. ¡°Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.¡±


    His arm had gone cold. Where had he made the mistake? Heading West? Where was the path wrong?


    His instincts told him to tread back and he did so, bringing up his phone and ringing it for Dion. Dion who did not answer and who let it ring before breaking completely. Answered, then hung up. He took a breath, felt the air, moved his body around to stretch his spin and his calves and walked patiently until he felt the lead again. The heat of the trail, physically and metaphorically, back on his arm. He had to go north-west off from the broken train station he had found himself in. North-west into an area more rural, where the forest had taken over concrete, where the long network of trees had consumed the floor and turned it into the tremulous playground of roots and dirt. Following this path that could only be felt, by a thermometer on his arm, he found himself tripping. Constantly. Switching and strafing and twisting himself through the labyrinth of the forest as he tried to follow that visceral hotness that made his arm wiggle and squirm.


    He felt he was going nowhere. It made him angry. And it was an anger that followed him through, that was made noticeable by the loud and pronounced shaking of trees as he stomped and rustled through the forest. It looked like a storm from above, where the birds flew and squawked.


    And that''s why it took so long to make it to the small building near the lake, the store or what remained of the store that terminates and scavengers had not eaten. It was through accidental trial and error, through the pounding and the beating of his head against the bark and stone. It was through going the wrong way, marking on the trees with etched signs, ripping fauna. Through getting lost over and over and over.


    It frustrated him, it worried him. All that time spent searching, some thirty odd minutes which perhaps to you may appear small, but to Apollo, represented thirty minutes of life and death.


    For he was hunting demons and thirty minutes, not one more or one less, but thirty minutes would be all any demon would need to kill thirty dozens of people.


    So he found the store. And he breathed relief for a moment and thought it strange to be relieved in finding a monster. But he was. He took a giant gulp of that fresh air. He felt breezes that did not move the pines and the fallen leaves, gusts that only sent cold towards him. And after a while, he made that stern face behind his mask. He clenched his mouth and oppressed the feeling of nervousness from his body, exiled it from his nervous system. He stopped his clattering teeth. He clenched his fist and reached into his coat. Out came the blade, broken, shorter, more jagged like the wide maw of death ought to be. Yes, broken, over the course of many battles throughout the weeks. Broken and worn and sanded down. But still very dangerous, he could feel it, the pounds of steel and silver that sunk his feet into the dirt as he rested the blade above his shoulders.


    There were no cars in front of the store, there was no parking way as much as there was a small circle of tire tracks where someone had been. He went into the porch and perhaps by his weight and the weight of the blade, found his leg sinking through a board. Collapsing it. It made him shout.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    ¡°Fuck.¡± It might have been the only word he knew today.


    He retracted his leg from the broken porch. He felt something slimy and slippery underneath his soles, worms. Maggots. Crushed and releasing the white bile. He scraped it off. Not because he cared about how it smelled or looked, but because it made his feet slipper and uneven and that ounce of difference was already too much of a gamble for Apollo.


    So he prepared. He made sure his legs were ready and willing and his arms relaxed and malleable as he entered the door and the string around his left arm burned. A whip of fire it felt as he walked through the first room. His blade cut the side of the door frame. A notch one meter wide. Upon coming inside, he painted his blade at the shadows. Nothing. He looked around with that sentry gaze. There were so many stags and fish nailed up as trophies, their corpse a monument that did not inspire courage or pride as much as fear for Apollo.


    They peered down. Those decapitated heads. Their eyes were empty, beady and black. Their mouths were ajar and it looked like they had died wishing for one final breath but now staring at them, lifeless, Apollo realized they never got it. So it went.


    He walked around the aisles, kept himself low until he looked like one giant arrowhead, pointed upwards at an angle to the end of the room where the cash register sat upon a broken glass desk. Inside, past the glass, were the small specs of black, dead worms and bait, stuck under large shards of shattered glass like samples from a laboratory. To the side of that desk, a collection of bobbing lures. He reached for one of them, a red striped.


    But there was a noise. Clutter moving. Then whining. Then crying.


    A loud shrill sound that sent a chill through ventilation shafts above him. It felt like the inept gust from outside. Cold, unmoving, but very real. Apollo hunched. He walked to a door that lead into the back of the store, he heard it crawl open and he peaked one eye inside. He was following the noise of the infant cry. The hall was too dark for anything else but following noise. He moved through with those crimson eyes, only seeing minor details, like the white cotton torn and hemorrhaging out of a purple sofa. His back was to the wall and it felt like he was sliding against it more so than walking. He went further, past the sofa and a half-open door. He would have gone inside, a cow''s skull was peering from the small gap after all, but the cry was more intense. And more important.


    He stood near the door where a flaccid potted plant hung over the doorknob.


    All sense had become lost. All that remained of feeling was the pain of his tight grip on his sword and the wetness of sweat that made his clothes stick. His hairs stood as he approached the knob. His ear drums were inflamed. His breath, stilted.


    He put his foot under the doorknob. He pressed. Pressured. Kicked. The door hinges flew out and hit one end of the wall like shrapnel. His eyes scanned immediately, from the dark corners to the low glow of a buzzing lamp in the middle of the room.


    Where? Where are they hiding? He thought.


    No where. There was nothing here. Nothing but the boat and the cry that came from the boat, the only boat left in the back room. There was a chain. Some blood, but nothing else. The struggle here that Isaac and that Alestor had conjured was nonexistent, at least to him. The boats? Vanished. Sunken? Maybe.


    Apollo''s head looking over squared shoulders as he approached the cry. There was a fickle spotlight above, quivering in circles (it was still recovering from the sudden barge and entry) and he faced what seemed like a bundle of cloth inside the boat. He walked to it, his blade pointed towards it,


    He took them off, carefully, blanket after blanket until all that was left was one final yellow quilt. It looked like a baby from the outline, but Apollo knew. Felt it, on his arm. This was the source of that demonic burn. He focused, the adrenaline pumped into him with each of his furious heartbeats. He lifted the veil. His eyes opened for a bit. Speechless. They narrowed again.


    And reader, the details of the creature should not be made particular. Must not be. What Apollo saw could only be described as an afterbirth, a malfunction in God¡¯s hatchery that never earned a place in the evolutionary chain. A bad combination in the slot machine. An unholy monstrosity taking the form of an infant.


    A mockery. A mockery that mimicked the cry of a small baby, but no more. For the minute its gold, purple-veined eyes glanced back up at Apollo, it began to laugh. Its stone-textured tongue slipped out of the slit that would be considered its mouth and with that retarded gaze, it started to laugh.


    ¡°Gotcha.¡± It said. Hoarse as if its small lungs had used all of their force to squeeze out the words from its malformed face. It laughed. With it¡¯s scaly slit for a mouth, it laughed. Apollo only stared. His hands shook. And at last, when that sharp laugh had caused too deep a wound in his heart, Apollo brought up his foot in defeat. Not of strength as much as wit. And in his annoyed anger, Apollo stomped the creature. He felt the monsters black lungs pop like two rotten plums. He stomped again, this time through the boat and watched as the small shriveled body descended down the murk.


    The room was silent and he took out his phone. He rung again, went unanswered and rung another five times before he got the mechanical answer from voice mail.


    ¡°Ahh. Dion here. I¡¯m sorry I¡¯m not here, but be patient and I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be able to get to you soon. As the Lord says¡­¡± The machine recording went on. ¡°Romans Eight-twenty five. ¡®But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience¡ª¡±


    ¡°Dion.¡± Apollo shouted at his phone. ¡°Dion, please answer! Dion! Somethings wrong, we need to rethink the plan. We must have missed something, no one''s here. Nothing. Is. Here."

 Chapter 50

    Jeremiah


    August 5th, 2017


    7:52 PM


    Jeremiah didn¡¯t know if Bartholomew believed him. If what he said of monsters and of the night his father was wounded into a coma ¡ª a coma into a death ¡ª was any true. But ever since he had been told, the son, Bartholomew, for the last few days had spent most of his time with Jeremiah, scrutinizing him with a gaze that felt like a dissection. Jeremiah had taken him to school, had taken him out, had sent him to his mother¡¯s house, had helped him with homework and so on as surrogate father. Because at the bottom of Jeremiah¡¯s heart, he felt this was most justified, this, like the rest of his life, would be reparations for a cowardice he had committed on that windy night in that peculiar construction site.


    So it went like this. On this day and no other day it was requested by Bartholomew, specifically, that he would go to the church and that he would pray for who Bartholomew called ¡°Daddy¡±. Who, Jeremiah called, Officer Heinz.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need to go to church, kid.¡± Jeremiah said. The car rumbled in front of the thin apartments and the small skeletal metal stairs that rattled with the footsteps of the other renters. There was a woman on the second floor cleaning her rug, dropping dust and grime a top of Jeremiah¡¯s car. He could hear the small specks like the nimble tap of rain.


    ¡°Yes, you do.¡± Bartholomew said. He was sitting in the car with his backpack to his feet, both hands crossed on his chest to hold himself.


    ¡°And why is that?¡± Jeremiah asked.


    ¡°Because it¡¯ll make you feel better.¡±


    Jeremiah rolled his eyes and blew his nose outside the car window.


    ¡°A priest won¡¯t do shit for me. If you don¡¯t believe me, I don¡¯t expect him to. And if he doesn¡¯t believe me, how the fuck will his talk help anything?¡±


    ¡°I never said I didn¡¯t believe you.¡± Bartholomew rocked back and forth.


    ¡°Bullshit. I know you don¡¯t, no one does. Who believes in monsters?¡± Jeremiah held his head with his hand.


    ¡°Kids believe in monsters and I believe in you.¡± Bartholomew stared at his small boots. ¡°That¡¯s why we need to go and see Daddy. You¡¯ve got things to say to him, you know.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s dead. Fucking dead. There¡¯s no telling him anything because there¡¯s no one to hear anything.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not true.¡± Bartholomew¡¯s nostrils widened as he took a deep breath. ¡°He can hear us. The church people said so.¡±


    ¡°Fuck the church!¡± Jeremiah slapped his steering wheel. The car honked. ¡°Those patronizing pricks. All of them. Those fuckers don¡¯t know pain, they don¡¯t understand. They just pretend to.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ll help us.¡± Bartholomew whispered. He repeated it like a mantra. Help us, help us. Jeremiah looked to his rear at all the people looking his way. He didn¡¯t think there were so many eyes so clustered together on those steps and rails. He began to feel that needle-prick in his stomach again, the pop of his gut and that burning sensation as if his inner acid was spilling, disintegrating him.


    ¡°Alright kid.¡± He conceded. ¡°I¡¯ll go right now. So get out of the car.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going with you. I want to talk to daddy.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t get it, is this for me or for you? I told you I¡¯d go. But myself.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not leaving the car.¡± Bartholomew stomped on the floor of the car. He rubbed the mud in his shoes inside the carpet.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to drag you out if you don¡¯t leave.¡± Jeremiah opened the door on the passenger seat. The winds blew it open, almost tearing it off.


    ¡°If you drag me, I¡¯ll scream. And that¡¯ll get you in trouble, won¡¯t it?¡± He closed the door, muting the sound of the banshee wind. Jeremiah just stared, almost impressed at the small child, some odd twelve years old, and his capacity for stubbornness.


    ¡°You really are like him.¡± Jeremiah said. He nodded his head and drove into the frenzy of cars. It looked like a foray and he couldn¡¯t tell whether it was mass immigration or mass emigration. He only knew that people were moving, fast.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    It was a few minutes after seven-twenty that they finally made it to the church and to the heavy doors that looked down at Jeremiah. There were angels, the Virgin Mary, kings, all carved into the varnished wood. To his side were the white steps and a handrail stained and rusted, past that, in the yard, was the plastic grass and the plastic plants and the avians dancing in their ceramic bird baths. All white. Fake white, like a papier-mach¨¦ Hollywood set, so fragile as to shatter at the touch. But that was a deceit.


    Jeremiah put his hands on the handle and could barely push. It truly was heavier than it looked. It took his tackle, his shoulder, to nudge the doors and to scare the nun behind them. She glared at him, he didn¡¯t care as much as the boy who looked down and tugged at Jeremiah¡¯s pants.


    ¡°You¡¯re the one who wanted to come here.¡± Jeremiah said. The boy tried to look up. He took a meek step forward before he put his hand in the holy water font. He (Bartholomew) looked like a bird, Jeremiah noted. Jeremiah did the same. Put his hands inside and dressed his forehead with the wet cross.


    They went up towards the rotunda and the pillars and the people already praying on benches. Jeremiah stood, watched the cross and looked at Jesus high upon the wall. It became unbearable, the weight, the look. So he looked down at the tile and tapped his foot against the pillar. His eyes wandered before they were dragged back. Bartholomew tugged on him and pointed to the bench.


    ¡°Let me do it my own way.¡± Jeremiah said. The boy tugged (it actually looked more like a pull). Jeremiah sat and feel dragged the knee guard down with a slam and knelt before the cross.


    And he closed his eyes and thought for a moment. And it was pleasant, almost. The scent of burning candle, the wet feeling of his forehead, the silence. And the memories. They came like rounds in a slide show, a snapshot in a catalog or a gallery. He felt his chest swell, he felt his nose swell. And he opened his eyes to find himself with with his back a bit bent and curved. He was oddly light, though he hadn¡¯t asked or spoken as much as remembered. He opened his eyes, facing Bartholomew. Bartholomew who had both his hands together in front of him.


    He confirmed it, yes, he was lighter. And perhaps, if forgiveness was a thousand mile long trek deep in the trenches, then at the very least, Jeremiah could confidently say, he had taken a step forward. Maybe two.


    ¡°What¡¯re telling him?¡± Bartholomew whispered.


    ¡°Nothing. I¡¯m not saying anything.¡±


    ¡°Well, you better. Don¡¯t waste his time, he¡¯s probably busy up there in heaven.¡±


    ¡°What would he be busy doing up there?¡±


    ¡°Police stuffs with God. Like catching bad angels and stuff.¡±


    Jeremiah nodded his head. He smiled. The boy had taken the death better than Jeremiah or maybe he just didn¡¯t understand it as terrible as it was. Whether ignorance or youth (if they were any different), Jeremiah admired the boy.


    He looked around, the smile still on him. There were some odd fifty people here, some in black, others with pictures of the dead, some just here to be here. And it felt good to be united, even if just in suffering. It felt warm, all of it and suddenly he felt the urge to speak to someone. Not to Heinz, someone else. Jeremiah set his eyes on Jesus on the cross, so he rose from his bruised shins. His heart pounded. He hadn¡¯t felt religious for fifteen years, but now, like no other time, he felt that deep need to speak. He took a step forward but stopped.


    Someone had beaten him to the front.


    What seemed like dozens of hooded figures. What seemed like the plague manifest in all black and yellow and white. The odd, ugly folks with the veils and the suits and the yellow flowers, and the jeers and the rage and the horror.


    They came through two doors on the side of the main room of the church, past the choir stands, past the organ left of center from the cross. Past flowers, past candles, past nuns who looked at themselves in confusion hoping the other had the answer to this accost.


    No one knew. All the guests looked curiously as the cultists reared their heads around the pillars and wrapped around the room in what seemed like a long chain of black. It was a mockery. One of them had the thurible and flung it in circles and threw it at a picture of Saint Michael the Archangel that hung next to the confessional that was to the right. The thurible began to smoke as it lay broken on the floor.


    The boy stood now. He tugged on Jeremiah, Jeremiah looked behind him at the closed doors and started for them. He felt two pairs of hands grab him and drag him to the side of the room near a pillar.


    ¡°Get the fuck off me.¡± Jeremiah threw his head back. He hit someone and himself. Then he felt another hand grab his neck and hold it still. They faced him forward, towards the cross, the stand, the center of the room.


    His eyes opened. He nearly gagged on his tongue as he gasped at what he saw. There was a body upon a small rectangular plane, and he saw that plane carried by four people. They had on them purple gloves. And behind the body, behind the people was someone he did not know but to you, reader, I will say whom.


    He saw Alestor coming up, masked and garbed. He saw his bloodied rags drag upon the floor and the false vestment he wore in gold and black and the mask upon his face, glued almost. The body was set at the top of the stage. Everyone now stared, wide-eyed, they all looked at Alestor¡¯s hands. On one, a book, on the other, a knife. He opened the book and with that bold, booming voice said in cheer:


    ¡°I¡¯m glad for you to join us.¡± His faced dragged from one corner of the room to the other. ¡°Let¡¯s begin then? With what though? With what I wonder?¡±


    He turned the pages. Ripped them, threw them like feathers into the air. The other churchgoers took offense. They stood, some. They were beaten, hit on the temple with canes or the candle sticks or the busts of statues. It didn¡¯t seem to bother Alestor though, that helpless screaming and rioting. He kept turning. Turning, turning until he stopped with flair. He slammed two hands on the podium. He leaned in and let them all; Jeremiah, the boy, the fifty odd people, absorb silence. When there was nothing but mumbling groans, he spoke.


    ¡°Yes. Here we are.¡± The drool was coming off his mouth, it dribbled onto the podium. ¡°Of Man¡¯s disobedience, his original sin.¡±


    And they fell into it, a fever-dream. A nightmare, though the didn¡¯t know it just yet.

 Chapter 51

    Apollo


    August 5th, 2017


    8:09 PM


    Apollo had to run all the way back, through the fires and the fanning fumes that dressed half a miles radius worth of city with the choking smog, he had to climb and to suffocate and call, over and over, until at last, Dion answered. And they spoke and they met, a top a rooftop far from the fires that ravages. Apollo saw his colleague, his hands bruised and stained, his mask blackened some, his eyes unmoving and his whole body still. He didn¡¯t bother to ask how it went, he knew it from the poor posture that Dion stood with, how he bent and how he collapsed on his rear and undid his mask and put his face down to his thighs to coddle himself.


    Apollo watched Dion''s soot-covered sweat drop, he wanted to touch his shoulder but had nothing reassuring to say so stopped midway. He retracted, looked out to the horizon and the swirling mass of clouds above as if hell descended from the skies.


    ¡°We need to go back.¡± He said, rather stern. ¡°It was all a part of their plan, they dragged us out. Distracted us.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know why they wanted us away. We should go regroup at the church. It¡¯s at the epicenter, we¡¯ll be able to move more efficiently if we get th¡ª¡±


    ¡°Why were there so many bodies? Why were they all burning?¡± Dion¡¯s voice was eerily calm. He did not blink, did not even seem to breathe as his chest was not going up and down like Apollo¡¯s exasperated body. He neither looked tired, nor distressed, which may have been the biggest warning that he was distressed. Just forcing it down, deep down into his spirit.


    Apollo tapped him. Nudged him but did not exchange words. After a while, perhaps out of boredom, Dion stood, looked at the black mask in his hands and jumped. A cable antenna snapped from the strength of his gallop across to the other roof, it fell near Apollo and scratched the floor with a shriek.


    They came to the church or rather the low rooftop near the church on some apartment block across from it, they noticed the crowd and removed their masks as they slid down a fire ladder to the side. It was effortless, the conversion of Vicar to man as they supplanted themselves inside of the crowd now growing larger. The tops of heads shook, the whole crowd vibrated like a colony of bees distressed at the honeycombs death.


    Apollo outstretched his neck. Being taller had its benefits, he thought. He looked to the broken glass around the church, then to the hole and the purple smoke coming out of it. The crowd was beginning to scream, most of them had their phones out and repeated to an emergency service. It didn¡¯t help, Apollo knew it wouldn¡¯t. Everyone who could have helped was too busy with the other fires, with the other bodies and the other sufferings. So he took it upon himself to drag the catatonic Dion through the crowd, shoving and pushing down many a people as they made it past, into the parking lot and into the graveyard on the backside.


    There were some people waiting there too, with their faces wedged between the gap of black bars and the bits of brown burned and dried leaves coming at a crawl at their feet. Apollo ignored them, climbed over the pointed black fence and walked through the gravestones now blowing ashes from their tops. He began to run and looked for the door into the back entrance. Dion found it first. Well, he found the graves keeper first. And with the grave keeper, the dull face and the door. It was them three, Apollo noted, and two of them wore the same dead expression like their eyes were looking past objects, at something imaginary and far in the horizon.


    Apollo bit his cheek. He tried nudging the doorknob. Shut.


    ¡°I have the key.¡± Apollo moved to his pockets. Dion kicked the door open. It broke, some screws and steel flew into the wall and stayed stiff and interred. The metal door was at a bent angle, they walked over it and heard it squeal.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Dion disappeared in the smoke.


    Apollo ran through the fumes, coughing most of the time and covering his face with his hand as the purple exhausted out the door. It seemed to burn his eyes, whatever it was (and it was not smoke, for it did not carry that ashy smell) that contaminated the air. It was a bit denser than smoke too, it sat near ground level, especially as he reached the center of the church where it was strongest and appeared as a large purple cloud, roaming and dwindling out. It was not the time for the center though, not yet.


    Apollo went past a hall, most of the pictures and vases and statues were broken into shreds, some stained red. He stepped over a Virgin Mary, blackened and dressed with a reversed latin cross. It made him anxious. He came past a storage room where a little slit showed light, he peered his eyes and almost immediately removed his head. There was a corpse there, bisected it seemed, from left shoulder to right hip. It was a nun, he remembered seeing her face.


    He walked past her, into the principal office. Dion was already waiting in there, looking down. Apollo saw him from the door frame and saw his looming figure that stood with the listless face. He stepped up to Apollo, to the corpse laid out in front of him like skinned carpet. He was behind the desk, that Priest. He laid there, feet crossed, arms outward. Dead. Eyes open and staring back, dead. Grey. He had a wound on his neck. Apollo inspected the body with bent knees.


    ¡°Stabbed straight through the heart from his neck. Then stabbed some more.¡± He mumbled and closed the eyes on the corpse. He looked up -- stood up -- Dion was staring down. His face hadn¡¯t changed since recovering from the fires. And Apollo felt dread for him, or rather guilt for removing him from one fire and into another.


    He groaned.


    ¡°J-just stay here.¡± Apollo walked away. Nothing would have filled the silence in that room, not the screaming of the crowd outside, not the breaking wind of helicopters above. Nothing filled that room but Dion and the body.


    There were more on the path there, to the center. There was also a voice inside of him, insecurity or sanity, one of those two that screamed retreat, retreat. It was that sharp voice that made him shiver at the feet, that made his head feel empty. He nearly collapsed some steps away from the ceremony room, he did not know whether it was the purple smoke or the feeling of disgust. Or his arm, his arm that felt like the surface of the sun. He rested his had on a wall, a defiled buttress whose painted glass sat below his feet in pieces. The picture of the three kings, dead and fractured on the floor. He looked at them, his eyes rolled back and he felt at last the limit of his stonewall spirit.


    Apollo vomited.


    He spat and faced forward with the spittle still dangling from his face, strings he cut with his sleeve. All along the halls were scattered bodies or scattered glass, cut in clean vivisections like surgery.


    He made it to the church room, the post-Morten congregation. There were bodies here too, much more animated too. He heard breathing from one of them and ran. It was a man, no older than forty with a fedora knocked over to the side, stepped on. There was no boot print, rather a tri-forked footprint. The stamp of the devil.


    ¡°What happened here?¡± Apollo asked. The man looked up to him, he had a missing eye and his mouth could not form sentences.


    ¡°Hands.¡± He repeated.¡± Hands, hands everywhere. Hands hands hands hands¡ª¡± So on and on he went in that mantra. He settled down on the floor, one of his arms was missing, one of his foot had been cut along the two skinniest toes. Bits of his flesh along his waist, gone. The dank air was strongest here, the purple aura made it a slog to walk through, but walk he did. He brought his gaze to the many dead and or few moaning, to the edges of the room where the black-suited cultists had died as well. Many of them; cultists, normal people, dead or missing with nothing but a purse or flower or picture frame to show that they were ever here. And was worse, Apollo felt, to not only die but to disappear.


    Most of them were dead, facing upwards, with their hands to the sky or their hands scratching along the floor as if to struggle against a pulling current.


    Apollo could only imagine what it meant.


    He nodded his head and walked, at last, to the very end of the room. A goblet sat on the steps of the stage, he grabbed it before it could roll down. It sat next to the foot of a man.


    Isaac.


    He was dead. A giant gash was on his chest. And his body looked deflated. Apollo could not bear to look at the mutilation was partly thankful for the smokescreen of purple, for covering the wound. The corpse lay in shock, nearly nude, with nothing but a white robe on his genitals. He pitied him, this stranger to Apollo''s eyes.


    He pitied the living too and the dead and with a depressed neck, walked down to the giant wooden doors to break the giant wooden beam that blocked them shut. He punched it, felt his hand bleed but did not care.


    The floodgates were opened, the people came inside, most of them holding their mouths. They were looking for family, then all of a sudden crying for that very same family. None of them, much too preoccupied with Apollo who sulked in the background, who dragged Dion out. Who hoped, in his heart, that he could forever leave this hell.


    For the goblet and the corpses began to piece in his head the picture of the incident, one he had read about perhaps, had heard myths about perhaps.


    "They went to hell." He said, briefly, as he tugged Dion along to the graves and the back and the car.

 Chapter 52

    Dion


    August 6th, 2017


    10:17 AM


    ¡°I¡¯m not saying that what you¡¯re suggesting isn¡¯t possible. What I¡¯m saying is that it¡¯s fucking stupid.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter if it¡¯s stupid, what matters is if it¡¯s possible and if it is, that we should do it.¡± Dion said.


    Apollo sighed and looked out from the window sill, in between the small interstices of plastic blinds that rested at a slant and from which dripped down the small trail of dirt. He took his hands from the window frame, brushed them across the wooden table to his rear and stained paper documents, labeled, ¡®ARTIFACT FOUND, RICHARD THE LIONHEART, TEUFELSCLOCH #234 REQUESTING PICK UP¡¯. A fax machine was set up in front of it, still warm from the usage. A laptop was clasped shut, depressed, humming from a hard drive that had just spent the last hour transporting and processing the long list of details of the event that transpired yesterday and for that matter, the weeks leading up to it.


    And the goblet? The goblet used by the false prophet Alestor (the fool, more like it)? It sat on the kitchen counter like a shiny paperweight. Apollo walked towards it, he was in his underwear, tired, unshaven. He held it up, looked it over from bottom to top. There was something written on it that he could not translate, there were rubies across and a kind of gray stone that sat in between the cup and its stem. Inside was a blackened substance, it had the texture of mercury and stuck to the inside bowl of the cup. Apollo flipped the cup, watched the black substance seep down just below the lip, but no further. It would not fall or drip, as if gravity itself could not wrap her hands around the mysterious liquid.


    ¡°How many times do I have to explain this?¡± Apollo set down the cup. It rung with a low tune. ¡°They¡¯re gone. Gone straight to fucking hell, literally. I don¡¯t mean to be hyperbolic, everyone in that church, those that did not die at least, have gone straight below and there¡¯s nothing left to do with them.¡±


    ¡°I know that, I know that! But, but, but.¡± Dion blew the hair out of his face. ¡°You said it yourself, there¡¯s still enough juice in there for a round trip. So so so so. That means, we. Uh, you and I, we can go there too. And back.¡±


    ¡°And I¡¯m telling you we¡¯re not.¡± Apollo looked at him, a bit saddened, more sobered, less raspy than usual. ¡°Do you have any idea what this is, Dion? This isn¡¯t just a mug, alright? This is Witchcraft and black magic, this is the devil and his devices, this is literally a door to hell. A key straight to a plane of existence that should not be available to anyone but the most depraved.¡±


    Apollo shook his head and rubbed his chin.


    ¡°Now you tell me, how would a fucking psychologist come about an artifact this powerful? Do you think he just happened upon it at a fucking garage sale? No, this shit was given to him. Or more likely, he was led to it. This cup, this weapon.¡± He picked up the cup again and rose it high above. ¡°This is what it was all for. This fucking idiot spent a month, at least, killing and collecting as much blood as he could, from as many different people as he could, just to fill it to the brim. And when that was done, when all the dusty dead were laid in their coffins, this fucking guy comes out of the woodwork and transports himself to Hell.¡±


    ¡°Why would he do that? Why would he take so many people with him?¡±


    ¡°Maybe he didn¡¯t know what it did. Maybe he was promised something else. Maybe he just wanted to go. Too bad he had to take half a hundred dumb fuckers with him.¡±


    Apollo sat near the kitchen table, the refrigerator buzzed behind him and below he scratched his naked legs with his feet. The sun was hot outside, like the summer sun ought to be, the cicadas were amusing him with song. The birds chirped, fluttering in warm daylight. The cold, the mist, all disappeared like a bad season, seemingly to pass over to another town in another place far away. The city was okay or at least appeared right, just barely on the line of normalcy. If you could exclude the burn victims agonizing in the dark corners of a busy emergency room.


    Aside from the murders. The trauma, the explosions, things were returning back. Where the crime was high, the illiteracy was common, the stupidity rampant, the diseased and the downtrodden, roaming. All in all, the city of Havenbrook was only slightly better off.


    Apollo dragged his hand across the table. He went for his box of cigarettes and picked a clean one off, most of them were crooked and looked more like bent straws. Dion sat on his bed with his hands grabbing his thighs. He was shaking a bit, his face twitched and couldn¡¯t decide whether to cry or to scream in dreadful fury. He chose neither. Rather, suffocated the idea and looked crazed, in that rabid wide-eyed glare.


    ¡°There¡¯s a way in, there¡¯s a way out. What¡¯s wrong with trying to save them? How is that bad? He asked. Apollo huffed, he carried his head with one hand and fiddled with the cup with the other.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°Teufelsloch.¡± Apollo said, dismissively almost as if Dion wasn¡¯t even in the room. He took up that aura of a professor. ¡°Ludwig Van M¨¹ller coined the phrase some odd six hundred years ago. Called this stupid thing the Devil¡¯s Hole because it supposedly granted you a small visage into the underworld. It¡¯s been a lost artifact for four hundred years. Who would have thought we¡¯d find it here.¡±


    He set the cup down and massaged his face.


    ¡°I¡¯m telling you, if anyone was dragged down, they¡¯re not coming back. And I know that it doesn¡¯t matter to you if that¡¯s true. You still want to save them because that¡¯s your nature.¡± Apollo exhausted smoke from his lungs. ¡°But please, just listen to me. Hell is not something you and I are trained for. Do you know how many people have gotten killed down there? Last year, the Vatican sent an expedition. Around April, fifty-four Vicars in total. The finest hunters around. Only five returned back and of those five, two killed themselves. They didn¡¯t even make it all the way. They stopped on the fourth circle. The fourth, out of nine. Barely four.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have to go that deep.¡± Dion clasped his hands, he stood. His eyes looked out and a cat-shaped clock framed on a wall rung out ten in the morning with a mechanical meow. Apollo went to it, turned it off and set it aside. ¡°We just need to go wherever they¡¯re at. A quick in and out.¡±


    ¡°And if they¡¯re spread out, if some are deeper than others, what then?¡±


    ¡°They won¡¯t be.¡±


    ¡°How do you know?¡±


    ¡°I just do, alright. I feel it, it¡¯s something in my guts that tells me so. You can call that instinct or God or stupidity but it¡¯s real and true.¡±


    ¡°Well that¡¯s fucking swell, you trust instinct and faith more than Me?¡± He almost wanted to laugh and stopped halfway through a chuckle. ¡°We¡¯re not going. That¡¯s final.¡±


    ¡°Then I¡¯ll go by myself!¡± Dion walked to him and snatched the goblet. ¡°I¡¯ll do it alone and you can go home with your tail between your legs, you can be the man who tells the story and nothing more. Just a watcher, just someone who stood on the sidelines who could have done something but didn¡¯t. You¡¯re more than welcome to be that person.¡±


    ¡°I know you find it hard to believe but this but I¡¯m making this decision for your own good too.¡±


    ¡°My own good is not what I care about!¡± Apollo ran to his bed and looked for his suit or the coat, rather. ¡°What I care about is everyone else¡¯s good. What¡¯s good for the world, for society, not for myself.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to stop you, am I?¡± Apollo paced back and forth and starting pulling on his hair and biting his lip. ¡°This is what I warned you about! Very early on. I told you, said it so many times that I exhaust myself just remembering it. I told you: No man should mean too much. I told you to not get attached, to not make this brief sentence in this godforsaken town into a martyr mission. Yet here you are, trying to play as the greatest martyr ever: A fucking idiot who wants to go straight to Hell for the far off chance that you can save someone. You¡¯re throwing away your life.¡±


    ¡°What right do you have to say anything about what I ought to do with my life?¡± Dion snapped. It sounded more bark than yell. ¡°You¡¯re not living. You? You¡¯re just existing. A worthless existence filled with apathy and nihilism. That¡¯s not a life. It¡¯s a prison sentence. You¡¯re just surviving, that¡¯s all you do, the bare minimum so you can make it day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. That¡¯s not a life. It¡¯s a waiting line, to the slowest, most dishonorable death anyone could achieve. You¡¯re not living life. You¡¯re not doing anything. You just take up space.¡±


    ¡°You can call it any which way, I call it living smart. I¡¯m not dying for God and I¡¯m not dying for idiots.¡±


    ¡°And is there anything you¡¯d die for? Is there anything you¡¯ve ever cared about?¡± Dion asked. Apollo stood silent. ¡°Do you know how many people I¡¯ve had to watch die in front me? How powerless I¡¯ve been? Do you know what it looks like to stare down at a lonely, sad, miserable corpse? It¡¯s a terrible feeling. It¡¯s not one I want to have anyone suffer through. There¡¯s nothing worse than living alone and dying alone. Do you understand? I can¡¯t accept the claim that someone, somewhere, is alone and dying and miserable and that I have the power to do something and yet I don¡¯t. How can you accept that? Don¡¯t you feel anything?¡±


    Apollo leaned back in his seat. He was quiet. The cat-clock stopped ticking, it felt like time itself had stopped ticking like every particle in the room had stopped jumping, an absolute zero.


    ¡°That silence says a lot about you.¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡± Apollo mused. ¡°Like what?¡±


    ¡°It says that you¡¯re a coward.¡±


    ¡°Be quiet.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°No, I won''t. And I won''t stay down either because the thought of doing nothing and becoming anything like you frightens me.¡±


    ¡°What do you know!¡± Apollo snapped back. His veins bulged on his neck. ¡°What do you know of love and sacrifice? You haven¡¯t seen the best things in your life disappear. You haven¡¯t had to find out how painfully minuscule your existence is. Oh, you think you¡¯ve suffered? You saw a bunch of fucks that meant nothing to you die? You think that¡¯s hard? Have you seen your friends die? Have you seen your lovers disappear from your life? No? What right do you have to try and judge me then? You dipped your toes into the cold waters of existence, my friend, and it froze you stiff, didn¡¯t it?¡±


    Apollo felt his eyes swell, a memory in the back of his head seemed to unwedge itself from his skull as if his whole life had been transformed into a library, and there, upon the tallest and thinnest bookshelf, there the book fell from. A very sad book.


    ¡°I¡¯ve lived my whole life alone and it wasn¡¯t by choice. It wasn¡¯t me telling the world t go fuck itself.¡± He rubbed his eyelashes. ¡°It was world telling me, in its abject silence, that I was alone.¡±


    They both fell into reticence. The room felt like the empty blackness of space and them, in the epicenter of the vacuum.


    ¡°I don¡¯t even care about what happened to you. How do you expect me to when you¡¯ve never cared about anyone else? Isn¡¯t that sad? You¡¯re like Ouroboros, eating your own tail.¡± Dion set the goblet down. ¡°But who you were isn¡¯t stopping you from becoming a new person. To do right by these people, considering how far we¡¯ve failed them. If you want to keep pitying yourself, do it, but do it far away from here.¡±


    Dion stopped, took his coat and left the room. Apollo could hear the car pummel through with a roar. He had nothing else in his head but the pulsing anger. He sat down in front of the table with the mess of papers, leaned back and let the air breath unto him the fresh morning air.


    Apollo had an idea of where Dion would go, how he would come back and for what. But he, Apollo, for once in his life, had no idea what he would do.

 Chapter 53

    Apollo


    August 10th, 2017


    6:11 PM


    He hadn¡¯t left the room for days, hadn¡¯t eaten, had only really taken up space like a piece of furniture in that small dainty apartment. But now it was time to leave and the final check had been left on that lousy small office at the bottom of the apartment block. He checked his pockets and found no cigarettes. Only an empty crumbled box. He had slept mostly throughout the day and now, waking up to a bright sun and the pyramid of orange juice bottles, had found himself uncomfortable and in a small daze. There was a note on the kitchen counter, a note that read ¡®I¡¯ve gone to the lake, West end, look for an X on a great on a pine tree, go four paces West, five paces North.¡¯


    It sounded like instructions to a pirates chest. And it was, kind of, in a way. For the goblet had been taken (presumably by Dion) and it would be used (presumably by Dion) and what remained of it would be left for Apollo to take. And he supposed that was the end of it all, of Havenbrook and of Dion and of the fifty who were gone. Because there was no coming back from Hell, Apollo was convinced. And there was no way to convince Dion otherwise, as Dion was convinced. And so it was. Apollo crushed the note into a ball and threw it into the trash bin.


    He looked for his clothes, what remained of clothes at least. Most of his dressings were in a red suitcase that bulged and spilled with a loose sock. He looked at the floor and figured, upon seeing his coat, to just suit up. So he did, tie and slacks and shoes and all, it felt like a noose around his neck. He put the coat on, realizing he¡¯d have to give it back soon and all the small magical gadgets it hosted for him. It¡¯d be more than that, he was sure, he¡¯d get more than an earful from those terribly strict administrators. Oh well. He¡¯d suffered through worse. He stood from his bed, look at the walls and the floor and so he began his business, with tired eyes, of wiping the evidence of his existence off this city. At least, all that he could wipe of himself. He slapped on a pair of blue gloves and began to wash off the walls and floors. He rubbed the dirty fingerprints off the windows with the smelly ammonia substance, then off the refrigerator handles, then off the walls until everything smelled of urine. He went into the bathroom where he had shaved, where Dion had shaved and pressed against the glass frame. It opened the cupboard and he took out the hydrogen peroxide that sat unopened, purple. He poured it into the sink, into the bath, into the toilet, into the kitchen and flushed, washed, sprayed down until he could hear it move through the pipes. Then he did it again. A third time, making sure every strand of hair that was still there would be contaminated. He had done this time after time in the silence of the night, but now would be the last. He was going to be replaced by another group of Vicars, hopefully, a better group. One who would watch over the situation of the Alestor Cult (though he named it ASTYCLT 238 in the reports) for the next few weeks. Though he was sure no one important was left.


    No. No. No, more fighting, he thought. It was time to go. He took a look at the small room, the two bent beds that now sat in a dip like a cup, the cat clock that lay dismantled on a table, the tables disarrayed to give anyone with even the slightest inclination of OCD a mild case of hives. He looked at it all, felt a rather wholesome warmth in him, and closed the door. It was okay, at best, a terrible job, at worst. He drove down the street, it wasn¡¯t busy, nor was it empty, just kind of rattling with renewed strength like the whole town had come back into health from a bad fever.


    He fixed his mirrors midway, brought down his hand to his coat pocket and felt the emptiness. It made him turn. A car honked to his rear as he nearly sidelined someone. Apollo zoomed past cars, heading west, heading for the small store in the front entrance of the city, somewhere near the red-rusty sign and the old congregation of that false priest he had listened to many moons ago.


    Apollo parked a little crooked and hit the curb some and came out of the car with a jog. He stopped when he hit the door and cracked it open to a familiar jingle of bells. There was no name to the store, not outside at least, it just read GENERAL GOODS from neon sign within that had stopped glowing pink. He went through the aisles and looked ahead to an old familiar man who sat on the edge of a cracked glass counter and who shaved away at a block of wood. There were statues around the table, all lined up chronologically from their inception, all of them at a distance similar but as Apollo came forward, as he stepped through the empty and lifeless aisles, he came to the full image of the wooden figurines. They were birds. Growing more grotesque and simple as the statues went on along in a line. It looked like a long chain of devolution, from a highly detailed blue jay to a small blob with wings of a songbird that sat at the end. Apollo looked at the statues then to the Old Man carving away. The Old Man¡¯s glasses were falling off, they teetered by the end of an ear.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to buy some cigarettes.¡± Apollo said. The man said nothing, only kept carving.


    ¡°Hello?¡± Apollo waved his hand in front of the Old Man¡¯s face. ¡°Could I get some cigarettes.¡±


    The Old Man reached underneath and slammed them above a bed of wood shavings.


    ¡°How much is that?¡± Apollo stood with his hands in his pockets, a bit far off from the counter and the knife blade.


    ¡°Don¡¯t matter. I¡¯ll be closing soon anyway.¡±


    ¡°Is that so? Doesn¡¯t look like you¡¯re closing, the shelves are still full.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t matter. Nothing does. It¡¯s not my business to see to the closing or the selling anymore. I¡¯m just here to be here.¡±


    Apollo looked around. A box cart full of what should have been ice stood next to the glass screens of the refrigerators at the end of the store. The ice had melted. There were only bags now, dripping bags that had pooled water on the far west end of the store.


    ¡°Do you remember me? I was the missionary.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Oh.¡± The Old Man did not even look up. It didn¡¯t seem like he even moved his lips, he was only kind of there, in space but not in time.


    ¡°I had a frie¡ª¡± Apollo gulped spit. ¡°I had a business partner with me, at the time.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± The Old Man sat down his finished totem. It was a crow, or at least looked like one with how deeply black the wood was. On this crow was a beak, which pointed down and gave it the appearance of pecking at its own wooden pedestal. It had a wing, only one, the other was clipped and malformed and resembled more of a nub than a limb. There were no eyes, no details, only the rough figure of the specimen. He set it at the end of the line, seemingly finishing the abominations.


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you making horses last time?¡± Apollo asked. The Old Man pushed the cigarettes forward, a polite way of telling Apollo to fuck off. So to speak. Apollo took them, chewed on his tongue and stopped himself from saying anything. He looked to his rear, to a small corner of the building where the back room sprawled, where the door had been left slightly open. Or rather, stuck open. There was a metal shelf stuck in the way of the door, and Apollo stretched his neck to get a better. There were boxes, still, on the floor and food, still, spilling over. And it hit Apollo, like an invisible slap that seemed to knock his brain and eyes out of their holding cells. There was a little girl here once, how could I forget her face.


    Her white face, her blond hair and he thought, briefly, the kind of thought that summons the visceral emotion faster than the abstract, such that in his gut he could already feel the sickening coil of disgust much before he could remember the bleeding body on the top of that burning building. He did remember that girl, though did not want to.


    His brain, his eyes, returned, rubber banded back by his nerves and veins. He felt sick.


    He jogged, then paced, then walked. He could feel his eyes turn unintentionally scarlet and he could feel his lungs pressing for air and he closed his mouth to stop that urgent feeling. The feeling of a throbbing head and heart, the feeling of suffocation. He turned away from the Old Man and stood tall and calm to at least appear cordial. He almost reached the door and was one his eighth step, it felt like a plank walk on the end of a ship. Then the Old Man rose. Apollo could hear the leather chair stretch and scratch.


    ¡°You¡¯re a missionary, aren¡¯t ya?¡± The Old Man said, he pulled his head back and almost laughed in a burlesque tone. ¡°Did you ever end up duping anyone into believing that garbage?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Apollo felt stiff as if trapped by a barb wire entanglement. Moving hurt, breathing hurt, living hurt.


    ¡°I thought as much.¡± The Old Man looked down again. He leaned over and from the floor picked up another block of wood, red oak. ¡°Hope is a tough thing to sell.¡±


    The words sank into Apollo, like an ancient monument inside of him had finally corroded at its stand and fell, it collapsed on him and he could feel the dirt and dust pushing him away. His shoulder hunched over. He moved his hands to a shelf and left the free cigarettes next to a golden bag of potato chips. He left. The doorbell rung. He did not look to anyone as he made it to his car. He sat down, took a breath and fixed his rear side windows, there was a reflection of a stranger in the glass. He couldn¡¯t make out the face, it was foreign to him. He could only tell that the face looked a bit sad, a bit teary eyed, and very pale. He closed his eyes, tried to remember what he looked like, a few words came to mind. Tall, brown, unyielding. He didn¡¯t see any of that. Only the figure of the blond-haired, pale-faced girl.


    He needed to drive. Away, anywhere. But where? Anywhere! But. Where?


    And he decided under some uncertain terms that he would just go to the lake, not to do anything in particular, but just to fill his lungs with fresh air. Not to meet or see or do anything, but just to live there on the edge of the body of water. Even if just for a moment.


    A moment, that¡¯s it. He¡¯d just go there for a moment.

 Chapter 54

    The Day the Sun Fell on Apollo


    Anno Domini Mors August 10th, 2017


    6:44 PM


    The car was parked some distance away from the lake, it was underneath the shade of a tree though Apollo did not know why he even bothered. It wouldn¡¯t be long, he thought he knew. He had walked deep into the forest, past brown and white police vehicles and the yellow tape that squared off the fishing store. He went further, deeper, following the edge of the lake. He thought he was here for the cup, only the cup.


    He went along the ridges of the mountains where the small pebbles cascaded down like the medieval boulder traps of castles old. The fish in the lake spun in circles and fretted away at the touch of his feet. He covered himself in mud, in water. He sunk himself knee-deep into the lake and came out finally at that tapered end where the frogs croaked to each other and where the fireflies were beginning to collect like small stars. And he came to the tree, with the X. Then further away, to the spot (a spot he had no difficulty in actually finding, because the mound was so big and obvious that anyone could have found it) and he cupped his hands to scoop dirt and inside found the cup in its shallow grave. It was as if there wasn¡¯t even an effort made to hide it, or perhaps not enough time.


    And he put it in his hands, rubbed the mud into the gems and shook the gold stem some. There was a drink left, he figured.


    He walked away initially and felt the cool air brush against him and push his hair. He must have made it halfway before he felt short of breath, before his legs started to shake and weaken. And he knelt on one leg over the shore.


    ¡°He¡¯s probably already dead,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Or at least in the act of dying.¡±


    He kicked rocks. They split water and forced the fish to swim.


    ¡°He doesn¡¯t have a plan to get out, does he?¡± That wasn¡¯t the question he wanted to ask, he rubbed his chin. ¡°Why did he go in the first place? They¡¯re just strangers. Nobodies. Fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a million. The world turns, doesn¡¯t fucking matter.¡±


    He looked up to the glaring sun that fell into crimson, the red flushed the water face.


    ¡°Nobodies who have families and children, who live and who love.¡± He slapped his leg. ¡°But so what? What is a man owed? A couple seconds out of the womb, a moment to breath and that¡¯s it. What¡¯s a man owed? To live long enough, just barely long enough that you start to miss it when the ride is over? Who fucking cares. The world turns, the solar system spins, the universe expands. Everything goes dead, dying, or missing. Doesn¡¯t matter. Fuck it.¡± He walked. His head was low and he steered clear from the view of the red glare on the water, the giant circle. His footsteps popped with the sound of stones shooting out from underneath his feet. A lily pad sunk.


    ¡°That''s just the way it is. You¡¯re not owed life!¡± He scratched his face. ¡°But who has a right to take it, too? No one does. And yet it was taken. By the dozens. Over and over and over again. Fuck man, fuck!¡±


    His heart beat fast.


    ¡°They didn¡¯t live a good life or even a pleasant life. But it was still theirs, to resign or to suffer through. They never got to make that choice...¡±


    He looked at the cup, swished the liquid around.


    "What do I want?" He stared at that black substance as if a crystal ball. There was no answer, just darkness and the reflection of Apollo within that darkness.


    ¡°I guess I¡¯d like to tell that retard Dion a thing or two, wouldn¡¯t I? Call him for what he is, stupid. And if I could, I''d like to round up as many likeminded people too." He laughed, flat and lifeless. "So we can all take turns calling him a retard.¡± His lips trembled. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯d like that. That¡¯d be fair in this very unfair world. Wouldn''t it?¡±Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Wouldn''t it? The words rang into him. His shoulders eased, his heart eased, his eyes eased. All of him seemed to hunch over the small goblet and all of him seemed to fall into it.


    "I''d like to help." His heart popped, a kind of balloon. And the stones within his heart, falling, falling down the cliff, down into the water.


    And he drank. With his nose pinched, he took a gulp. It had the texture of cough medicine, a slow molasses or mucus that trickled down his throat. It tasted sweet though, a bit like metal too, like he had just been fed candied nails.


    Then he vomited. Hard, for minutes. Vomited until there was nothing but stomach acid left, and then some more, until the floor was septic and beginning to smell of toxic waste.


    Apollo sat near the lake. He vomited in fits between absolute stillness and angry convulsions. Somewhere in between, he fitted the cup back into his coat. It went like that, him kneeling over the water, his head finally submerged, the fish and the amphibians scrambling away, the birds of prey benched atop the drooping branches with the meek wind that to brushed their feathers.


    Then those too, flew away. Far above. For whatever came out of Apollo came in waves and had only begun, that strange, almost bright purple substance. The color of unoxidized blood, and like unoxidized blood, turning red almost immediately upon contact with the outside. But it got worse. It spun in circles, a whirlpool. Apollo¡¯s whole body fell into the water now, dragged by that current, into the deep cloud. He could not see between fuzzy, glossy eyes and the red (now turning black) substance. He only felt it, like tingles, like small fingers scratched all around his body.


    Whatever it was, that ink-like substance, he drowned in it.


    And when the murk and cloudy darkness cleared. Nothing remained. The fish came back, slowly at first, until the whole school had filled the vacuum. There they danced, danced and swam to the disappearance of Apollo.


    And Apollo? Somewhere. He awoke somewhere and only noticed he was alive by the figure of a red ring in front of him, an oddity, that seemed to only retreat further away the closer he himself got and he (Apollo) floating in what he thought or felt was oblivion, though he was wrong, wrong so very wrong, because from those dark corners there seemed to be a materialization. Hands, many hands, and arms that gripped and clawed, that made him gasp and in doing so, releasing that precious air from his body. They grabbed hold of him, outstretched him.


    He tried screaming. Nothing, there was no air to break and to vibrate. So he was mute. Bizarre, this infinite nothingness, that dragged and pulled until the very limbs of his body split and de-attached from him.


    He would have cried was he not paralyzed with that toxin of fear. He saw his limbs cover the threshold, the little brown bits of him carried with delicate hands that receded and eventually disappeared. They fell into the ring and he did not know what to think; why he was not bleeding, why was he not dead?


    Neither dying nor dead simply hurt. His face scrunched into silent agony. It was in between a face of defeat and shock like a tortured man hearing the footsteps of the executioner down the dungeon halls.


    His legs were gone, arms too, most of his torso and his hips, disappeared. All that remained was a chest, a neck, a head. A torso that kept spinning in circles, eyes that looked outward to the myriad colors of yellow and red. He was being spied upon. He felt them creep up from that nothingness, those voyeurs. And slowly, they showed their primeval forms, whatever they were, chimera or demon.


    A woman (more thing than woman), nude, full-bodied, scaly almost with the elongated neck and fangs across the wide mouth, looked down at him. Another, two men this time, welded together on their singular back who crawled on all fours and who turned themselves like a fallen tortoise. Siamese turtles, it almost made him laugh, he tried to but his eyes wouldn''t stop crying.


    And then the others came, the long dead and long forgotten, the pained, the pitiful. Those that carried men like dogs with the chains around their necks. Those that begged for mercy, creatures or otherwise. Most of them had no mouths or arms or will to beg, all of them watched Apollo fall.


    His body turned like a satellite. He could not say he was facing up, there was no up, he only knew he was flipped and faced something. That amalgamation of disgust. That prime object of revulsion, a monster bloated and whose folds of flesh seeped out like waves of the sea. This creature who looked down Apollo from his broken seat of corpses. A sort of throne, and him, the king of filth upon it, floating too with Apollo. It was pierced, stabbed all across. There were smaller creatures, holding these chains, who stretched his flesh back so a face could reveal itself. This, the only creature that could seemingly stand and form a plane in the nothingness, this, that creature of yellow and green flesh. It revealed its small head, it revealed its gold teeth and its uneven eyes that looked carefully at Apollo.


    ¡°Toy.¡±


    Was that what it said? He thought. His face went cold. The arm came closer, dripping skin upon him like a shawl of rotten flesh and past the arm, Apollo saw it. That infantile greed that brimmed in the creature''s eyes.


    Fortunately, it was too late. The last hand came to grab Apollo, came to send him down through the red ring and he did not know what to feel, only knew the storm of emotions that capsized his courage. Shock. Disgust. Curiosity? He stopped thinking. He couldn''t bear to think. He closed his eyes and fell asleep and whispered to himself with silent words: What a strange thing, to have your soul amputated from your body.

 Chapter 55 - Episode 5

    Apollo


    Apollo awoke with hands around his neck. He gasped and tasted sweet ocean water that burned as it came through his nose and mouth, it had a bitter aftertaste, like wine. Drinking and burning and confused, Apollo struggled with the firm hands still ringing his neck. He turned to the assailant. Phantoms, ghosts? They looked like ghouls, malnourished and deformed, rotting and vile looking, as if the very waters around them had turned these ghouls into mush. His stomach was full and at last, in that brink of death, he made an effort. Apollo gripped the hand. He felt the bony muscular limb and snapped it off him. It shattered. Glass, ancient bone, whatever this ghoul was was fragile and he saw that limb drop down to the bottom floor, to an off-putting darkness, where myriad glares had begun to appear. Corpses, the dead, bitter faced and angry. He thought immediately, knew immediately where he was: the long river Styx, where the dead do not sleep, where they kill and murder ¡®till end-times. The restless river Styx.


    He swam. As fast as he could, he did not check his body, did not even inspect the claw marks and grazes that found themselves around him. He burst into that frantic, almost flailing swim. They came after him, five, six, he couldn¡¯t tell, only heard the muffled wail and only noticed the bubbles of their screams as they rose up from below and fizzled him.


    He broke the water, at last. Nearly jumped out of it too and clung to the nearest stone, both hands clawing for the strange black rocks around him. He felt another grab. He felt the chill of wet skin on fresh air, and felt it too of death''s grab upon his feet. He could hear them now without that ocean filter. He could hear the high pitch, crazed, almost choking sound of the violent dead. He looked back. They were nude, deteriorating, drunk with violence.


    ¡°Get the fuck off me.¡± Apollo brought his free leg up and then down on the persistent hand around his ankle. It broke into bone, then into dust and steam finally. Apollo crawled to high ground, though his body was low and properly balanced. He was watching the smoke, watching the ghouls and fiends desperate to latch on to him.


    He saw how they scratched the stone and how they struggled to rise up the causeway. After a while Apollo pitied them. An even longer while after that, he began to be bored of them and instead looked to his surroundings. To the hexagon shaped stones that sprawled the shoreline as if a honeycomb had been split and desecrated on the river bank. Apollo turned, he heard splashing. Inside each section of stone was a small pool of water, orange colored. It felt slimy.


    He climbed and made it ten meters high. When he came across flat land, he stopped and fell on his knees. His hands were spread forward and his body dripped with sweat and blood and that sticky water. It must have been heavy too, because Apollo collapsed chest first onto the floor. He put two hands on his face and rubbed the water away, then he turned his body and held his chest and counted his heart until it fell down to gentle rhythm. It was too much. The creatures in that abyss, the monsters in the river. Too much, too heavy. So he laid, his body on its back and upon that line of land where the black geometrical stone broke into gray dirt. It stuck to him and colored his suit white. He sighed, scraped some off and thought that perhaps he was making it worse. So he let go and looked to the sky. No clouds? No color either. It was beige, gray? He couldn¡¯t tell. The only object of interest, the only fixture of light seemed to come southward, where a giant red ring rested. It was black and familiar. Perhaps the same ring that had taken him here? It was near the horizon and sat immovable and from the low angle Apollo was watching it, gave the appearance of sucking in the river water. Like a faucet drain of filth.


    He heard noise. More groaning, the gritting of teeth. He faced the waters and looked upon the dead that fought amongst each other. They gnawed, punched, bashed each other''s head with an irresistible desire. He saw them dead and mutilated, saw them turn into smoke and rise high. Then he saw the smoke materialize, again, into more anguished souls. They dropped down, like rain. And the river, flowing down to that red ring as its natural ebb. This was the ecosystem of this unholy dominion.


    He was in purgatory. The truth didn¡¯t make him comfortable, it only served to drive the cold knife through his bones, into the marrow. He shivered. He looked away and was about to turn onto that flat dirt and to the great expanse in front of him. But he heard the sound, again. From the river, again.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    A creaking of wood. A breaking of water. A boat. The size and strength of which shook the river into waves that slammed against the shore. Apollo put his hand in front of his face, he could feel the wet drizzle wash over him. He saw the dead too, latching onto stone only to immediately be dragged back. His eyes steadied. They narrowed in, back into the mist and back to the lanterns lit upon the sides of the boat. It was massive, yes. He could tell, even though it was only a shadow in the far distance. He could tell by the giant post and sail that cast a shadow over him and across water.


    What was that sound? He leaned in. He could hear it deep and steady, like a long stretching foghorn.


    And it came out. The onyx colored wood, the wide curved body, the pounding souls that colored the bottom red with beatings and slamming.


    It was Charon. Archiver of the dead. Charon, who sat fused to the ship, the living figurehead. His upper torso was out, erect upon the front of the ship. It looked heavy, he looked heavy. Muscular, disgustingly so, white-eyed as if he had two searchlights transplanted into his sockets.


    Charon was all at once, captain, crew, and ship. And he reached around with his wide body and picked a soul amongst the passengers who all screamed and shouted. They were normal people, dead people, Apollo thought.


    He picked a man, young, twenty perhaps. He dropped him into the waters rather carelessly. Apollo watched the body fall and watched the souls rip him apart, eat him, like sharks at fresh carrion. He brought his eyes back. Froze. Charon was glaring at him, twirling his long beard, twitching his pointed ears. He rose an oar from his side and pointed it to Apollo. He looked as if to throw it at him, but no. He pointed down and twisted his neck into a crane as he looked over the river. Then he fell into it.


    Charon brought his oar up, high above him, and down, to beat and break the violent dead. This was his job as watcher and caretaker of the souls in purgatory.


    Charon disappeared as quickly as he appeared. The shadow cast above Apollo spread out, then went away. Apollo brought his hands to his head and stared out into the wide waters, he couldn¡¯t anything, only noticed a few red and orange spots, but nothing. It seemed endless.


    ¡°You missed your chance.¡± Apollo¡¯s neck hairs rose. His fist tightened and he moved his hands into his vest and in, to his sword handle. ¡°Charon could have taken you back.¡±


    A Striped Hyena stood behind him. White-furred with a long black streak across its uneven spine.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Me? Isn¡¯t it obvious? I¡¯m just a Hyena.¡± It pushed its head up to laugh, it¡¯s mouth resembled a megaphone. ¡°What else could I be, silly?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not asking about your form, I¡¯m asking about your nature.¡± He drew his sword. ¡°Now, either you tell me who you are or I won¡¯t even think twice about cutting you in half.¡±


    ¡°It looks a bit smaller than it should.¡± The Hyena laid down, breathing and calm. It grinned. ¡°Your sword, I mean.¡±


    ¡°It looks bigger up close, believe me.¡±


    ¡°Right, I¡¯m sure.¡± It giggled, rolled a bit and covered itself in dirt. ¡°What an awful question? My nature? My nature. Well, my nature is your nature, since we¡¯re both dogs of circumstance. Children of the earth and of God. And I figure that makes us brothers? Or father and son? Lovers, maybe?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not an answer.¡±


    ¡°Not the one you want, but the one that is.¡±


    Apollo grit his teeth. He looked at the small animal and how it rolled on its side, exposed its stomach and its black-spotted abdomen. It licked itself, scratched its flesh and unhinged its maw into a smile.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have time to fuck around with you.¡± Apollo spat and began walking towards that sandy expanse, where the dunes had collected into sharp curved lines and where the small bushes had curled and dried up into barbed balls.


    ¡°Which road will you be taking?¡± The Hyena asked.


    Apollo stopped and looked back, confused.


    ¡°Ah, it probably doesn¡¯t matter. All roads lead to Astyanax.¡± It laughed again, it sounded worse from a distance, morphed and nasally. He wanted to get a word in, to ease a sense of distress growing in him, but didn¡¯t. His eyes were burning. The sand-carrying winds blew. Apollo could feel his lips dry, could feel that grating feeling upon his flesh from the small particles that hit him. He nodded his head - Just stay silent - and walked, as far from the river and as far from the Hyena that his feet could take him.


    ¡°Or was it all roads lead to Troy? Rome? Which was it?¡± The Hyena said. His head shook to whimsical rhythm. The winds were not as harsh to the animal, or perhaps the animal was too harsh for the winds. Whatever, it didn''t matter, Apollo thought.


    He walked. Faster, more frenzied.


    ¡°Too many empires, too many names. Two to pair, two to meet. The third will come across the reach. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Three for one. One for all. One to die, one to eat.¡±


    So it went, on and on through those desert sands.

 Chapter 56

    Jeremiah


    Sand. Sand in his mouth. Sand in his eyes. Sand in his pants. It came out of him as he stood, it came into him with each sweeping foot step that shook up dust. He was with the boy, Bartholomew. And they were somewhere. Somewhere they never had the benefit of thinking. For if they thought, even for just a moment, they would have realized they were doomed and that this effort (the large jog they broke into it in this very large desert) was for nothing.


    There were small pockets of dirt and green like cut up pieces of paradise. But nothing more, just desert and as Jeremiah fell to his knees, he realized, ash. The soot was in his mouth like two used briquettes had been stuffed into his cheeks.


    ¡°Now, if you¡¯re going to die the least you could do is die somewhere away from me.¡± A voice said behind the two. He was coming up from a dune, his black tie was wrapped around his forehead, his blazer wrapped around his hips.


    ¡°I''m only saying so because they¡¯re coming. I know it, you know it. So it''s best you start running.¡± This character was breathing loud, his voice sounded strained and broken.


    ¡°Ishmael.¡± He took a breath for each beat in the word.


    ¡°I told you," Ishmael coughed "Call me Sam."


    ¡°Sam. Maybe we should slow down for the kid.¡±


    ¡°For the kid? Fuck the kid.¡± He walked over to Bartholomew who was on his side, sinking into the sloping sand. ¡°Stand up. You hear me? Stand up or you''re dead.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s not lazy.¡± Jeremiah pushed his hands down on the floor and lifted himself. ¡°He''s not stupid either. He''s tired. We¡¯ve been running for hours.¡±


    "And I''ll run for hours more so long as it gets me away from th-"


    Sam put his finger up, in that school teacher disciplinary manner. He wanted to say something, to get at least a letter in. But stopped. His large brow pointed up, then behind him. They could hear the footsteps. He moved again. He heard them, from another direction. All around them, they all heard them, even the sand that shook and spilled downwards to them.


    They were quivering now. All of them. The child, the youth and the old man. It looked like a current of voltage had run through them. They might have been, considering how charged and edged they looked, how red their eyes were and how quickly their faces turned red with life as they ran. South, that''s where they bolted.


    Jeremiah wanted to reflect, even in that intense jog of his. He wanted to think back to how it began, those purple hands, that otherworldly grasp, the boy and the two men that landed on that shore. How they hid in caves and now, how they ran for dear life. Ran from the things that sounded like banshees and that stormed the lands with spears in their hands and the high shout of war. Those things, those things they ran from. As fast as he could.


    Bartholomew fell. He landed on his side. Sam ran past him, Jeremiah stopped, picked him up and put him, horizontal, on his shoulders like a log, stiff, lifeless. He could feel the faint breaths of the boy down his neck. They felt like whip lashes, and him, Jeremiah, the horse that burdened on with feet that sunk deeper and deeper.


    ¡°Where are we running to?¡± Jeremiah asked in that strained desperate voice.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter. Just run.¡± Sam slowed to gasp.


    He was right though. It didn¡¯t matter.


    They were already caught and only making it harder.


    Jeremiah stepped over a small creature. A bug or a plant? He couldn¡¯t tell, only knew it was hard shelled and made a gushing sound as it flattened underneath his feet. It looked like a scorpion or a small spider perhaps, and it made him trip. Both the boy and Jeremiah, who fell and rolled downhill. It must have been fifteen meters of a tumble before they stopped. And when he awoke, with sleepy eyes and a dreadful hot flash across his face, he looked for Bartholomew. He was next to him, on his stomach, vomiting a bit. And Sam was ahead. Running for a bit before coming to the top of another dune. Then stopping all of a sudden, then collapsing on his knees and looking back at Jeremiah with wide eyes.


    Sam¡¯s whole body fell, that scrawny bony body of his with the long neck that looked a bit crooked to the left. It all fell and crumpled. He looked like a brooding vulture. Starved, a bit desperate.


    Jeremiah crawled up to meet him. He came to the sight that made Sam fall. It made his jaw drop for a bit, made him drool too. There was a group of five men - No, not men. At least not anymore - Demons, perhaps that was the accurate word to call those looming figures. Eight feet tall, bulked, as if five large trees with armor had uprooted themselves.


    The group of five demons looked to the trio, from below the dune. They smiled, their teeth were jagged like a serrated knife. Their feet were webbed and their tails were forked and their tongues were long and frantic as they fell and dressed their lips wet. They had no horns like Jeremiah had imagined in his childhood, no, they had spots of rotten flesh and giant black rings around their eyes and hair either that grew wildly in patches around their scalps. Their skins were sickly looking and they all looked spotted. Pasty white, diseased green. One of them was missing a jaw. The wound was still there, it had puss coming out off it that gave him the appearance of salivating. This jawless fiend pointed to the group. The other four moved on towards Jeremiah and company, their faded red skirts moved gently, their armor, not so much.


    They were legionnaires. Or at least they wore the decore, wore the pride too, as they stepped up with armored high chests. Their movements were slow, trained, careful. It made the three timid, it made them feel small.


    Jeremiah could hear the metal clank. It sounded like war. Like the bashing of steel, the crushing of bone.


    He turned. The others that had chased them had arrived, one of them plucked Bartholomew from the neck of his shirt and dragged him, ripping the blue cotton a bit as they yanked him about and put him (Bartholomew) under their armpits. Jeremiah stood, he wanted to kick, to punch, to do anything. He was slapped down. He didn¡¯t even feel it, it didn¡¯t register as pain. That fist that brought down on his head, that broke his nose into two, that left him ringing on his left ear, it didn¡¯t feel like anything but a strong pull. As if gravity had forced him down. It took a while for him to feel the blood of a bruised forehead, even longer for him to scream. A toothless scream that sounded more like a whistle. He saw his molars fall, he tried grabbing them but was pulled up.


    ¡°Three more.¡± One of the demons said. A large tumor-like growth was on his neck, like an oversized Adam¡¯s apple. He had a raspy voice.


    ¡°I wonder how long they¡¯ll live.¡± Another said. This one had a helmet on and long red plumes that swayed left and right. That one had a soft voice and it made it easier for Jeremiah to sleep, at last, a dreamless sleep.


    Sam watched them all. The unconscious bodies carried about, the pain and blood coming off of Jeremiah''s face. It made him weak in the knees, it made him docile and he sat in the sand. He got the best treatment of all of them; a slap across the face, a nosebleed and a long bronze chain strapped around his waist.


    Sam looked down at his hands. There were no cuffs. He began to process the scenario, opportunity, the idea to run again. Run far away. His forehead began to sweat and he thought, on the third rattling of the chain to risk it all. He bit his lips, it was coming, that third rattle. He brought his face up.


    His blood froze.


    For Sam gazed up to a sharp, devious smile and the hot breath and drool that caressed his face. He knew it then. Ah, it came to him! In that private fear, in those dark corners of his mind. It was all a statement. The chase, the beating, the imprisonment. It was all a mockery as if to say to him and to anyone else who dared, what chance do you really have?


    He looked back down, for whatever idea Ishmael "Sam" Johnson had that moment, died.

 Chapter 57

    Apollo


    ¡°How long are you going to keep following me for?¡± Apollo looked back to the Hyena who made circles in the sand with his tail and his ass, who kicked away giant clouds of golden dirt. He was like a child at the beach, destructive, maliciously kicking down the sand castles.


    ¡°I won''t stop until you meet him.¡±


    ¡°Astyanax? I don¡¯t care about him. My concern isn¡¯t with him, it''s with the people he''s taken hostage.¡± Apollo returned to walking. The land was flat and he could see from the distance the small plateaus that sat on the horizon. They looked like stone tables.


    ¡°And do you think you¡¯ll be able to avoid him?¡± The Hyena scratched his abdomen with his hind legs. ¡°I¡¯d be surprised if you could. Nothing lives without his knowledge that lives without his consent.¡±


    ¡°Is that so? Real Napolean type, that guy. Maybe he should find a hobby.¡±


    ¡°This is his hobby. One he takes very seriously, haven''t you noticed? The lack of people on this island?¡±


    Apollo stopped to look. He felt stupid, of course there was nothing, nothing but desert. He shook his head and walked forward, a mountain was coming upon his view and he put his hand against the orange stone and worked around the volatile terrain, the boulders lodged on the side and on the floor. The Hyena was jumping around, he looked experienced.


    ¡°You consider this an island?¡±


    ¡°A small one, too. There are bigger lands, as you¡¯d imagine. Purgatory has to be a giant place to accommodate all the dead. You should see how dense it can get after a war.¡± It laughed. Apollo frowned.


    ¡°Am I to assume that Astyanax is responsible for the population? Does he kill them, any unlucky soul stuck here?¡±


    The Hyena laughed. A wind blew past Apollo, he felt sand in his mouth.


    ¡°Kill? Don¡¯t be silly. They¡¯re already dead.¡± The Hyena dropped and began to lead Apollo through a small underpass beneath the mountain. There were arches and encrusted inside were Topaz gems, stalagmites that pointed down. There was no shining light reflected though, everything was overcast.


    ¡°But you''re different, aren''t you? You''re still alive, not like these marked men.¡±


    ¡°Marked?¡±


    ¡°Those that come here by destiny¡¯s call are marked. Those who come unnaturally, like you, aren¡¯t. It¡¯s simple, dummy. You¡¯re trespassing. And that means you don¡¯t get the same treatment as the dead. So if you were to be killed here, well¡­¡± His snout came down, his mouth was wide and his tongue slipped out, red and swollen. ¡°Well, even I don¡¯t know what would happen to you. Maybe you¡¯d be sent to that atheist oblivion? Maybe you¡¯d be trapped? Saved? Reborn? Who knows. Do you want to find out?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Apollo walked past him. His stare was strict and disciplined as he spotted a small bundle of tarps in the distance. ¡°I get the point. I die, I''m done. What happens if you¡¯re marked though? If you suffered that so-called, natural death twice?¡±


    ¡°Supposing you never got sent lower into the deeper circles, suppose you didn¡¯t get placed in the river Styx. Well, you¡¯d just be reborn and dragged out of the waters. That¡¯s the cycle here, a death and rebirth. And forgetting. And repenting. And with time and hope...¡±


    ¡°A ticket. To heaven? If it exists.¡±


    ¡°Skeptic ''till the end. Here you are facing death and you still can''t fathom the idea of heaven."


    "Some things are just too good to be true."


    "You might be right. Maybe." The Hyena''s eyes wandered for a bit. Melancholy, almost. "No, most people get reborn. Reincarnated. New body, same soul.¡±


    ¡°Great, you get another shot at fucking up life. That¡¯s just great.¡± The winds eased, his eyes were already red though. Red, throbbing, hurting from sand and dirt. It made him teary-eyed.


    ¡°You still didn¡¯t tell me what any of this has to do with Astyanax. Or why there aren¡¯t any people here.¡±


    ¡°There are people here. Just few of them, fewer than there ought to be.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter to me. What¡¯s your point with all this? What do I care about the cycle of death and rebirth?¡±


    ¡°Most people would be excited to know salvation awaits them. I thought you were Catholic?¡±


    ¡°Most people are stupid. The same fucking soul, the same fucking person making the same fucking mistakes. It doesn¡¯t matter how many tries you get at life. It¡¯s all a shot in the dark and you¡¯re more likely to put yourself in a worse position being reborn than a better one. How¡¯s that for a cosmic gamble? How''s that for salvation?¡± Apollo looked back to the Hyena who sat with its ass on the floor and his head high. ¡°Why would you guess I''m Catholic?¡±


    ¡°I just figured you¡¯d be Catholic. Your friend was at least.¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°What are you-¡± His mouth opened, his tongue was arid. It had white spots growing on it, near his tonsils. ¡°Who are you talking about?¡±


    ¡°The man in the suit like the one you¡¯re wearing. Right? Your friend, Dion. He went to fight the good fight a long time ago. I wonder how he''s doing.¡± The animal was smiling, it seemed to revel as it licked itself and chewed on its arm.


    Apollo didn¡¯t know how to feel. His eyes became spastic. Around him were two giant stretches of stone if you could call them that, they looked like walls. Giant stone mountain walls that stretched miles left and right, with no end in sight. There was a crack though, a small valley where the wind passed. It was behind Apollo.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    ¡°Where¡¯d he go?¡± Apollo reached for the animal;s throat. It kicked dirt at Apollo.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get so touchy! You haven¡¯t even taken me out on my first date.¡± The creature laughed, its body was low to the ground as it beamed its yellow ringed eyes at Apollo. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you where he''s going. That''s the point. He went North.


    ¡°And what the fuck is Northward. There¡¯s no compass. No time, no anything!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll give you a tip. And don¡¯t forget it, sweetie.¡± His laugh sounded like a howl, it was booming in the small enclosure between the two mountain ranges. ¡°That hole in the sky. You see it, don¡¯t you? It rests South in the sky. If you want to go North, just walk away from it. Run away from it, the further you are from that dark pit, the closer you are to Astyanax. And through him, your exit. You still have that cup, don¡¯t you?¡±


    Apollo¡¯s glare focused in on the hound. He must have not been more than two meters wide but held in him all that grief and tension, it made Apollo freeze.


    ¡°Who the fuck are you?¡± He drew his sword, he rested it on his shoulder. His feet dug into the sand.


    ¡°We¡¯ve already been through this line of questioning.¡± His voice sounded warped. Was it the wind, the echo of the narrow valley? ¡°I¡¯m just a Hyena.¡±


    ¡°Bullshit, what¡¯s your name?¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s a name?¡± The Hyena asked. Apollo swung, out came the cloud of destruction and the small stones that shot out like shrapnel. He lifted his sword, there was nobody, no animal, just a hole and empty space and a few elongated creatures that scattered. The Spotted Hyena was behind him now. It did not growl, did not breath, simply looked on with its beady eyes.


    ¡°A name is what tells me whether you''re a friend or a foe. That''s what it is to me. Now speak up before I chop your ass in half.¡± Apollo felt spittle coming down his chin.


    ¡°It¡¯s a label then? An identifier? Isn¡¯t that a bit too close minded for you? I can be anything you want, honey.¡±


    ¡°Call it that nasty human habit, call it a biological tick, call it whatever you want motherfucker. Cataloging the good and the bad is a great way to avoid trouble. And you, you are trouble. So you tell me right now where I put you, which file cabinet do you belong to, fucker? Who are you?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m an angel, aren¡¯t I? Otherwise, your little cat string would have gone off, wouldn¡¯t it have?¡±


    Apollo felt the chill down his spine as all revelations usually do, inspire fear. Yes, why hadn¡¯t his little string gone off, rattled, shaken with that unhinged excitement? It should have worked, more so down here in Hell and Purgatory than any other place, more so with this creature in front of him. But it didn''t. It was mute, dead. Why hadn''t it gone off? What was the Hyena?


    ¡°I probably have as many names as there are stars in the universe. I don¡¯t understand half of them though. They always call me the deceiver, the liar. But to you, Apollo, to you I am a friend.¡± It laughed, innocent and gentile. Or at least tried to appear as such. ¡°Though I guess that¡¯s a point of contention isn''t it? The lying friend! How about that? Hah.¡±


    Apollo walked around the creature, began to calculate his range and his method of attack and his speed and his momentum. The Hyena, however, simply rolled. Rolled in the sand.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like you¡¯ve been honest, Apollo. Or should I call you by your real name? Well, as real as any name could be. Your first name, I believe. The one your degenerate crack whore of a mother gave you. Oh, what was it again? Hmm? August? Agust¨ªn? Yes! Agust¨ªn Octavio del Rio Jr. Did I pronounce that right? My, my that''s a Mexican mouthful if-¡±


    Apollo swung again. Faster, much more malicious. His nose was flared, his eyes were crimson and shown through the cloak of gold dust. He was pointing that blade, pointing it to the sound of the voice, for he had struck nothing and in missing, seemed to feed his anger more.


    ¡°I thought you were the cool one? Even Dion seemed more together."


    Once again he swung. The earth cracked and broke.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Apollo screamed.


    ¡°I am the Virgil to your Dante.¡± Apollo swung at the voice.


    ¡°The Obi-Wan to your Luke.¡± Again, this time with more gusto.


    ¡°The Alfred to your Bruce Wayne.¡± Apollo turned. He felt his ankle twist and he fell face first into the desert. His sword spun a bit in the air before it injected itself some meters off from him. It looked like a nameless tombstone.


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s fantastic! I was running out of examples.¡± The Hyena seemed to materialize out of that cloud of smoke.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Apollo asked, mouth full. His voice was shaken.


    ¡°I want what''s best for my son. Though I must say, I am rather disappointed. I thought I reared you better, but it seems like you still have some ways to go before you¡¯re ready to kill that man.¡± He walked towards the blade and bit the handle. He dragged it along the sand, it made a whistling sound as the wind passed. The Hyena dropped it a few inches away from Apollo, though Apollo had no urge to grab it. ¡°There are some things about yourself you still need to confront. That''s kind of obvious though, don¡¯t you think? And I''m not talking about your useless father or your useless mother. They''re dead to you. I know that. No, I''m talking about your surrogate and more importantly, your friend."


    ¡°How do you know-¡± He didn¡¯t bother finishing. He wasn¡¯t even sure if the Hyena was real, maybe it wasn¡¯t, maybe it was. The id manifest? Just an Illusion? His self-contempt materialized, finally, in this hellish plane. He thought that for a moment, tried to persuade himself at least that the Hyena was just an anomaly of the mind. But he felt a knock on his forehead, a paw that bopped him softly on the face.


    ¡°Your friend had much more courage than you. It¡¯s a shame you didn¡¯t see him off, you could have learned something from him. You could have copied that big heart of his.¡± He howled. ¡°And only his heart! He doesn¡¯t have much of a brain, from what I could tell.¡±


    Apollo laid flat on the earth, eyes open and staring into that hole in the sky. It seemed like something desperate, something sad and small was trying to escape from his pouty, black eyes.


    ¡°You¡¯re an important investment to me, Apollo. And it¡¯d be great if you could show that same enthusiasm.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a lot to demand from a stranger.¡± Apollo coughed. His throat felt clogged.


    ¡°You¡¯re no stranger to me, you¡¯re my child. And one who¡¯s needed a bit of discipline for a long while now.¡± The Hyena began to walk away. ¡°This is all a loving warning, you see. So why don''t you let me help? Heed my words. Tattoo them into your skull if you have to. You''ll travel past this little valley. You''ll survive too, it won''t be easy though. Northeast you''ll find a barrack, find your survivors. If there are any, if not, make your peace and move on. Keep going north until you hit the dome. Then you can see for yourself that fragile kingdom Astyanax has built, one of sand of one of hubris. I''m sure by then, he''d have found you. Go to him. Kill him. And listen well, don''t you listen to him. No matter how much of yourself you see in him, remember this, he must die.¡±


    ¡°So that¡¯s what you want. An assassin.¡± Apollo stood with both of his hands.


    ¡°No. I wan a messenger. I want a flag bearer. I want you to become a better man.¡±


    "Why? What do you have invested in me?"


    "What does the father want, of all things small and large?" The Hyena asked. Apollo stayed silent. "He wants to be killed by the son, he knows that to be his end."


    "Well, if you just stood still, I could have done that for you right away."


    "A symbolic murder. You know that. I want you to become a better person than I was."


    ¡°And I want you to never talk to me again.¡±


    ¡°Wanting and willing are very different, Apollo. You need my help.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t give a fuck about your help. Stop being so esoteric, give it to me straight. What''s our relationship?¡± The sand was coming off his clothes. Apollo stood hunched.


    "I''ll tell you if you survive. Sure." The Hyena unhinged its mouth. Its teeth were pronounced, sharp and stained yellow.


    Apollo looked at him, he could feel his legs turning, begging him to move. His eyes wouldn''t turn away though. It took some effort, a push by the wind, a distant cry, to finally make Apollo move towards the valley. The Valley where the tarps flowed gently on metal lines and where the little-broken huts of villages past sat aging in the sand.


    The Hyena looked on. His tail was wagging. He sniffed the air and began to dig a small foxhole. When he was ready, when Apollo was far and away and entering the shadowy valley, he sat on his bed. A grin on his face.

 Chapter 58

    Apollo


    He traveled long inside of that small crack, in between two monoliths of stone that went endlessly both sides. It was the only crack, the only opening, the Hyena had said. So this was the way, the only way, through this narrow and flat stretch. He had walked for hours or thought so, it might have been days. Time felt odd here, in this place. It might have been weeks, he didn''t know for he felt neither hunger nor thirst, only a growing tiredness that gnawed on him. However long it was (and it was long), he was thankful when he finally found the sediments of life. Buildings and huts, small caves along ridges of both high walls that had clothes and tarps flowing from their openings. He smiled for a bit, then it fell again.


    There was a buzz, like static in the air. He ignored it. For the hamlet was dead. It was killed long ago and left to rot upon the salted dirt. He could see the litter of white, the small specks upon the yellow sand. Maybe it was ash, the cremated corpses of the villagers. He looked around, the two walls of stone were winding and the city too, winding. Was it a village? Or a city? Whatever remained was too little to tell as to the history of this land.


    He climbed to one of the ridges where a blue tarp flowed out like laundry. It was the entrance to a small enclave, a home once. He saw the remnants of one at least, a black stain from a firepit at the center of the cave, some furniture broken into wood pieces, furs of animals that looked strange and foreign to him.


    Apollo lifted the tarp and walked further into the cave, there were more stains. Human-sized stains clinging to the edges of the cave. He turned around and walked back and stepped on something. He looked beneath his foot. It was a doll. A doll made from husk and hair.


    It brought upon that eerie chill, like a cold wind to his nape.


    He passed by the tarps and the caves, the small houses growing more dessicate as he went on along the path until finally, he came to the hub. A large expanse, a fat little circle in this small little narrow way.


    He looked past it. There was an exit, he was beginning to see the rest of the desert again.


    "What a strange feeling. I''m glad to see sand." He looked back, there was no Hyena though. No friend, no one and stepped through.


    The houses were a mishmash of brick and dirt and the makeshift lid of thatch twigs covered them. Odd little huts that he inspected more closely, most of them were caved in. Stranger, they showed no wear of war or fire. The walls and beams were covered instead with penny-sized holes. It was as if they were nibbled, devoured. He left to the furthest building, the one least destroyed. He entered the low door frame, there was nothing covering it and he could hear a brick collapsing behind him, the loud thump and shatter. Apollo sighed. He was glad he wasn''t superstitious.


    His eyes scanned the room, studied the wooden beams that snapped at the touch. The dirt felt loose. There were jars around him, giant orange urns with painted histories along the sides. Though they were eroded. Apollo rubbed his chin.


    ¡°Red-figure pottery.¡±


    A vase moved. The sound of a shimmy. It was called to his voice.


    "Hello?"


    Another rattle. He heard its direction must clearer, walked towards hit. Apollo''s hand was inside his coat, he could feel the handle of his blade. He came to the urn that shook, that vibrated and waited. Like a practical joke, a prank, he waited for the load and spring of the clown.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Apollo said to the urn. There was a wobble, a turn and rumble that indicated the weight of something heavy from within. He walked closer, his footsteps vibrating and sending a silent signal to the urn to shake again.


    ¡°I¡¯ll say it one last time.¡± Apollo began. He made that sinister whistle of the blade as he drew it above of his head. A voice responded, muffled. It was enough to make Apollo bring his blade down with a wide arc, collapsing the floor beneath him. The thing inside the urn now shook violently as it fell lopsided, into the hole Apollo had just made.


    Apollo knelt down, grabbed the top and inspected the shaking vase. It was not made of clay, nor of porcelain, rather some kind of hard black metal. The orange drawings were faded, they looked like strips of broken film. He could vaguely make out a man in the painting, a man holding a spear and commanding another man to kneel.


    Apollo narrowed his eyes. He brought his hand to the top of the voice at what seemed like a plunger. He swore he could hear buzzing, he swore the wind was bringing in the sound. He ignored it, instead, went back to the urn and to what was making the noise. He shoved his fingers inside of the top of the voice. A layer of wood above a layer of metal, he penetrated both until his fingers touched whatever was inside. It was wet, shaking, warm.


    In one move, Apollo flexed and draw his arm back and watched the lid fly in the air like a disk, watched it float like those old inspired UFOs and saw it stab through the thatch top ceiling of the house. Or what was left of the ceiling. It was stuck in there, the half disk. And Apollo stood again and walked away from the urn. He picked his sword on the way out, he could feel the steel crack and snap off like the molting of a serpent.


    Then Apollo waited. He was patient on his side of the house, where the roof came down like a small lip and where the hay poked at his hair. There in the darkness, with his crimson eyes, he waited for whatever was inside of that vessel to come out.


    He heard it at last. That scream, that moan of a crazed man. He saw a hand come out, pale and loose-skinned. The flesh looked waterlogged, the smell was terrible. A fermented smell of fish, then of something sour, like long due cheese curds. It looked toxic, this crustacean of a man as he came out of his shell. He looked oily. His eyes lashes were white and he looked away from the light in the sky and ran to the other end of the house where the shadows were.


    ¡°¦°?¦Ò¦Ø ¦Ó?¦Ñ¦Á?!¡± The man screamed.


    ¡°What is that? I don¡¯t understand.¡±


    ¡°¦°?¦Ò¦Ø, ¦Å?¦Ð¦Á, ¦°?¦Ò¦Ø!¡±


    "Can you understand me?" There was nothing but more shouting, more screeching. Apollo spat. He nodded his head and walked towards the urn man.


    Apollo extended his hands and thought to grab the man''s hairs before he realized he didn¡¯t have many if anything. They were more like threads, loose hanging black threads. He grabbed the back of the man¡¯s head instead and felt his drooping flesh. To Apollo, it felt like wet pigskin.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°Sorry. I can''t be fucked." Apollo said. "I don¡¯t mean to trespass, but I need to get something straight and I hope you don''t mind my detective work.¡±


    The man stared frightened, trying to move away. His neck was weak though, fragile. He did no more than shake like a newborn. ¡°You don¡¯t know what I¡¯m saying, do you? Well, that''s fine, word association is good enough."


    "Hell." Apollo said. Nothing, more screaming.


    "Hyena?" The man fidgeted.


    "Astyanax?" There was silence. Apollo felt it, the pulse of a lead. He shook the man."Astyanax? Do you know who Astyanax is? Do you know where he''s taken the people? Anything?"


    The man was wide-eyed.


    ¡°¦¬¦Ç¦Í ¦Ì¦Å ¦Ò¦Ê¦Ï¦Ó?¦Í¦Å¦É?. ?¦Ä¦Ø¦Ò¦Á ¦Ó¦Á ¦Ð?¦Í¦Ó¦Á ¦Ò¦Ó¦Ï¦Ô? ¦Á¦Í¦È¦Ñ?¦Ð¦Ï¦Ô? ¦Ò¦Ï¦Ô.¡± The voice rose from mumble to gasping scream. ¡°¦¬¦Ç¦Í ¦Ì¦Å ¦Ò¦Ê¦Ï¦Ó?¦Í¦Å¦É?. ¦¬¦Ç¦Í ¦Ì¦Å ¦Ò¦Ê¦Ï¦Ó?¦Í¦Å¦É?. ¦¬¦Ç¦Í ¦Ì¦Å ¦Ò¦Ê¦Ï¦Ó?¦Í¦Å¦É?!¡±


    Apollo let go.


    ¡°What was I expecting?¡±


    He watched the urn man struggle out, he watched him squirm and shield himself with a small piece of wood from the corner of the room. Apollo did not move, only studied him. What did he expect, really? This man was just a long-dead soul. There were no answers from the foreign creature.


    So Apollo sat in that demure pose, with his arms slumped and his neck craned. And the urn man looked at Apollo, studied him just as much.


    And the buzz of the air was still there, and Apollo slumped over, his sword sitting beside him all broken and cracked. The urn man passed him glances every now and then, watched him as he went underneath the disk in the ceiling and lifted his hands to reach it. He couldn¡¯t get to the lid.


    ¡°He said the barracks would be north. He said I¡¯d find him after that but I just don¡¯t get it.¡± Apollo said to himself. ¡°I gotta find the people I came to save. I gotta find Dion.¡±


    It was whisper speak, the self-argumentative talk of a man fighting doubt. And the buzz in the air was still there, and the urn man had none of it. He was jerking around, shaking. And he was growing more distressed, more afraid, more talkative to the point where at last he came to Apollo and shook his shoulders and pointed to that disk in the ceiling.


    ¡°What?¡± Apollo looked up. There was pointer finger on the roof. ¡°You want it back?¡±


    There were more greek ramblings. It sounded fast, cartoonish. The urn man kept shaking and pointing. At last, Apollo yielded. He struggled up, went over and lifted the disk from the roof. He passed it to the urn man who looked it, half bent and folded and crumbled like uninspired origami. The man looked at it, groaned and peaked out from the holes on the sides of the house. His eyes were tearing up, Apollo couldn¡¯t understand much of it, only saw it, a growing tension.


    ¡°Well? What is it this time?¡± He asked. The man gasped. He scratched his face until it bled, Apollo stepped back. Half his body was out the door frame and he heard it now, that intense buzzing in the air. Not static, not thunder, but a rolling wave of cacophony. The violent throes of a mob.


    His eyes focused in on the sound. It was above, around him. It was coming from the narrow way. It appeared to him, a cloud upon the horizon, a long streak of black casting its corrugated shadow across him and across the land. It was loud, this cloud, loud and buzzing. He turned around to face the man, to see what was on his face, but he was gone. Hidden in that small jar. Apollo looked inside the house, to the walls specifically where the porous holes were. He looked to the jar, scratched and stabbed through as if millions of syringes had taken themselves to the brick and clay and metal of the place.


    He went outside, the wind was dead. It was still, his flesh felt tingles and his hairs rose.


    He cursed under his breath, took out his sword and looked out to the cloud. What chance was there in fighting that, though? He thought. The black cloud drew closer. No chance. He thought at last.


    And it came to him, that flood, that crackle of the air like water and thunder. They were locusts, he thought at least. Some deformed, rabid migration of locusts. Black and sleek. He felt one pass him. It cut his arm and Apollo watched the trickle of blood like a kind of thermometer for his fear, as it went down and down until finally, when all sense had come out of him, when he had no urn-man or homestead or God to consult, finally he ran. Down the narrow path, the walls enclosing, running so fast that the sand and dirt beneath his feet left a sharp trail. He looked like an ocean beast, with his body cutting through dirt, spreading it all out in the air like a sleek wave. He was no Leviathan. No predator. Rather, he was prey. Scared. His eyes and his head looked back. He cursed at himself. Why had he looked back? Why bother looking at the giant black wave, the miasma of insects that spread and chipped and ate away at all.


    He could see the animals fleeing. He could see what happened to those that didn¡¯t. There was a reptile near him, near his feet as he raced along the curve of the small narrow-way, he noticed its body and how it was punctured and lifted and devoured in a cyclone of the bugs. Not locusts, he thought. They were worse. Carnivorous insects, desperate with the sniff of Apollo¡¯s sweat.


    He ran so fast, so desperately that he hadn''t even noticed he was outside. Out again into the wild desert filled with canyons, long pillars, the giant stacks of boulders on top of boulders. Giant towers that did not shield him, did not give him relief, rather they fell. The boulders quite literally carried off, chipped, broken into thousands of meteorites upon Apollo. He could feel the pebbles hit his face, he could feel the rocks falling to him. He dodged left. Right, zigzag as all stones and all manners of flying evil tried at him.


    And at last, he broke. Crying his fake roar, his counterfeit courage, he put his shaking blade in front of him. He stood his ground at last when he came upon a pyre too large to walk around. He stood there, with the pyre behind him and a wall filled with small rocks. There was a draft, he didn''t know what it was though, wind or fear. And he stood there, with his shaking blade in front of him, with his nervous ticks. He could feel his heart accelerate as he faced the giant wave of black, the millions upon millions of bugs, long-legged, syringe mouth creatures. Their eyes were bulbous, two ruby gems wide apart, all of them looking at the shaking Vicar. And Apollo tried hard to steady his blade, to put it horizontally next to him.


    To die stabbed in the back, eaten alive or to die in flames. He thought. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time I burned a man alive.


    And he waited, felt the cuts across his cheeks and arms, felt them on his legs and thighs, the paper thin incisions of the insects that darted to him. He waited for the wave of bugs to reach its full, he waited until all his horizons were covered in that uneven, shaky blackness. And then, at that moment, when the veil of night seemed upon his face he lunged his blade forward. He could feel it in his arms, a roar and explosion, like his muscles had flexed outside of the boundaries of his flesh, like all of his strength had been blown out and all his joints and muscles were stretched and strained with the summons of his will. It was magicks, fear, dread, all of it coming out like the first night, with the bird-devil.


    And from his blade, from that hunk of steel, out came the fire. An explosion so strong, so uneven and disastrous as to having sent him flying back, through the wall of small rocks and into the pyre itself. He was falling through it and he had no reservations to stop it. His body felt spent. He saw for a moment as he flew in the air, that large swarm of arthropods writhing. Shriveled, turned to ash in a flash of bright white light. The blade flew past him, the rocks behind him shattered as his body collapsed into them. He saw darkness in spots in his eyes and in the vision remaining, blinding fire. His view was broken as if a photograph had been ripped and burned.


    The locusts were dead, and what remained of them, scattered. The sky was in flames. It licked and twirled its primal heat around and above, encasing the horizon and spreading its wrath upon the locusts.


    When all was done, when Apollo lifted himself with his creaking joints and bones, he looked out to the hole in the cave. His strength felt wasted. A streak of blood fell from his forehead, his eyes were shaky as he looked at the ashen remains of the bugs. They were far from him, buzzing around him but away too. And he was gone, buried in this nameless Hell. He could only hear the carnage from a distance, for his body seemed too broken to crawl to it and his mind too scattered to think of it. But he knew this, in that brief moment of consciousness.


    He had killed them, at least. A few seconds later, his eyes closed. He fell into that sleep. Whether deep or shallow, he did not know though.

 Chapter 59

    Jeremiah


    And Jeremiah thought, only thirty-two remained of the fifty that had come here. Thirty-two people, with their broken clothes and their broken spirits, traveling with bleeding feet across the desert.


    They were not in chains because they were not threads. They wandered, endlessly it felt, endless in a world that did not turn and did not sleep. Like a projector with a never-ending film of grey, flat, lifeless picture. They spent days (or what felt like days) walking and had no hungers or thirsts to bog them down, only a growing weakness and ache in their limbs as they traveled through the hot sands and the pavement stones that felt cut sharp beneath their feet.


    Jeremiah looked up to that bright shine in the sky and he felt as if the red ring was glaring at him and looked around instead. There was an odd number of what he saw as the devil¡¯s army, what he called them at least.


    They came to a large hump of land and it was at that instant that Jeremiah had the inkling of an idea. A brief one and he went to Bartholomew who was some paces behind him and then to Sam who walked with a bowed head further behind.


    ¡°I¡¯ll make a scene, you take the kid and run.¡± Jeremiah said.


    ¡°Are you insane?¡± Sam said. He looked at Jeremiah, specifically to the torn lips on his face and the crooked nose that whistled with his breathing.


    ¡°No. I just figure that it can¡¯t get any worse, can it?¡± Jeremiah said. They spoke in whispers, in nods and jerks. Jeremiah paced a bit further from them, Sam tried to stop him by grabbing his shoulders but he was too far gone. Then he waited, with quivering shoulders at what he thought would be the signal. Or the scene, rather.


    Jeremiah moved fast. He moved right, mostly because his left eye didn¡¯t work so right was all he could see and what he saw was a soldier, a demon, walking casually with his sword exposed. He grabbed it, held it with shaking hands and was dumb enough to pass glances at Sam and Bartholomew.


    They didn¡¯t move. They were too afraid, too scared. And the demon looked at Jeremiah, he made what appeared to be a smile, toothless and sinister. They were yellow, broken too. And he walked to Jeremiah, taunting him almost and all the demon¡¯s around smiled and took turns at betting. Jeremiah made eyes with him, looked around to a circle forming and began to move rather stupidly in quick shuffles. He slipped. On his own feet. He fell, tried to stand and felt a hand grip his neck and force him down.


    ¡°You¡¯re the feistiest one here.¡± The demon said. Jeremiah could feel the spit running down on his face. It felt like grime, like sewer water washing over him. ¡°How should I play with you? Breaking a man is only really as fun as how hard it is. You really need to savor the method and the journey, know what I mean?¡±


    He put his send hand on Jeremiah''s neck. It felt like lizard skin, whatever was underneath those gauntlets.


    ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± A voice said at the front of the line. Jeremiah could only see the plumed helmet amongst the crowd, it looked like a walking peacock as it came up to Jeremiah and when it came to him, he could feel his neck ease and relax for the demon on top him came straight, tall, with his hand to his forehead to signal the commander. Or what Jeremiah felt was the commander.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have a right to make a judgment. That belongs to the strong.¡± The commander said. He slapped the yellow-toothed demon and sent him down, holding his cheeks and lips.


    ¡°And you.¡± He turned to look at Jeremiah, Jeremiah who was stood by two more soldiers. ¡°What compels a man to make such a rash decision? Who do you defend and why?¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Jeremiah said nothing. He only glared with that defiant intensity.


    ¡°What an odd and stupid look you have.¡± The commander came up to him. ¡° Odd, because I think you might have inspired the rest. Stupid, because I¡¯m not sure that rebel spirit of yours has ever been tested.¡±


    The air went cold. The other thirty-two stared at Jeremiah, looked at him for answers. These strangers they had only met in passing, these strangers that traveled and in their travels had shared that same sacrifice. And they looked at Jeremiah, fright-eyed, looked with weak and lifeless faces.


    I just wanted to help out the kid, Bartholomew thought. Just the kid.


    ¡°Well, let''s test you then. We¡¯ll see where your tension breaks.¡±


    The demons hollered now. A rowdy bunch that jeered and made small passing laughs at the people. They banged their chest armors, slammed their helmets on cacti and dead trees and stones and made drums of the desert, joyous, warring drums.


    ¡°Everyone, get in lines of eleven.¡± The commander turned to smile at Jeremiah. ¡°As for you, I will give you the honor of the draw. Pick a number, any number, please.¡±


    And those creatures of base desires kept laughing. Slapping each other into slack-jawed messes, drooling, rolling on the floor. Some started picking guesses.


    ¡°Well, are you going to choose?¡± The commander looked to Jeremiah who stood afraid and mute. Afraid to speak, afraid of what was coming next.


    ¡°Pick!¡± The commander shouted. Jeremiah shook.


    ¡°Choose what?¡± His fingers felt numb. ¡°How do you expect me to choose when I don¡¯t know what¡¯s what?¡±


    ¡°Yes, there it is! It¡¯s not what you stand to gain, but what you stand to lose.¡± The commander smiled. His teeth were jagged. ¡°Choose a number or else I¡¯ll kill everyone there. That should be proper inspiration, don¡¯t you believe?¡±


    Jeremiah fumbled his thoughts, it was all too fast. He could feel it, all his life''s experience leading up to this moment. All manners of juvenile joy, all manners of sorrow, all manners of redemption finally coming together in this singular moment. It overwhelmed him, his heart felt like it would break. He asked himself, a number for what? For how many will die? For how many will live? I don¡¯t understand. His head felt the blood rush like a hot flash on his forehead. The sun seemed blistering now, so fiery hot as to ignite his scalp into flames. And he bit his tongue, and he began to sweat.


    ¡°Th-three.¡± He said quietly. ¡°Three.¡±


    The demons looked around. Then laughed.


    ¡°What a terribly low number.¡± One said.


    ¡°God damn, you¡¯re insane!¡± Another one.


    "Three? You really like killings, don¡¯t you?"


    ¡°Three is your answer then.¡± The commander said at last.


    Everyone looked confused in their lines of eleven, wondering which three it would be. The question and chatter went on until a silencing smack fell upon them all. They looked to the front. One, two, three. The third man from the front of the line starting from the right, dropped dead. His body collapsed in two thumps, severed from the waist. The blood smeared against the shirt of another.


    The commander killed the third man in line.


    They were silent all of a sudden, eyes wandering aimlessly as if they were falling into that deep, mesmerizing sleep. It felt like a nightmare, at least. For the thuds continued and the people kept dropping. And dropping. Every third person in every line of eleven was going to die. It was unbearable, counting down and realizing whether they were safe or not. How couldn¡¯t it be? Facing death, knowing death, and being weak to it.


    ¡°No, no I¡¯m next.¡± A woman shouted. She tried to run. She made it two meters past Jeremiah before the blood splattered against his face. He looked to see and wished he didn¡¯t. Her head was missing from a spear that had gone clean through her, that had landed and impregnated itself in a rock nearby. It had happened too fast for him to have shielded his face, and it had been too horrible for him to forget. And Jeremiah fell on his knees as he felt the woman¡¯s life fade away into the ether. It was this instant, this climax, where he felt for the first time humility. And it was a strange feeling, humility, it was the feeling of powerlessness and the feeling of dread and the feeling of acceptance. It felt like the hot blood of a stranger dripping down his cheeks.


    ¡°Get back in line.¡± The commander smiled. ¡°New numbers for everyone.¡±


    Some breathed relief, others began to sob.


    "That''s unfair. She moved. It''s not supposed to be my turn." A man said.


    "Fairness? Where can you find that? Where if only in the lands of man? For fairness is what weak men invent when they cant come to terms with the unprejudiced chance of the universe.¡±


    The man fell before he could make a rebuttal. He splattered quite horribly on Sam and Bartholomew, both who finally released their breaths as the soldiers passed them. Their bodies were tight, but they were smiling, not out of joy as much as relief, smiling and crying. For in one direction they could hear sighs and soft sobbing. And in the other, where the commander traveled like a walking scythe, they heard nothing but obscene silence.

 Chapter 60

    Alestor


    By sheer will, Alestor had come undone from that rancor of the river Styx. By tenacity, by strength, he had grasped the rocks leading up to the hill cliff above the waters. He had stripped himself from those phantom claws that grasped his skin. And he climbed, higher and higher. With his clothes ripped, his skin torn and scraped, his body bleeding and battered, he had climbed two hundred meters high up to the hill by the shoreline he had spawned from. It had taken him hours, half the time to moan and shout and hold himself anxiously. And the other half to do the effort of the slippery climb.


    Periodically he had looked up to the birds above with the long beaks that waited and squawked for his demise, he had seen them eat the snakes and other rats and bugs that burrowed and walked through the land. He had seen them spill the carcasses down to the waters below and had seen those phantoms of the river Styx gobble the giblets like starved piranhas. It made him turn when he saw it and it made the climb rougher. But he managed. He always did, he had too much on his mind not too. Too much fear, too much anger, too much curiosity. And when he was done, when he could finally put his body breast first upon the ground to breath, when he could take a calm breath and think, he looked and asked: Where is my family? The whole point of it, the drive that moved him. Where were they? He wondered.


    There were two demons, conveniently, to answer them. They stood away, almost patient with their hands folded on their chests. One of them had their spear through the floor and the other moved up to meet the tired man, it was all convenient. Expected. He grabbed Alestor by the hair, brought his face up and narrowed his eyes as he inspected the shorelined man.


    ¡°It¡¯s time to meet the king.¡± The demon said and they went at it, headlong north, dragging and pushing Alestor him all the way there.


    Where is my family? He asked himself throughout the miles of broken stones and hot sands. Where is my family? He tried looking for an answer above the high mountains. He tried hearing it through the heavy-blown winds. He tried to feel it through the intensely heated sand on his naked feet. No answer. And after a while, he stopped thinking altogether. He did not care what he was, honored guest or slave or walking dead man.


    He figured he couldn¡¯t have been anything special. There were no bells to greet him. No carpets, no trumpets. No family. There was nothing but the stiff, cold, mechanical movement of the soldiers and how they pulled him through a dark cave, into a dome-shaped mountain and through fields of flowered grass. He couldn¡¯t even appreciate the landscape, for his head was down the whole way through.


    At some point, he made it into a building. At another point, he was pulled through a hallway. Then, finally, somewhere along his travels he was let go. The two soldiers that had accompanied him now set by the side of a hall entrance.


    ¡°Is he here?¡± Alestor asked. They said nothing and Alestor looked down the bleak tunnel. No light showed save for the mild glow of torches that sat in even spaces down the path. The air was filled with the slow rolling yellow dust as if something far below was blowing back at him back. He went down anyways. The floor was cold and sleek, the walls coarse. He pushed most of his weight upon the walls as he descended and as he neared he could hear a faint sound. It was the noise of clanking, of screaming, of steel hitting stone. A terrible discord. Then silence. Cold again. A saw? Cutting? Slicing? It must have been a butchery considering all the surgical work he was hearing. Like flesh was being stabbed through, cut open, flayed.


    He stopped at last. Alestor scanned the room, his body felt cold. His rags of clothes flew gently through and he could see the cracks in the walls of the room, the wind blew through the small interstices and it sounded like a whisper, gentle-like. There were roman pillars on the floor, burst open and wounded on the shaft. They lay docile and in shards, like torn stems left to decay. Alestor scanned the lengthy room and found bodies all around. Some of them ancient, some of them new. They converged to some spot, away, beyond what Alestor could view and as Alestor stepped forward, he couldn¡¯t help but think, I have come here in hope of wife and child, only to stand witness to this garden of war.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    This was not the promised land.


    Round leather shields laid face down, raised at a bevel by stricken iron-beaked arrows. The swords were many and most were broken. They lay stabbed through the dirt or at a length on the floor. And Alestor got closer. He could feel grass beneath his feet, he saw the pillars and the bodies and the weapons victim to overgrowth. The very blood of the fallen fueling the invasion of nature, the roots and ivy and vines all strapping themselves and devouring the building. It was more violent the closer Alestor got to the end of the room.


    And then he saw the source of the sound of flesh-cutting. It was a man getting a spear removed from his cut open belly. It was that very same man giving his last pneumatic sigh, tottering off a hill of corpses. He fell, rolled, and lay by Alestor¡¯s feet, with his heels twitching and broken on the floor. On his chest, four bleeding wide cuts. Alestor looked up, his eyes catching glimpses of the sullen faces of the dead piling the mound. And there at the top, with his spear drooling blood, there stood Astyanax. Smiling.


    Nude, body completely pale, well-built. His face, gentle. Like a cherub. His hair flowed shoulder length, curly and snow-white. His lips and cheeks and nose and eyes, all gentle. And Alestor was overwhelmed for a moment, this androgynous nude beauty.


    Astyanax faced Alestor. His full member came to view, everything of him came to view. And Alestor noticed his arms, his legs, stained red. Not paint, not blood, a complete dyeing of the skin. He looked like a backward fox, this hound of war. The warrior laid down his spear and stood tall. And Alestor¡¯s lips twitched, his face contorted as if all the many grievances were finally overcapacity in his patient mind, so much so that they burst out of him in one loud sonorous shout.


    ¡°Where is my family? Where is my heaven?¡± Alestor stomped the floor. His feet bled out. ¡°There is nothing here. Nothing but desert, desert and time.¡±


    The man stayed silent.


    ¡°You¡¯re Astyanax, aren¡¯t you?¡± He asked.


    Silence.


    ¡°Keep your promise, demon! I want my child and my son, I want my good heaven. I want what is deserved to be mine. I want what was taken.¡± The saliva was spitting out of his long-winded shouts.


    Astyanax studied him. He sniffed the air, looked to the two guards now coming closer with ready arms. He waved at them, they stopped and put their spears back to their side. Astyanax walked over to Alestor, stepping over the broken tangle of bodies.


    He put his hand on Alestor¡¯s shoulder. His matched his nubile yellow eyes to Alestor''s.


    ¡°I pity. What a terrible fate, to love so much, to lose so much. To live and die a pauper. I¡¯m sorry,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°But you have me confused.¡±


    ¡°C-confused? Where is my wife-¡± Alestor stopped midway. He groaned and opened his mouth to scream. There was a sharp pain in his shoulder and he looked over. Astyanax was clasping it, biting deep with his hand, crushing his right shoulder blade into compressed bone dust. It made Alestor bend over. At that, Astyanax swept him across the legs with a kick. He fell on his side, face first and felt the blood leak down to his eye.


    ¡°Look at what you¡¯ve done. You¡¯ve forced me to rectify this behavior of yours.¡± Astyanax said. His face was dull, cold.¡°Who are you to speak to me? Who are you to stand equal to me? Who are you to demand? Who are you, son of man, for I am a monarch.¡±


    Alestor sat curled and wincing.


    ¡°I am King Astyanax. Son of Hector, breaker of horses. Prince-heir to long-lost Troy. I am king and this is my domain. And who are you?¡± He kicked Alestor away, into a pillar. ¡°You are just trash.¡±


    He looked at the writhing man who twitched at the touch of the king.


    ¡°You¡¯ve brought two Vicars here. Hunters of men like me, and for that, you have my thanks. This whole meeting stands as testimony to thanks and to the pity I have for you. So I give a piece of my abode, to hopefully give you peace in this land.¡± He put his red foot over Alestor¡¯s abdomen. ¡°But spit in my hand again and you will be fed to the dogs. That is my right and mine alone.¡±


    ¡°M-my wife?¡± Alestor managed in between puking.


    ¡°You still persist? Then let me alleviate your suffering.¡± He smiled. ¡°Your family is not here. You forfeited them long ago. Even I can¡¯t save them.¡±


    ¡°Betrayer.¡± Alestor spat.


    ¡°Sure. This can be a conspiracy if you so desire, or a practical joke if it humors you. Either or can satiate that animosity in you. But make no mistake in your sad story, this is no tragedy. Tragedy belongs only to the noble and the strong, of which you are, neither.¡±


    He walked past Alestor who cried and bemoaned and coughed dust.

 Chapter 61

    Dion


    During Apollo¡¯s Arrival


    ¡°And you¡¯re sure he¡¯s this way?¡± Dion asked he held the map, the orders, the confidential papers in front of his face. It was stained with soot and ripped at its ends and below was signed Astyanax with black ink. The demon rested on his side, blood coming out of his ear and eye bludgeoned to a mass of purple.


    ¡°Yes. Yes! Please, you have to believe me,¡± He had his hand above his face, it cast a five-fingered shadow on the centurion helmet the demon wore. ¡°I am a simple messenger. Please. That¡¯s it.¡±


    ¡°Is that why you killed the people here? is that why you reek of death?¡± Dion pointed to the small huts around him with the shabby ceilings and the strewn bodies laid to waste, half interred in the floor or half-burned into ash. It had been a while since they had died and since Dion had had the chance to arrive.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t do that. The others did.¡± The demon said.


    ¡°I found you joking with them all. It doesn¡¯t seem like you tried to stop them?¡±


    ¡°I had nothing to do with it. It was a calculated attack by Astyanax¡¯s orders.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. He doesn¡¯t tell us why. He just has us sent, that¡¯s it. That¡¯s how it¡¯s always been. For hundreds - No, thousands of years.¡±


    ¡°Thousands of years of war on this small island?¡± Dion breathed in the smell of cremated corpses. ¡°All those years of sin, all the years you refused to change. God can¡¯t help you now.¡±


    ¡°No, no. Please, I only do as I¡¯m told. Nothing more.¡± The demon said.


    ¡°What would happen if I kill you? If I ate your heart? Would you face oblivion? Would you meet the empty darkness with dignity? No, you wouldn¡¯t, would you?¡± Dion asked. The helmet slipped off the demon as he extended his hand out. He touched Dion¡¯s ankles. ¡°Evil is your trade, isn¡¯t it? It¡¯s been this way for thousands of years. I can¡¯t help you now, and I can¡¯t leave you now. That would be a half-measure, and half-measures cause mistakes. I know that now.¡±


    ¡°No, no.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s over. The jury has spoken. I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance.¡± He snapped back the lever on his revolver. ¡°And furious anger, those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.¡±


    ¡°Stop, please! I can¡¯t go there. Please, not there. Don¡¯t send me further down.¡±


    ¡°And you will know my name is the Lord.¡±


    The demon crawled then, with broken legs, using his knees to push himself down the hill.


    ¡°Please.¡±


    ¡°When I lay my vengeance upon thee!¡±


    The shot was loud, powerful and it rolled through the valley like a strong gust. And when it had ended and the echo faded, Dion was brought back to the soft licks of the flickering flames. He could hear his heartbeat. It sounded dull, monotonous. And he looked out into the horizon, where he could see a small blip the size of a pea. It was round, Bulbous, like a slumbering flower pod. It was the dome spoken about.


    He took a deep breath and faced back down the road and the corpses to his side with the holes in their chests. It looked like the work of machinery. Dion sighed, he put his guns back in his jacket and felt his wrists. They were aching, bleeding, and the dull pain seemed to extend to the rest of his body.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    It had taken him what felt like a week of trekking and back peddling to find himself around the mountain range, the heart of Ida, as it was told by the messenger¡¯s paper. He looked up to the giant walls enclosing the space and how the rocks encroached on the few dried sumac trees that were spread sparsely. It looked unnatural, this tumor of a growth and Dion found himself shaking his head, looking left and right to see how far it extended. He saw nothing but the few cave entrances scattered about. Small vulture-like creatures, with bony exteriors and lanky bodies, flew out and in the dark holes sprawled along the dome wall. He looked to a hole in front of him and the steep darkness frightened him. He breathed. He slapped himself. He dried his sweat and the remembered the girl, Sophie, and the others and with one gallop, jumped inside.


    It was not steep. It wasn¡¯t cavernous. It was small, tidy, crushingly thin.


    His body squeezed and turned to its side as he began to teeter slowly through the enclosed space. It was an unknown darkness that he could feel, that seeped into his imagination. Closing his eyes, opening them, using that crimson visage of his, all of it was useless. It felt as if his limbs had disappeared and all his efforts were useless. He did not know whether he was going further up or further down, or even if he was moving at all. A trickle. The water hit his forehead, it made him jump. Water droplets that came from the closing ceiling above.


    It was packed. So terribly suffocating that Dion found himself exhaling, sucking in his gut and his lungs just to squeeze himself through a band of mineral growth (at least it felt different, more chalky than the usual stone). It went on like that, the sounds of alien animals scratching through the walls of the tunnel, the sound of water dropping like false rain, the minutes of breathlessness as he scrambled for more ground, even if just an inch.


    It was terrible. His foot slipped. His body fell down. How much? He couldn¡¯t tell, too dark. He only felt his face scratching, the earth cutting and scraping along as he went down. And then, land. Solid, he felt crawling on his shoulders. Cockroaches perhaps, (more likely spiders) that scoured the invader. He tried to jump and to flinch, there was no room though. And he grit his teeth and moved forward, he felt web brush against his forehead and tear to long threads. There was web? Then it was dry. And if it was dry, there was hot desert air. He moved his face around. He felt it, the draft of arid heat. He moved again, trying to use those thermometer cheeks of his. Air, dry desert air. It was a little down, a little to the left. He chased after it, forcing his shoulders and breaking stone just to make his way down to the little crack. He tunneled, thinking to himself, All my searches have been for this man. For the chance that there is someone - even if just one person - worth saving. And he¡¯s held hostage, I¡¯ll kill the bastard if I have to.


    He came to a full body stop. His body pushed against the wall and he looked with his throbbing eye through a crack where light showed. And he thought as he licked his lips, I¡¯ll kill the bastard just because I can. Just to remind him of everything he¡¯s done, here and beyond.


    He pointed his gun at the wall and pressed the barrel against the corrugated surface of stone. Blast. A deafening blow, dust that flew everywhere and forced his face to reel. Rocks that embedded in his eyes, in his nose. He wiped his face and blew his nose and felt the stone and dust and critters shake away from him. His suit was completely covered and he did his best to brush it away, stopping at his arms, his arm in particular that glowed in and burned. He undid his sleeve and saw the string, gold, vibrating, turning and coiling. It looked exactly how his innards felt. Squirming.


    He looked up.


    The light at the top of the dome, the ring, was blinding in its intensity. His eyes adjusted slow and all the scenery came to him as a blur. Dion rubbed his face. He looked down to the fields, an ocean of green that rolled and waved with the gusts coming from the North. There were flowers, he could spot them if only barely, the golden flowers that waved at him. They were in patches, patches of gold, joyous light. It made Dion sick. Confused. The desert out there, the golden and green fields within. He slid down the slope of the dome and rolled down on the grass and laid himself out. It was soft and it made him uneasy. He took both pistols out, looked around and turned his head. It froze all of a sudden. His mouth went silent, his Adam¡¯s apple jumped.


    There were crosses behind him. Crosses leading up to a road. A road leading up to that giant Villa. Or village. Or capital. The wooden crosses were laid about like makeshift castle walls, the dried bodies were there too, old and rotting, faced to the red ring of light at top. They extended out like lampposts, like signs, like greetings. Dion began to sweat. His eyes looked past the corpses, towards the roman pillars and the aqueducts they carried and he said, as he watched from a distance a little river of water falling into a pond. He thought, as he looked inside of that algae infected pond, I¡¯ll kill this monster. No matter the cost. For I can''t imagine myself living comfortably otherwise. He must die.


    He touched his hot arm and walked towards the road leading up to a set of arches and wooden doors.

 Chapter 62

    Jeremiah


    They came to the barracks and to where the giant watch towers loomed over them and where the heads of enemies past were posted on spikes, at even intervals along the wooden walls. The walls went high up and on small platforms, the demon¡¯s looked down at the group of prisoners, slaves as they were called. They were eating something, organ meat, offal, perhaps a fruit. It was hard to tell, though the succulent juice came out of their mouths with each loud laugh as they counted the prisoners and watched them set foot inside.


    A chef in the corner of the barrack sat atop a wooden table with a cleaver in one hand and a centipede in the other gave. He slammed down. The head of the bug rolled. It fell. The demon slurped out the meat out from the creature and watched them. Jeremiah could hear someone barfing in front of him. He had to step over the vomit as they went on.


    So they went silently on. Making sure not to even breath louder than they could. Bartholomew tugged on Jeremiah as they went inside a building that looked a bit like a mission church. It had the large rectangular shape of one, with walls made of adobe and straw which felt rough to the touch. The room, the building, was orange and its interiors, dark. The square windows were boarded up and they passed through several doors, torches flickered and shook at their sudden pass. They stopped at a room with littered tables, where the stains of congealed blood and surgical gear and saws were thrown around like furniture pieces. On the walls, torture devices. Sitting around the tables, demons. Or soldiers. Or elites. Whatever they preferred, the slaves could not argue. Some eating, some playing games with strips of paper and small marble sized shiny stones.


    One of the demons lost, it seemed. He shook his head and ripped a golden tooth out of his mouth. Jeremiah turned. He gasped and put his hand over his mouth. A thread of blood followed from the demon¡¯s mouth.


    ¡°You lost another one, Toadvine.¡± One of them said in that circle of evil, it caused a stir of laughter and a pounding of fists against the table tops.


    Jeremiah stared at them and thought amongst the clammer of noise, It¡¯s an exhibition. A zoo for them. And me, the monkey, to dance and to scream.


    ¡°What are you looking at?¡± The Captain of the squad came to the bars of the cell. The bars were closely packed together and the captain¡¯s rotten hands could barely fit around the metal rods.


    ¡°Nothing.¡± Jeremiah said. His eyes fell to the floor, away from the Captain.


    ¡°You have that American spunk. Toadvine was an American. Got scalped by an Indian though. He''s the one who taught me how to speak English and how to break Americans.¡± The Captain said. ¡°Where you from?"


    Jeremiah stayed silent.


    "I asked you where you''re from?" The Captain slammed the bars.


    "Havenbrook, Colorado."


    "Colorado, huh? Never heard of it. Do they breed good warriors there?" He laughed. "Doesn''t matter, I guess. You''re no soldier, no warrior, no anything. Down here you¡¯re inventory, commerce. You¡¯re the piece of fine robe. You¡¯re the fur. You¡¯re the stallion. You¡¯re a slave. Something to be fought over and traded, nothing more.¡±


    ¡°Why? Why do any of this? Where is down here, where are we?¡± Jeremiah walked away.


    ¡°Well, I shouldn''t say but you''ll probably find out eventually. Might as well be now rather than later. I''m assuming you''re a Christian man?"


    "No."


    "Doesn''t matter. Many faiths have a word for where you''re in. You may know it as Purgatory, or Hell. They might be the same for you, I suppose. Best to think of it as a prison." He pointed to the corners of the jail. "A bigger prison than this."


    "Is this all you do? Terrorize people?" Jeremiah could hear the voices of people behind him, telling him, kindly, to shut up. To shush, to speak a kinder tone. He heard the whispers and ignored them.


    "Sure. Down here, with this infinite boredom and infinite existence, we do the only thing we know. We fight. We fuck. We kill.¡±


    ¡°We fight. We fuck. We kill.¡± A voice repeated.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "We fight. We fuck. We kill." The chanting began around the room. The men and women in the cell began to crowd each corner as they stepped away from the loud voices.


    ¡°We fight. We fuck. We kill.¡± They banged on the walls, banged on the tables.


    ¡°We fight. We fuck. We kill.¡± The captain screamed, he brought his fist up. They were a final glorious hooray amongst the demons and then it died. The excitement still filled the air, made them nervous, like a blanket of static had wrapped around the slaves.


    ¡°We¡¯re the eastern army of Astyanax. There are three more for each face of the compass.¡± He said. ¡°And we fight and war with each other endlessly."


    ¡°That¡¯s insane. Fight for what?¡± Jeremiah said.


    ¡°For pleasure. For honor. For slaves, like you. What else is there? Dirt, sand, rock. What would you do with an infinite amount of time and no hope of escape?¡± The captain asked. His mouth came to the small spaces of the bars. It smelled sweet, sickly sweet, like a corpse. ¡°Whatever life you had up there means nothing. Whatever ambitions, whatever pleasures. Get rid of them, instinct rules here. Instinct and strength. There is no society but Astyanax¡¯s and this is New Troy."


    "New Troy. New Troy. New Troy." The animals began to chant again.


    "It is this way and no other way. And it doesn''t matter if you don''t like it, you''ll get used to it. You''ll have an eternities worth of time to get used to it."


    He left the bars and all heat seemed to come out of Jeremiah and Bartholomew who was clinging to his leg. There was silence for a moment before the crowd of twenty-odd folks broke into shrieks and wails.


    ¡°You heard him. We¡¯re in Hell.¡± A man said. Another fainted and the sound of his head hitting the wall made a low thump.


    ¡°This is a dream.¡± A woman kept slapping her face.


    It went like that for hours or what was perceived as hours before they came to accept it. And in accepting it, paced within the jail cell with heads lowered to find an empty space to take up post.


    "We should have never gone to church. We should have stayed at home." A husband blamed his wife.


    "And while we wait he sits above, smug in his throne." Someone blamed God.


    "What the fuck are we going to do?" Sam asked. Faces turned, their eyes set past Sam, past the demons, past the walls. as if they weren¡¯t even looking at anything, really.


    ¡°What can I do?¡± Jeremiah whispered. ¡°Last time I did something, I killed a third of the people here.¡±


    Sam bit his lips. He took off the first few buttons of his shirt and let the sweat break onto his chest.


    ¡°I¡¯m beginning to think it¡¯s better to die.¡± Sam said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t say that. Not in front of the kid.¡±


    ¡°Come on, you''re smarter. You''re the only one here with a bit of sense. Everyone else is a little delusional or too afraid to think. So lets reason this out.¡± Sam wagged his finger. ¡°Do you honestly believe we have a way out?


    ¡°I think we¡¯ll have plenty of time to think of one. I¡¯m sure we will.¡±


    ¡°Against soldiers? I don¡¯t know about this Hell stuff, but you and I both know these people are willing and able to annihilate us. Without any pity or trouble.¡±


    ¡°You think I don¡¯t know that? I saw what they''re capable of. Don¡¯t remind me.¡±


    ¡°What I¡¯m saying is, there''s a good way out. A real way, out.¡± Sam emphasized. He reached into his pocket. He came out with a small dagger no bigger than half a foot. ¡°I pocketed it from one of these goons on our way inside, where the torches were low and dark.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it. You heard him, didn¡¯t you? We¡¯re in Hell. What do you think would happen to us if we died here?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know but anything seems better than this. Even oblivion if that¡¯s what it takes.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re asking me to kill you. To assist you in suicide? I can''t do that."


    ¡°I¡¯m asking you to think of the boy.¡±


    They both looked at Bartholomew. Jeremiah felt his legs go weak, his stomach dropped. It felt like an anchor had stabbed through him.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you ever suggest something that cruel ever again.¡± Jeremiah looked up. His voice was low and steady.


    ¡°An eternity, pal. You think he¡¯ll be able to handle this? An eternity! Look around you, look all this shit, look at how insane they are. Violence, mutilation? That¡¯d be merciful. I¡¯m sure I don¡¯t have to describe what else these monsters could do. Beating and hurting would just be a start. It''s fucked down here.¡± Sam stuffed his knife back into his pants. He looked around and watched the guards faces with shifty eyes. ¡°Wise up. This is a bad deal, you know it, I know it. And sometimes the best thing to do is to just check out. Let someone else carry the debt. You understand me?¡±


    Jeremiah felt his throat dry up as if the well or basin of his patience had finally disappeared, evaporated, shrunk.


    ¡°This boys father depended on me when he needed me most and I left him. I saw his dying face and I left him. You¡¯re asking me to do the same thing again, to stare at the boys, to watch him die, to leave him.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the smartest-¡±


    ¡°Stop.¡± Jeremiah walked forward, the rings under his eyes were gaunt underneath the shadow of the prison bars. ¡°Don¡¯t ever make this suggestion or any suggestion ever again. The next time you get an idea, kill it. Or better yet, slit your fucking throat in the corner of the room and leave us alone. I¡¯ll figure something out without you.¡±


    ¡°You dumb motherfucker.¡± Sam pushed him back. He spat on the floor in between them. ¡°You¡¯re so dense you can¡¯t even see that there is no out. You¡¯re blinded by that pride. That guilt, whatever it is. And you¡¯re gonna make us all suffer for it. Ain¡¯t you? Those people up on that sandy hill got it lucky, I tell ya. We aren¡¯t going to get as lucky and you¡¯re going to make it worse. Well, fuck you, man. Fuck you.¡±


    ¡°Quiet over there.¡± The demon said at the group. Everyone hushed, both Sam and Jeremiah, who found themselves on opposite halves of the prison. Sam, who hissed and complained with shallow breath. Jeremiah, who slunk into calm demure and stared obsessively at the cell door.

 Chapter 63

    Dion


    Dion could not pass or rather, would not, for the wide arches and marble pillars were too imposing. He stood in front of the decayed bowels of the city, the small stone huts, and temples that had crumbled and shambled. Long spiral minarets, Gothic cathedrals, broken down into shanties of rubbles where the insects hid from light. As if someone, someone desperate, had chased after the eras and had failed, fallen to time. No wind blew, but he swore he could hear moaning, like a groan from those decayed homes. Above, dripping. Leaks from the aqueducts that surrounded the city into a circle. The small transports were broken at spots and sprouted waterfalls onto the shattered stone and hay rooftops of the lower level of homes. He breathed in and took a step inside, going up steps until he stopped at another set of arches. These were red and there was a temple further away, a pantheon stood in front. A false god of marble, the head broken and decapitated. He stopped.


    His spine felt a chill and he turned his head high up. There were two giant pillars, impossibly high, he thought. Above the pillars, he saw legs dangling. He was being watched by something, he could not see them clearly though, only knew they were there by the shine their black scaled shoulder armor reflected. He narrowed his eyes to see the fine specimens. Their abdomens, exposed, rotten. The legs, skirted, and the feet, with worn brown sandals. They sat at the tops of the pillars with golden spears. As if they, miniature Zeus¡¯s, sat upon Mt. Olympus, waiting to strike the desecrater.


    Dion drew his guns out and rubbed the handles with his fingers. His heart stood still, his breath quiet. He sucked his lips in and started to flex his legs. One jump, a brief climb, he¡¯d shoot them in the head, he imagined. And then -


    ¡°Stop.¡± A voice said further away. ¡°You¡¯ll make a mess of things. Stop.¡±


    It was a voice past the pillars, taking form at the top of the orange stairs, past small shoots of lavender and primroses growing by the sides of the path. Dion could see the red feet descending, he could see the golden sandals and the knee guards that glistened and the loose cape and toga that flew gently. This figure, this heroic figure, waved at the two above the pillars and they sat down, their javelins stabbed through the stone.


    ¡°They¡¯re very protective.¡± Astyanax said. He came to stand still in front of Dion who still brandished both weapons and who still gripped them tightly. He could feel his fingers twitching at the touch of his trigger.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious? I¡¯m the one who sent the messenger for you.¡±


    Dion lifted a pistol high up to meet the king at the level sight. There was a click, the barrel stared at Astyanax¡¯s pale forehead.


    ¡°So you¡¯re the one that deserves a bullet, huh?¡±


    ¡°For what exactly?¡±


    ¡°For everyone you¡¯ve killed.¡± Dion could feel his blood rise to his head, it made the air seem hotter than it was.


    ¡°What are you accusing me of? Defending my kingdom?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t play dumb, it¡¯s not just them. It¡¯s about the people of Havenbrook. I¡¯m sure the memory is already lost on you, your highness. But I remember. Always will.¡±


    Astyanax extended both hands out, he flaunted his chest forward and Dion felt his barrel being pushed back.


    ¡°Is this modern justice? Oh, how standards have fallen for what is considered impregnable truth.¡± Astyanax looked up, the two guards had re-pointed their bronze at Dion. He put his palm up, again, and assured them. ¡°Did I kill anyone directly? Did I push the trigger? Did I sink the knife? Tell me.¡±


    ¡°No, but you¡¯re the reason people did. Demon.¡±


    ¡°Demon? I¡¯m just a man. Like you.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t compare yourself to me.¡±


    ¡°And don¡¯t confuse your contempt with dishonesty. I am like you and I deserve a say, considering how gracious I¡¯ve been. I can have you killed, after all.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t be a bad way to die, taking you out with me.¡±


    ¡°If you even could, Dion. If you even could.¡± Astyanax walked forward again. Dion stepped back ¡°But now isn¡¯t a good time to fight, not here. Let me state what I offer, I¡¯m sure it¡¯d interest you. I have what you¡¯ve chased after this whole time.¡±


    ¡°And what¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°People. Of course, your people.¡±


    Dion¡¯s gun shook. He looked at the person in front of him. He was smaller, thinner. This man. Dion thought. This man who is pretending to be human, trying to reason like one, after all he¡¯s done. Dion shook his gun. He bit his lower lip. He tightened his face.


    ¡°Let¡¯s talk over dinner.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°Food and wine softens the soul.¡±


    And then he sighed. He set it aside, let his anger escape him from his shallow breaths. He looked at that smug face that etched itself on Astyanax and walked, both, shoulder to shoulder, into the ruined city.


    ¡°Your guns.¡± Astyanax said. Only three rooms into the villa and already, Dion was upset. It was a narrow hall where small half-moon beams of light showed through the half-circles of the window frames. There were purple drapes, vases, dead flowers laying on dry fonts. It looked like a ritual room.


    ¡°I¡¯m not giving you my guns.¡±


    ¡°You expect me to break bread with an armed man?¡±


    Dion looked around, two more armored men were approaching him. He shrugged them for a bit, walked a bit. But he was stopped again, a golden tray lay in front of him. He placed both guns on top of it and watched it get carted off. The wheel spokes creaked.


    He couldn¡¯t help but feel worried. He couldn¡¯t help that strange curiosity either, those wandering eyes, as he went room to room through the sprawling villa and the pictures and statues that seemed to sprawl too, endlessly too. They were on the walls or in the latticed light of rotunda glass ceilings, colorful and giant, pictures of a mother and of a father and of a city in flames.


    ¡°Do you like them?¡± Astyanax said. ¡°I made them all, I stopped some odd five hundred years ago though. Got boring.¡±The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    And perhaps he was honest because as the tour went on, the pictures seemed to get worse and hinted at something dwindling. Sanity, perhaps? That''s what it was, the flag markings of the King''s sanity, like a long mountain climb straight to the cuckoo''s nest. And Dion realized very quickly that this was no exhibit, it was the mausoleum of hope and desire.


    The pictures became more terribly violent, dressed with vibrant red lash strokes. There were pictures drawn of horse-dragged tortured soldiers. Dogs mauling people to pieces. Statues of lonely suicides with the expressions of pain permanent in stone. And then, a simplicity. Detailed photorealism became abstractions, geometry. He stopped at last in front of the dinner door. To the right, one final portrait: A single, simple head rolling on the floor. Fire, brimstone, Hell, everywhere around them. It made him freeze for a moment. He turned to look at Astyanax who stared back. Had he even blinked this whole time? Dion thought. His eyes were yellow. Sis red hands carefully moved over to the handle of the door. He nodded for Dion and they both went in.


    A slave (he suspected she was a slave at least, by the way she wore her collar and the way in which her hair and her eyebrows had been shaved bald) came up to them and offered a small bowl of water to wash their hands in. Astyanax slapped it away, the bronze bowl rolled and crashed on a table leg to which she scrambled for it.


    ¡°Go get my other guest.¡± Astyanax said.


    She stood, bent herself to apologize and ran, dragging her beige-gray rags onto the dusty floor.


    Dion could hear the crackling of kindling wood and above the flames, the long glistening body of a bug. A slug, perhaps. Fat and pale, green spotted along the wide body. It smelled like rancid chicken.


    ¡°I apologize, our cuisine isn''t as developed as you''re used to,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°This is the only reliable source of food to feed on. At least on this island. Mammals are rare, people, even rarer.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve eaten people? I thought you were trying to convince me of your civility.¡± Dion sat on a seat at the end of a long table some feet away from the fire.


    ¡°I don¡¯t, personally. The others don''t think the same, unfortunately. I¡¯ve often caught them, those demon''s as you''d call them, with legs scarfed down their throats. I usually kill them when I catch wind.¡± He removed one of the sticks and placed it in front of Dion. He reached around the table, found a container and poured. What was inside the cup smelled worse than the food. ¡°It¡¯s made from muddled Sucklefruit. You can find vines of it west from here. They grow like long webs below the dirt and sprout every now and then.¡±


    ¡°Why do they call it Sucklefruit?¡±


    ¡°Picking the fruit is difficult, the plant seems to have a mind of its own. Upon a touch, it''s long red flowers latch onto you, like a leech. The name comes from the sound the tendrils make as they drain you, a suckling sound. If you¡¯re careless, it''s easy to get caught in the web of vines. And killed, eventually.¡±


    Dion pushed back the drink. ¡°I¡¯ve lost my appetite.¡±


    ¡°I lost five men to make that small glass of wine.¡± Astyanax pushed the glass back to Dion. ¡°And what a nasty plant it is. Supposedly, the roots run deep, straight down to the first circle of Hell. Though that¡¯s a little far-fetched, even for me.¡±


    Dion took a sip. His lips puckered, it felt like tar going down his throat and stuck to his throat. He coughed a fit, five minutes maybe, of that headache-inducing coughing before he could finally breathe normally.


    ¡°Terrible,¡± Dion said. ¡°Why do you even need to eat? You¡¯re a soul, aren¡¯t you? Just aether and empyrium.¡± He rubbed his fingers on his teeth, they came back purple.


    ¡°And yet I see and hear and smell and taste. The qualia of a physical body. And I starve too.¡± His eyes narrowed. ¡°And starvation here is worse than you can imagine. It¡¯s more than a slow death, it¡¯s like slowly dissolving. You get weaker, lankier, more ephemeral. And then one day, you¡¯re gone, back to the river. You need to eat, have to.¡±


    He took Dion¡¯s plate of slug and chewed firmly down the body. A green liquid splattered on the wood table.


    ¡°Would you have preferred a heart?¡± He asked. ¡°They call your kind the heart-eaters. Is that just hyperbolic or literal?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a Vicar. That¡¯s all you need to know.¡± Dion folded his arms.


    ¡°I heard stories of your kind, your people come down every now and then. You¡¯re great warriors and great wizards, I hear.¡± He chewed loudly, his teeth dragged the long threads of fibrous slug-guts up and down. ¡°I hear even stranger stories. That you have the hearts of principal devils inside of you? Of Lucifer himself?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s half a myth.¡± Dion pushed back his coat and showed a bit of his chest. A scar ran down his sternum. ¡°And half a truth.¡±


    ¡°Funny.¡± Astyanax gulped. ¡°What an interesting faith that must be, to be hated and chained and forced to defend the very force that wants you dead. What a hypocritical existence.¡±


    "I''ve said enough about myself. Out of courtesy." Dion said. ¡°But I didn¡¯t come here to talk politics or philosophy.¡± Dion began.


    ¡°No, you came to talk about people and their fate.¡±


    ¡°I have the right mind to kill you, you know that?¡±


    ¡°Even if you could, it would just guarantee the deaths of all you wish to protect.¡± He finished chewing. ¡°Would you like to hear my proposal?¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Your life for theirs.¡±


    ¡°Is this a joke?¡± Dion scoffed.


    ¡°I don¡¯t make jokes. My word is plain and honest. I¡¯ve grown an attraction to you and your friend.¡± He rose. ¡°I can¡¯t have him but I¡¯ll settle for you. I have more of an appreciation for your talents than that silly church.¡±


    He walked over to Dion and rubbed his shoulders.


    ¡°That artisan quality of war is what matters. Here, in this desolate, lonely place. Only strength matters. As it has been, as it will be. Strength. The difference between those that have and those that have not.¡± He whispered into Dion¡¯s ears. ¡°And I¡¯ve stagnated.¡±


    Dion shook him off, jumped out of the chair and walked away.


    ¡°For years the steady surge of slaves have kept the warriors sated. They treat them like trinkets. And like trinkets, I¡¯ve become bored. There¡¯s nothing to it. The shameless masturbation over trivial desires.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°I want to feel the thrill of war again, I want you to help me.¡±


    ¡°All you want is a cheap thrill? You diseased madman.¡± Dion bumped into a table.


    ¡°Cheap? What¡¯s been cheap?¡± His voice rose. He slammed his hand on the table. The wine spilled, it leaked down into the tile floor. ¡°Three thousand years in this Hell! Cheap? The scheming, the madness, the loneliness. Cheap? For what? My only crime was being an unbaptized infant. That was it! A holy bastard. And they stabbed me, threw me, just a babe, over the walls of Troy. Tell me, was that deserved? Was that cheap?¡±


    ¡°Considering all you¡¯ve done, the trickery, the death-dealings. Yeah, it was appropriate."


    Astyanax laughed, he grabbed his long hair and slicked it back. ¡°Appropriate? Not even in hindsight. Nothing is appropriate. Nothing and no one is deserving of this prison. You can pretend to imagine three thousand years of solitude, but you¡¯ll never understand it. How crushing it is.¡±


    ¡°All your little armies and all your little soldiers can¡¯t keep you company?¡±


    ¡°The weak attract the weak, the strong to the strong. How could you call these vermin company?¡± He walked over, a guard stood in the corner of the room with his hands behind his back. Astyanax punched him, made a notch in his neck in the shape of his knuckles and both of them watched as he fell and choked and held his neck. It made Dion stiff with fear. ¡°He fell. He did not struggle, did not hesitate. Did not even try, he just died. Like that. Slaves put up more a fight than these fools.¡±


    ¡°You spent all your life conquering the people of these lands and now you¡¯re disappointed? What a shame, nothing left to conquer?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re exactly right. I rule this small ant hill, a very slave in the larger scheme of things. There is no freedom but in the base thrills, the pleasures of my nature. I want violence, nothing more. Violence and companionship. I can¡¯t bear the thought again, not another year of this. Not another hour.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re so shamelessly selfish.¡±


    ¡°Selfishness? Is that contrary to your moral aesthetics?¡± He asked. His head was down, his voice was low. ¡°Don¡¯t fool yourself. Everyone is selfish. And greedy. And gluttonous. I¡¯m just trying to find my piece. That¡¯s it.¡±


    ¡°And if I refuse?¡±


    ¡°Then the people die. All twenty-four that remain.¡±


    ¡°Twenty-fo-¡±


    ¡°Twenty-four of the fifty-six that came.¡± Astyanax¡¯s eyes were yellow, large. ¡°And it won''t stop.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll kill you.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°No, you won¡¯t. You can¡¯t. But It¡¯d be fun, wouldn''t it be? If you tried, if you failed, and tried and tried. Endlessly, with me. Just dance and routine.¡± He smiled.


    They eyed each other, firm faced, like two lions in the bone-dry heat, with the low Savannah prickling their feet.


    There was a moment, the height of tension, where they looked just about to pounce. But there was a crack of the wooden door, it sounded like a squeal and from it came the rat. Alestor. Nimble-foot Alestor who walked up and into the kitchen. Astyanax smiled.


    ¡°Maybe you could convince him.¡± He said. Both Hunter and prey unaware of each other, both unreasonably afraid of the other.

 Chapter 64

    Apollo


    Every dream has its monster at the end, and for Apollo, that monster appeared as a burning skull. Screaming, begging. Too hot, too hot, turn me to ash. What an induced terror, one that made him shout in his sleep. The terror of a relieved youth. He saw it, the young thirteen-year-old boy, devoured by a group of huddled creatures. A terrible fear. A familiar fear. It was a tradition at this point, to relieve this dream, under these circumstances. For in dire straits, he had always had this memory come back. The anecdote went like this:


    A large rusty building that echoes the screams from its depths. Three Vicars. Two of whom, youths. One of which, master. Their heavy breaths, their heavy footsteps, racing across the wet and bloody floor of the rusty building. The meat hooks and large tuna fish dangling and bleeding from their cut necks. Scales upon the floor that catch themselves on the heavy stomping of their boots. The smell of sardines, stacked and so weighty upon each other as to collapse unto themselves into paste. Vile. Suddenly, three blurs. Three long black tongues and the yellow teeth that extended from their long mouths. Like anteaters, prodding, searching for the Vicars at the hunt. They find the scent. An attack. A lash out, one of the boys is struck. Nipped. He bleeds. Two of the hunters turned then plead, retreat, retreat. The master jumps upon the catwalk. Her footsteps are calculated, light and airy. The other thinks to do the same but stops. He looks back to the stubborn boy, the boy with the nipped leg and bruised arm. Apollo. His teeth are gritted, his eyes are fierce. Green like emeralds, fresh but in them still yet grows an uninhibited violence. Apollo, young, thirteen has made up his mind to fight. He lunges to the long mouthed demons. Clashes. Bone-teeth against silver-steel. Fish lopped and truncated, blood everywhere. Another clash. Disarmed. He doesn¡¯t understand. He¡¯s alone. Clank. His sword had flown to his side, slipped out of his hands. Alone. Trapped. He screams, louder and louder, he wants to let the whole building know. No one is there though, no one but the greeting of the three creatures and their long mouths like python snaps. He feels the hot breath upon. Feels the mist, the blanket of death then -


    Apollo awoke from his dream. He turned his head, trying desperately it seemed, to remember something that had only come to him seconds ago, that now appeared as a soft blur in his head. He couldn¡¯t remember the images though, couldn¡¯t see or hear or even think about it. But he felt it. He felt in his chest which raced, he felt it in his eyes that swelled and reddened, he felt it on his body and the small dozen ball sized aches that scattered upon him like a constellation of pain.


    ¡°You were screaming in your sleep.¡± A voice said. He turned. His first instincts were to grab the sword that lay feet away from him, somewhere in a pool of muddy water and chalky sand. He reached for it and stopped, collapsed with his chest hitting the floor. He felt five different bones snap, decompress, or rub wrongly. As if the friction of movement was in itself too much work for his body. True enough, even breathing taxed him. The greatest pain, he noticed, was from his legs. He put his hands on his right thigh and started feeling for bumps or bruises or mismatched joints. But the voice was still there and he quickly became anxious, juggling his attention between the soft voice and his hurting right leg. Both afraid of being weak and weak in his fear.


    ¡°You were having a sweet dream, it looked like it.¡± It was the Spotted Hyena. It came from the murk of the cave, where the small holes of light from the collapsed boulder walls did not penetrate. It smelled humid in that direction. ¡°I¡¯m glad you''re alive.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t sound surprised.¡± Apollo relaxed his body and laid back down for a moment.


    ¡°I told you, didn¡¯t I? I expect good things from you. You¡¯re an excellent delivery man, an even greater exterminator. If you put your heart into it, that is.¡±


    ¡°Easy for you to say.¡±


    The Hyena sneered. His sharp snout dug into a puddle. ¡°I never had a doubt.¡±


    He splashed water on Apollo¡¯s face. It forced him up again and made him try to stand, again. His hands sunk into the mud, he slipped. Face first he went. He felt sharp pebbles dig into him, not so much as to cut, but to dirty and scratch and annoy. His black hair dipped into the water and his tips became a muddy bundle. His face was caked brown and yellow. He could taste it in his mouth, where the sand lodged itself in between his teeth. He rubbed his eyes which burned and he tried again to stand.


    This time by rolling to his side and seeing where the damage to his leg was.


    ¡°It didn¡¯t heal right.¡± Apollo rubbed his palm across his foot. He tried breaking it and pushing it back into his socket (his foot that is) but found himself too weak. He looked around and found a wedge between two stones. He dragged himself there, put his foot in between the pile and made sure his leg was still and immovable from that spot.


    ¡°That¡¯s a doozy, how are you going to fix-¡± The Hyena stopped. There was a snap. A break of bone and then a groan. ¡°Oh, or you can just do that.¡±


    Apollo had snapped his own foot. Well, re-aligned it, really. It pointed right this time and he smiled only briefly before he laid back down as the pain resuscitated. It felt like lightning bolts shot up his lower body, like an arrow through his Achilles heel, riding up the highway of his veins, straight through his heart and into his brain. That sharp, constant, flowing pain. His foot swelled. He could feel the pulsing bulge hitting the insides of his shoes. And to answer it? He put his hand on his mouth and laid on the floor. His other arm covered his eyes and in that muffled state he shouted. Mostly cursed.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°I know you¡¯re busy,¡± The Hyena walked over to him. Apollo was biting his hand. ¡°But I think you¡¯ve rested enough.¡±


    Apollo threw mud at it.


    ¡°Fuck you.¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re healthy enough to talk back, you¡¯re healthy enough to stand.¡±


    Apollo struggled to lift his body. It seemed like a deliberate effort just to inch himself up. He inspected himself a final time.


    ¡°I¡¯m not healing right.¡± He felt the plenty cuts on his body, his finger hovered over the spots that burned the most. It was a strange feeling, one he hadn¡¯t remembered for a while.


    ¡°That¡¯s good, now you¡¯re remembering what mortality feels like. What a normal person endures every day. I feel drained, life essence, stamina, arcana. All drained. Like a dried well.¡±


    He looked up, dismissively almost, and breathed heavily. ¡°This isn¡¯t good. I haven¡¯t fed for a while.¡±


    ¡°Food? You need food?¡± The Hyena walked further into the dark cave and came back. It had in its mouth a four-armed creature, its pincer snapping wildly. ¡°Say ¡®Ah¡¯.¡±


    The Hyena snapped the shell of a skittering creature, it was no bigger than half a foot long and wide and he threw it to the floor near Apollo. Roe, and guts exposed. It was a slimy green and blue and Apollo looked at it, confused whether to be thankful or disgusted. It was sobering, at least.


    ¡°I don¡¯t mean like that.¡± He drew back his foot from his rock bracings and rubbed it. He was beginning to get his feeling back. It was the sensation of trapped sand running down his nerves, and filling his foot.


    ¡°It¡¯s a funny, in a way.¡± Apollo said. ¡°I¡¯m a demon hunter who hasn¡¯t eaten a demon in days. And here I am, in Hell, without a meal in sight. But it¡¯s usually never this bad. A Vicar can starve for months without feeling much of anything. But down here, I guess it¡¯s different.¡±


    ¡°Maybe it has to do with how much you¡¯ve hurt yourself.¡±


    ¡°Maybe.¡± Apollo looked to his rear for his sword. It was half its original length, a straight even half. From the first time he had taken it out at that skeleton of a construction site, it had worn itself down. All his troubles, a kind of file, shaving away at the edge of his blade. Now, he was impotent. He picked it up only to hear it break some more. He had no point now. He accepted it, nodded, stepped down harshly with his bad foot and felt the pain rise up his spine. He grunted. Closed his eyes again. Dream or wake, all reality seemed to blend into itself, a maelstrom of confused pain.


    ¡°Your sword looks rough.¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°The explosions do that. But it won¡¯t go out, it¡¯s like small star in there.¡±


    ¡°A star?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s hard to explain, but just imagine the steel to be a kind of incubator, maybe. Or a generator. Something like that.¡± He put the sword back into his jacket. It disappeared. ¡°It¡¯s got some more life in it before I¡¯m really fucked.¡±


    ¡°No offense.¡± The Hyena scratched his ass along the floor. He was laughing. ¡°But you already look fucked.¡±


    Apollo leaned himself against a wall. He coughed.


    ¡°Yeah, I get it.¡± He said. ¡°Make yourself useless, tell me a way out.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re trusting me all of a sudden?¡± The Hyena asked.


    ¡°Well, I figure that if you wanted to eat me, you would have done it already.¡±


    The Hyena stopped dragging himself on the sand. He looked at Apollo curiously, then stuck out his tongue again. ¡°Even if I did. I don¡¯t think you¡¯d taste well. You¡¯re too salty. A bit spicy. And very, very rotten.¡±


    Apollo spat. He heard the ball of phlegm and blood hit water.


    ¡°Enough banter. Shut up and show me the way.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re ready? It¡¯s only going to get worse.¡± The Hyena¡¯s tail wagged. ¡°You don¡¯t seem as convicted about this whole thing yet, too.¡±


    ¡°Well, what the fuck. You were complaining only a moment ago.¡± Apollo said. ¡°I got beaten up. I got blown up. And here I am, wide awake for the annoying drill sergeant. This isn¡¯t enough conviction, for ya?¡±


    ¡°Any man can suffer if he¡¯s forced to. It takes another kind of man to see the light at the end and to hope for it and to run for it. It seems to me that you¡¯re not that kind of man.¡±


    ¡°To be honest, no.¡± Apollo rotated his neck. He felt it crack. ¡°I felt like an idiot coming in and I still feel like an idiot. The only way out is through Astyanax. Kill him, drain his blood, leave. It¡¯s a simple a goal anyone can have. I know that¡¯s what I need to do, but I just can¡¯t imagine myself actually doing it. I guess you can say I have no hope. But I¡¯ve always been like that.


    ¡°I¡¯m a practical man. And what makes a practical man is his ability to reason, under any circumstances. Because reason and logic are there for you long after hope dies out. So I figure, I either spend the rest of my existence here in this dark place or I go out. Maybe I pick someone up along the way, maybe not. Maybe I die buried in sand, maybe not. Taking any chance is better than having no chance.¡±


    ¡°You? You¡¯re taking a chance? That¡¯s strange. Very strange. I thought you were the kind of man who would enjoy eating crabs in a dark cave for all of eternity.¡± The Hyena walked up with that cold and bemused veneer. ¡°Isn¡¯t that what you said? That you did not enjoy being disturbed. That you never wanted to help anyone, because you never wanted the burden of their expectations. And by extension, to have nothing mean anything to you. Didn¡¯t you want that kind of ghostly existence?¡±


    ¡°How do you-¡± He eyed the Hyena. ¡°What? I said that a while ago¡­ How would you?¡±


    ¡°Back in Havenbrook in your shabby shack on the third floor, with the clogged shower drain and noisy neighbors. With your small computer and your small snacks and your small time detective work.¡±


    Apollo hid his surprise. He closed his eyes, took a breath and made his face stiff and dull.


    ¡°I won¡¯t even ask anymore, Creature. Guide. Demon.¡± He steadied his shaking arms. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t even give me an answer if I tried. No. I won¡¯t bother, just tell me how to get out and where to go, that¡¯s all I want from you.¡±


    The Hyena picked up his tongue. He stared a bit at Apollo before turning, pointing to a small patch of darkness, indiscernible from the rest. There were a few bugs roaming around, giving off auras of green light like small neon orbs. Some of them settled on stalagmites and some of them floated aimlessly like cheery drunk patrons.


    ¡°Call me what you will.¡± The Hyena started to walk. His form absorbed into the shadow of the end of the cave. ¡°Guide or Creature or Angel. Call me any of those, but do not call me demon.¡±


    His voice echoed as he went further. Apollo waited a bit, looking around his shoulders. He gasped, held his breath, and let go. He followed the Hyena, limping and dragging until he himself became indistinguishable from that wide stretch of darkness.

 Chapter 65

    Dion


    They circled the dinner table round and round the feast of fruit and meat, round the thin dim light of the candle, and among the crackling wood, grew a hostility in Dion. He looked to the door and to the stranger and although not knowing who he was, felt his gut shift up and down.


    Perhaps it was the way Alestor stood that made him off-putting to Dion. How his shoulders hung and rags pulled like a fresh poach or how his eyes blinked, small and beady like rats of mice. Maybe it was the pudgy feet and hands, the long hair and the unshaven face. He did not know why he felt the growing contempt, only watched.


    ¡°Who is he?¡± Dion asked. Astyanax walked towards Alestor and wrapped his arms around him.


    ¡°He¡¯s a friend and more importantly, a normal person,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°One of those people you¡¯ve sworn to protect, right?¡±


    It should have been easy. He was just a man, after all. But he couldn¡¯t compel himself to agree. Dion eyed Alestor. His face seemed bitter, not defeated or victorious, just bitter. His face was old and wrinkled and his body was worn.


    ¡°Again. I¡¯m here to be humiliated, again.¡± Alestor said. He didn¡¯t look at anyone in particular. He stood lopsided and dull and stupid.


    ¡°No, you¡¯re here to appease, like a whore. Though of a different kind of seduction.¡± Astyanax looked back to Dion. ¡°You know this man. You¡¯ve known each other for a while now, behind closed doors. You¡¯ve heard of each other, smelled of each other, but never, ever, have you seen each other. Until today.¡±


    Dion¡¯s hands clenched into fists. He was expecting something. He could feel it coming like flood waters and him a lone tree at the center, torn and stretched and ripped out from the roots.


    ¡°Who. Is. He?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Go on. Tell him your name.¡± Astyanax moved his hands up Alestor¡¯s forearms almost in comfort, before he stopped on his shoulder and his neck. He rubbed them. Alestor showed no signs of resistance.


    ¡°Why should I?¡± Alestor asked.


    ¡°You¡¯re being defiant again?¡± Astyanax tapped his fingers along Alestor¡¯s nape like a spider crawl. ¡°Don¡¯t defy me. There are worse things than death that I can show you if you compel me enough. So it¡¯s in your best interest to listen to me. Tell him your name.¡±


    Alestor rubbed one of his elbows. He looked around the room towards a servant holding a jar of oil in one corner, then to two soldiers standing by the door, spears in hands. They breathed heavily. And at last his face went towards Dion, who stood furthest from him, behind the colorful table. He was neither interested nor confused by the man and simply assumed he was either another victim or another of God¡¯s abortion. Alestor tightened his face and said briefly, with an annoyed tone almost, ¡°My name is Alestor.¡±


    It was enough to make the room silent.


    Dion felt his hand hurt. It felt like every blood vessel in his body back up all of a sudden, halted and started production on his adrenaline filled body all at once. He felt the blood, like small marbles of anger-laden blood, were forcing their way through his veins, into his head where he felt them break and scatter amongst themselves. It felt like they were crashing and scattering, those marbles of his, in his brain. He felt pain and an intense blood rush and a light-headedness all at once. The first dimmed for a moment, in fear almost and their tongues receded back to the ashy wood.


    ¡°He¡¯s not saying anything,¡± Alestor said. ¡°You¡¯ve brought me here to meet a mime. Why do you waste my time like this?¡±


    He shook his head and turned to go out the door. Astyanax stopped him.


    ¡°That¡¯s the second time you¡¯ve acted without my say so. I¡¯ll admit, you have courage. But watch. Stay quiet and watch.¡± Astyanax held him by the arm in that iron grip. It looked like his hand would turn blue. Alestor turned again, back to stare at Dion. There was a moment in that silence. He didn¡¯t feel much but looked around to see the expressions on everyone''s faces. Some of them were smug, others afraid, Astyanax¡¯s was only curious, with one raised eyebrow and his yellow eyes thinned to slits.


    And the room became quieter and quieter. And Alestor aroused now, awoken from the lull, waited. They saw Dion shake, they saw his leg tap into sporadic beats. They saw the fire rise and the stoker collapse and the burning logs roll out into livid white pools of ash. Dion brought his face up again. It was horrifically featureless. Neither strained nor joyous nor sad. His eyes were red, no different than the fire and they looked at Alestor. And Alestor knew at the moment, as he stared back at those eyes, who and what he was facing. In that brief moment, he broke away from Astyanax. He looked for the door and thought, the bloodhounds have tasted me. They have searched me far and wide to see what they could have that Astyanax has not taken.


    He put his hand on the door and smacked it. Nothing but the loud banging. A guard grabbed him, put both hands behind his back and threw him to the floor where his face collapsed onto the tile. There was a knee on his neck.


    Dion tensed his legs. He leaned forward. He flipped the table and thought to fly forward him, to leap and to rip Alestor¡¯s head off. All wine and manners of food spilled across the floor like a wrecked voyager, its passengers thrown, bludgeoned and bruised. Dion pounced towards Alestor and he too felt the guards hands around him. Not without any effort on his own part to retaliate though. He squirmed and threw his head out and punched and saw the guards fall into a bloody-nosed mess. Astyanax whistled. The doors flew open. Two more men came out. These ones didn¡¯t have noses, they had puss-filled wounds and gaps replacing features on their faces. They fell too, thrown against the walls and scattered. Armor clanking and helmets rolling like silver pots.


    Astyanax began to laugh. He clapped now. Five more men came in. That was the number he needed. And it was there, finally, after three of them laid on the floor with spinning heads, that Dion was finally restrained. One pair of bleeding hands wrapped around his chest and neck, a bruised knee was against his back. He was forced to the floor and forced to face Alestor. Both of them in that wine-stained floor, where the food squirmed and flew out underneath their wrestling bodies.


    ¡°He¡¯ll kill me,¡± Alestor screamed. ¡°You knew it. You knew he would kill me, you-¡±


    He bit his tongue when he saw Astyanax stare back at him.


    ¡°I¡¯ll do worse than kill you.¡± Dion could barely hold his breath. His respirations were loud, quick-successive, sharp. ¡°I¡¯ll show you my Hell!I¡¯ll bury you alive, shallow enough so you may hear yourself suffocate, deep enough so you¡¯ll know you¡¯ll have no chance to escape. You¡¯ll suffer alright. You¡¯ll suffer!¡±


    ¡°Oh, my,¡± Astyanax scratched his head. ¡°Is vengeance part of Catholicism? Sodom and Gomorrah must have inspired you a bit too much.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll kill him, I¡¯ll show him wrath.¡± Dion tried to inch himself forward with his chin.


    ¡°You take those books too seriously, Christian. Why don¡¯t you relax?¡±


    ¡°Relax? Relax!¡± Dion closed his eyes. He grunted and began, with shaking knees, to stand himself against the force of the two men behind him. Then he was silenced.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Astyanax punched him. He felt his chin hit the floor again and break the stone, his lower jaw leaving an imprint the shape of his mouth.


    ¡°I¡¯ve brought him here to make a deal. You¡¯d do best to listen. And the deal is, your life for his. Your life, for everyone else¡¯s. The innocent go free, the guilty-¡±


    ¡°Alestor.¡± Dion repeated with bleeding teeth.


    ¡°Yes, the guilty, I will up to you, as a gift if and only if you accept my terms of submission.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re selling me out?¡± Alestor screamed. ¡°You promised me a home here.¡±


    ¡°And as your master, I have all the power in me to revoke that.¡±


    ¡°Demon,¡± Alestor screamed at the floor. His teeth scraped and made a long, scratching noise. ¡°Everything a lie. My wife, my unborn. My son.¡±


    Alestor thought it over in that loud room, with the two screaming men and the laughing demon. He thought, It¡¯s been years and my eyes have been dried. It¡¯s been years since I cried. He felt his dry channels grow just as Astyanax¡¯s roaring laugh grew, just as his dagger-shaped teeth widened into that grim smile. Alestor cried. Two tears turned to two streams, his face contorted in between anger and regret. All a lie. All of it. Maybe he knew it, somewhere in his soul. His son definitely did, and he killed him for it.


    ¡°I¡¯ll kill you, you son of a bitch.¡± Dion slammed his face into the floor and Alestor could only repeat it in his mind, the words, I killed him for it. I killed my baby boy for this.


    Alestor sank. He couldn¡¯t lift his head. His muscles seemed lax. He stayed, face down on the floor, mumbling and crying. From the turned table, the wine spilled, flowing from its bottle down to the floor and into a pool. A dark, red pool, tart and deep, that swallowed his body, head to chest.


    ¡°Is this all you wanted? To bring everyone down to your level. To see me rip him apart? To see me sold?¡± Dion jerked his head back. It hit someone. He felt a punch back.


    ¡°Get off me!¡±


    ¡°Is it really my fault?¡± Astyanax put his palm up. The demon with the bloody hole for a nose stopped his assault. ¡°Is it my fault I found something worth keeping, worth stealing and lying for?¡±


    ¡°Be quiet, demon.¡±


    ¡°No. I¡¯m no demon, only a man.¡± Astyanax brought his chin up. ¡°A man with strange desires. If you could call any desire, strange.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t act like you¡¯re blameless.¡±


    ¡°Oh, but I am. For who was it that put those desires in me? I was certainly never asked. Is anyone really, ever, asked? No. And you of all people should understand what strange desires fuel men. After what I saw from you, in that small hole in the earth. The sewer, was it? Or that half-built sanctuary, a construction site was it?¡± Astyanax rubbed Dion¡¯s smooth chin. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s where I first came upon you. In those thrilling hours, with the inklings of joyous violence in you. Behind that mask of yours, I knew it, I could see it, the giant smile you wore. Didn¡¯t you?


    Dion stayed quiet. He sucked his lips in and tightened his skin.


    ¡°How could you call me demon, how could you accuse me of any strange desires. You, you who lives in the shadow of your own vile nature. You, angry and toxic human, you. How could you accuse me of anything? Thankless, cur. I¡¯m offering you your people back. I¡¯m also offering you homestead, a warriors homestead. For where else can you exist? Certainly not back there, with the plain people and the plain laws and the plain morals. You¡¯ll never fit in. You know that, better than anyone else.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not normal,¡± Dion repeated. ¡°Not normal. Not normal.¡±


    ¡°And what is that? What would you consider the normal nature of man? Tell me. Tell me.¡±


    ¡°Man is¡­¡± He closed his eyes to think, to deny. ¡°Man is. Well. Man is¡­He¡¯s good. He can do good. He should be good.¡± Dion shook, he was still in the twilight of his anger though. Still pulsing, still raging deep inside.


    ¡°He can reflect and grow.¡± He tried to think. All thought, all vision, seem contaminated with a superimposed screen of red.


    ¡°Acts of charity are as obscene as acts of violence, both are done out of an inherent and arrogant moral superiority one person assumes over another. What else do you have?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t get it,¡± Dion said. ¡°It¡¯s about love. A person is here to love and to spread love. That¡¯s what it means to be good.¡±


    ¡°There plenty of things one can love, truly, that would be considered sick obsessions to other people. What¡¯s the difference between the two, between a disease in the mind and love? Is it in the harm it causes to the self or the other? Any innocent love can do that. Is it in the causal origin of the love? Well then, take it up with God then. For that is God-given. Every miracle, God-given. Every tragedy, God-given.¡±


    Astyanax walked back to Alestor who was still moping.


    ¡°Look. See. Observe this fine specimen, Dion.¡± Astyanax grabbed Alestor by the hair and raised his face. ¡°He follows your aesthetics to a T. He thought what he was doing was good. He thought he was helping others, himself. You should have seen the men and women he employed, the sick and lonely he comforted in his little club. All of it, out of a love. And what great love it must have been! Killing your own son, that¡¯s something even Abraham couldn¡¯t muster.


    ¡°You killed your son?¡± Dion asked. His voice sounded broken. Alestor couldn¡¯t say much, only mumbled incoherences.


    ¡°Yes, yes he did. And what immense strength of will that must have taken. Can I blame him then, for being stronger than the weak? Can anyone blame him? No. He took, and took, and took. And the weak either joined him or feared him, neither did anything to stop him. It took another strong will, your will, to end him. Can I call anything you did, necessarily evil or good? No. None of it was sin. It was just war. Just war¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s wrong. It was all wrong.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re saying that as the victor. I ask again though, who cares? What¡¯s wrong with any of your actions or any of Alestor¡¯s? Nothing, really. Nothing really matters at all.¡±


    ¡°Just wait until I break out of this.¡± Dion tried to stretch his arms out again. The death grip tightened on them even more.


    ¡°Still throwing yourself around again? Good. That¡¯s what I like about you. That¡¯s what I love.


    ¡°How can you say he didn¡¯t sin?¡± Dion screamed. The memory came back, the wildfire. ¡°He killed children. Shamelessly killed them!¡±


    ¡°Oh? A child? Who decides why one life should mean more than other? Why any life should mean anything?¡±


    ¡°I do. You hear me? I do.¡± He tried again. His knees locked and then he felt a fist come down the back of his head. It felt like it would dislodge his eyes and his vision scattered for a bit.


    ¡°Well aren¡¯t you a passionate tyrant. Well, okay. What was this child¡¯s name? The child that meant so much to you, seemingly.¡±


    They all stood quietly. Alestor head fell back down as Astyanax let go. Dion¡¯s lips fumbled and he looked around, hoping for some reason, to see Apollo. There was nothing, no one to even jump-start his memory. That foggy, blurred memory of his. His head spun and he closed his eyes to concentrate, to see hopefully, a snippet materialize in the darkness of his mentalscape. What was it on the news article? The television headline? The Internet article? What was her name?


    ¡°So¡­¡± He started. Then stretched his neck out, almost desperate to answer. ¡°Her name was Sophie!¡±


    ¡°And who was she? What did she do? What was she like?¡±


    Dion could not answer. He felt cold. He felt the wine and sweat dripping from him. It soaked deep. It made him heavy, like lead. He just stayed there, crouched and hurt and spinning, confused.


    ¡°What a lively answer. I¡¯m sure she must have meant a lot to you, then!¡± Astyanax broke into laughter. It haunted the room with its echo. ¡°She must have been important, right? Or was she just an excuse to validate your violence?¡±


    He walked around, towards the door and stood Alestor on the way there.


    ¡°I asked you what the nature of a man was and honestly, I find your answers lacking. Disappointing.¡± He left his mouth open and grinning. ¡°Would you like to hear my answer? I¡¯m a bit of an anthropologist, you see. Three thousand years of voyeuristic solitude does that for you.¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Dion put his face down. ¡°No, shut up.¡±


    Astyanax picked up his jaw.


    ¡°There are only two desires about a man that really matter. Only two. First, he fears death and does everything he can to avoid it. Second, he fears boredom. Which is another kind of death, the death of the soul. That¡¯s it. There is nothing else to a man. Just those two. Read history, watch it, for it proves me right. That regardless of breed or color or place or time, all man seeks to do is resolve himself from boredom and death. Science, art, spiritual growth. All of it, frivolity. A dress up game for what is really just war. War of the mind, war of the heart, war of the soul. Children know this. That girl, Sophie, must have known this too. That games and war are the only noble things a man can do.


    ¡°Demon,¡± Dion repeated in defeat and denial. ¡°Demon, demon.¡±


    ¡°Demon, man. You and I, all the same. A few minutes ago you were bent on decapitating this fellow.¡± He drew Alestor closer to him. ¡°You act like your moral code mattered so much, but you can¡¯t even argue the points. You¡¯re a hypocrite. A compassionate, courageous, violent, hypocrite and I love it. I love you.¡±


    The door opened again. Astyanax pushed Alestor through it. More people stepped through, and the door closed down to a sliver of light that began to cut down in between Dion¡¯s body. From it, a warped voice.


    ¡°Think it over, Dion. It¡¯d be no fun to just put a chain and collar around you. Why break a toy so early, right? So think it over. One soul for the many. That¡¯s a very Jesus-thing to do so it should be right up your alley. Aha.¡±


    They were gone and Dion was left almost comatose and lifeless. All the noise he made was simple and cold, the rhythmic breathing and rhythmic rocking of his head, like a storm had just passed through him.


    Eventually, he balled up. Alone, with the fire of the lags receding, he curled. Neither prisoner nor free agent, just hostage of a kind of guilt and fear.

 Chapter 66

    Apollo


    The Hyena mounted his back as he came up, past the hill where the rocks slid into small avalanches. He was out of the cave, back into the desert. To his rear were cacti and the pools of thick syrup, that they spilled out. There were small shells inside the droppings of the plant, oyster-like things that yawned at Apollo aa he came up. Eating the small things was a furry four-legged animal. Curled tail, pronounced mouth that dug into the earth like a spade. The Hyena leaped off of Apollos back and swatted it away. Then followed its flying body and paralyzed it with a neck bite. Apollo puffed his cheeks and blew slowly. He dried sweat from his face with his sleeve and sat on his ass on the hot dirt.


    He was out. Finally. He looked back down to the small hole he had come from, it made him feel like a mole. A ferret, perhaps. It was a hole coming out of a bulging corroded boulder, half embedded into the floor. He turned around again and atop the hill he could see it all. A forest of Joshua trees and the spiny vultures perching themselves atop dead stumps.


    ¡°How far are we from those barracks you were talking about?¡± Apollo asked. The Hyena was finishing his meal. Coughing, and spitting out small bones from in between his teeth.


    ¡°I¡¯d say a couple miles off. You¡¯d have to go past the trees.¡±


    ¡°And then? Any landmarks to help me navigate?¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t need them. I''ll lead you. Trust me.¡±


    ¡°Trust you, huh.¡± Apollo blew out. His hair pushed aside by the exhausted air.


    It was hard to tell how long he sat, it felt like a long while, though the sky did not change. Nor were there clouds to pass, some wind, that was it. He could no longer hear the coast or feel the cool wind and behind him was the horizon, wavy and broken through the series of undulating grooves. He stood himself, the Hyena¡¯s ears rose curiously. The tail wagged and they both went forward.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t walk that casually if I were you.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°Relaxed men are dead men here.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll see. Be wary. Keep your head low.¡±


    Apollo did just that. His whole body maintained behind stone or dirt or tree. He did not know what he was looking out for, though felt the warning like a strong reverberation in his bones. He was shaking. And somewhere along, when he cupped his hands by the side of a cactus and the water it spilled (or what looked like water), he felt the small pool vibrate. The sand disturbed and flowing in long threads from within the water surface. He looked up. The Hyena was aloof, biting his own tail. Grooming.


    Apollo dragged his feet up to a corner, in between a small plateau and a Joshua tree with its long hands covering most of his body. His eyes peered out, past the little spines of green. He couldn¡¯t see anything, just glistening from below like the stars had fallen. He rubbed his eyes. He swore those stars were moving, traveling and leaving little lines of white light from where they walked in synchronized tempo.


    He felt the earth tremble. The rocks skid downhill, the vultures with their bony wings traveled high. Four-eyed birds they were, all staring at a rough road ahead.


    They were looking, all of them, at the moving bodies. Clunky, shiny bodies like stars.


    Then he saw the banners. The giant red rectangle flags with the wolf head silhouette. He saw chariots driven by amputated creatures, not steeds though definitely burdened beasts, some of them walked lame and slowly, others with their missing lower halves crawled on their front hooves. Broken bodies forced to travel like a mistrung mannequin.


    The wheels spurred along. They made streaks in the soft sand and drove rote next to the warriors.


    Bastard Trojans, bastard Greeks, bastard Romans, with armor fashioned from trash and stone and bronze. Some properly armed, others more makeshift. Some with metal, some with bone. Few with tags. Most completely nude with nothing but leather straps to contain them and their members.


    ¡°Impressive. Isn¡¯t it?¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°Nudists and cosplayers, but can they fight?¡± He did not laugh.


    ¡°They¡¯re disciplined. I¡¯m sure you could best them individually though.¡±


    There were smaller mammals with them, predator types with long snouts who vacuumed the dirt in search of smell. Something of a cross between a hound and an anteater. Something both ridiculous and frightening.


    ¡°Salpin. They''re called salpines, after the instrument.¡± The Hyena said.


    Apollo looked elsewhere. To the geared men with the odd leather. Odd in how faded color and amber the color was. Strange tanning, Apollo thought. What animal was that made out of? If it was made out of an animal, that is. He scratched his great head held his breath. His heart went still.


    Human, he thought.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°It¡¯d be stupid to go down there.¡± Apollo came down from his spot. ¡°I can see my death already. All the numbers, all the people they¡¯d throw at me untilone of them would get lucky. Through carelessness, though tiredness. I¡¯d be stabbed full of holes. Killed, if I¡¯m lucky.¡±


    ¡°Oh, it can¡¯t be that hard.¡± The Hyena smirked. ¡°How many do you count? I¡¯m sure you can wipe out a platoon or two.¡±


    ¡°Logistics don¡¯t matter. If I can¡¯t kill all of them, there¡¯s no point in even trying. I just need to get past them.¡±


    ¡°There are search parties all across. We¡¯re entering their territory, after all. How do you expect to dodge them for however long we need?¡±


    Apollo looked on again. His hand was above his eyes, shading him from the light. The fields were too wide, the Joshua trees too short in between. But there, to the left from where he stood, he saw a small cliff ridge. There was a long oak there too, growing by its side. He hissed, he clenched his teeth and looked back.


    ¡°Can you do me a favor? I have a plan.¡±


    And the Hyena¡¯s ears pointed up.


    There were rows of five men, with four men to a line. A square then, of twenty, that walked together and in between one platoon from another, a sizeable gap of twenty meters. It was a long chain and every other block hosted the strange hounds or the chariots. It was a sequence that went on for hours and that coughed up dirt and that filled the air with the noise of thunderous footsteps and a loud, blaring horn. An instrument hollowed from a double pointed tusk. A tusk of an alien creature.


    And by chance they chose a random block. And they stalked it.


    The two hid behind a small mound of dirt and watched it with scheming eyes. They looked at every person on that particular platoon, watched who lagged and who didn¡¯t and when they were comfortable with their choice on the menu, Apollo moved. He went left.


    The Hyena stared forward. There was a soldier with his gladius dangling uncomfortably low, who hesitated each couple of steps to fix the strappings of his weapon. And on one check, he had been too slow. The Hyena had ran low to the group, had camouflage its beige skin with the beige dirt and had swooped up to rip the weapon from this particulars hip. He ran with it. And all around his platoon, this unlucky soldier heard the hollering and the lip-smacking smear of insults.


    ¡°Must have confused it for a bone.¡± One said. He had an eye patch.


    ¡°Limp hands, limp dick.¡± More banter.


    ¡°What? Legs broke? Go catch it!¡± Another one with two puss-filled holes for ears said. He pushed the unlucky soldier forward. And this soldier, angry at the school of laughter behind him, stuck his sharp tongue in the gap between his front teeth. He played with his gums and chewed on his inner walls and slapped his helmet firmly in place.


    ¡°Bested by a bitch!¡± Another imbecile cried.


    At last, he sprinted. Through the even dirt, pushing himself against trees, wrapping around trinks. Running, kicking dirt into the air. And at every corner, the Hyena outwitted him, forced him to trip on brushes. Switched sharply, stained his ankles.


    It made the unlucky soldier angrier. And enraged, he threw his shield. The Hyena jumped forward, fell to the cliff and ducked the shield. It looked like a saucer as it flew, and crashed like one too.


    The soldier came to the cliff side and sighed. He looked the far distance his shield had traveled, not necessarily a steep fall but a long way ahead. He shook his head. He wiped the drool from his lips and with his stupid, bitter face, looked down.


    His mouth collapsed inward.


    The soldier''s teeth scattered. For a blade had been stabbed in his neck and out through his mouth. Apollo, whose feet gripped at the cliff wall and whose eyes stared up as the blood fell on his face. The demon twitched. He tried gripping the blood. And at last, through the shock of the blow, through the constant bleeding, he stood still and lifeless. Apollo could finally breathe safely. He undid his knife and heard the desperate attempts to scream the demon had tried, it sounded like gurgling where the gape in his neck was.


    After a while, the demon fell like timbre, down the cliff and past Apollo who followed the corpse below.


    Apollo lifted the corpses head so the blood could spray outward. He tried too at least, but the helmet slipped from his hand and the face planted itself into the floor. The blood would seep through the cracks into the floor, into the cavernous sewage of the desert below. He looked at the helmet, see how it fit and wearing it, began to strip the corpses armor. The bandages he wore on his legs, the skirt, the chest plate, the sandals. Every piece and every accessory until he too was rattling with bones and bronze.


    Anything he could not keep he put inside his coat and let disappear through his insignia, that pocket dimension of his. Everything else he wore armor over. He fitted himself, strapped it tightly to his body and started to adjust himself to the claustrophobic gear. Not flexible, not good.


    From behind he heard cutting. Then the spreading of muscle and flesh like surgery. He looked behind him, the Hyena was holding the demon''s heart. It had some crystal like growths on it like a mineral tumor. It was brightly colored, delectable even (he was afraid to call it delectable though his mouth salivated). But it was human. Very human, still beating too.


    ¡°No, that¡¯s not for me.¡± Apollo put his palm up.


    ¡°You need this, don¡¯t you? You¡¯re getting weaker.¡±


    ¡°I do need it but not from him. Not from a human.¡±


    ¡°What human being do you see?¡± The Hyena slapped his tail against the lifeless face of the soldier. ¡°All I see is degenerate trash.¡±


    ¡°So what? It was a human being once, long ago maybe, but once.¡±


    ¡°Oh, is this not the categorical example of a demon? Is it not in your textbook, in your code? Find me a difference between what you see and what you would call a demon so I may tell you how arbitrary it really is.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not fucking arbitrary if it makes me feel awful. Alright?¡± Apollo knocked on his helmet. ¡°It may seem odd to you but it makes me feel sick, the thought of eating that. It¡¯s like cannibalism.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not human yourself.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m human enough.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Rational Apollo? Thoughtful Apollo? This is your fence line?¡± The Hyena smirked. ¡°How do you expect to survive through this with your trivial inhibitions? This is war. Eat it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d rather eat shit.¡± He did not give the Hyena a chance to appease. He did not want to stare at the heart any longer either. Between his wobbling feet and his gelatin arms, he was being tempted and it was making him feel weak.


    ¡°We¡¯re moving out,¡± Apollo said, dismissively.


    He couldn¡¯t turn his back.


    ¡°Hmph. Fine.¡± The Hyena swallowed the heart whole. ¡°Where are we going then? Back to the group?¡±


    ¡°No. They¡¯ll find out where the body is eventually and I have no interest in hiding it.¡± Apollo walked. ¡°We¡¯ll go far enough, try to fool as many scouts as we can and hopefully we can make it to barracks before he does.¡± He pointed to the corpse. The blood was staining the naked body.


    ¡°Hopefully they won¡¯t find the murdered too soon.¡± Apollo tied his sandals.


    ¡°Calling it murder, now? They¡¯re already dead.¡±


    He did not answer. He fixed a balaclava on his mouth and rubbed sand out of his eyes as he pushed his body through the fleeting waves of sand.

 Chapter 67

    Horace


    Old man Horace stood in front of the satin fabric mesh. Behind it, a door. Behind that, a moaning phantom. As the only butler, the only housekeeper, it was his duty to know every in and out of the building. And these two guests made him nervous.


    His head peaked inside the room. Sizeable, a room fit for a family of lions, with the cushioned bed and the yellow soft carpets like feeding grounds. On the walls were the pictures and paintings of stories and myths, most of whom revolved around the central pale figure, Astyanax. Stories of victory, of great hunts across the Hellish plane. Horace knew most of them were wrong though. A water font stood in one corner, it''s placid pool hosting moss and small tad pool creatures. Nothing else stirred but the man in the cage.


    A rattling prison placed almost center of the room, bars ten feet high and thicker than the hands that wrapped around them. As if it was some kind of nautical cage descending into the den of sharks.


    Alestor was inside, crying. Alestor who poked his face in the interstices of the bars with his wiry face. A bucket of filth sat on its side in the corner of the cage, is filth spilled out. Past the dirty musk, an angry glare rested on the bed. Dion. Dion who sat at the edge of the purple blanketed bed with his feet hovering off the ground. Horace looked at the two, his eyes skidding across, slipping between the two who seemed just about to break. It made Horace nervous. He pulled his body back and lowered himself from his toes, the ornate door closed shut and the moaning hid behind the ornate flower covered door.


    ¡°Why is he taunting them? What trouble does he seek today?¡± Horace asked a guard to his rear. ¡°Where is he, the young master?¡±


    The guard pointed through a window across from them, to a place opposite from them on the other side of the villa. A bulbous tower with a pointed tip. Horace shook his head.


    ¡°Is he with anyone?¡± Horace asked.


    ¡°One of the guards. Or a slave. I couldn¡¯t tell, they were naked. Fair bodied, too.¡±


    ¡°Oh, no,¡± Horace held tight his black cloak. ¡°He¡¯s frustrated.¡±


    He pushed his walking stick forward and let it lead him through the villa with a consistent hobbling and a long, dreary tapping as he went through the skeleton of the villa. It was his duty to pull his old body through, to drag it about like a mop in every lifeless and empty creak and cavern of this wretched fortress. For he was a helper (the only), an adviser (the only) and a friend (the only) all at once. He was a butler. Not a servant. Always particular about that part, always making sure the guards and the slaves understood his place about them. No, Horace was no servant. He was the Old man and Astyanax the young master and that¡¯s how it had been since he had stepped foot on this land the few millenniums ago.


    A hammer dropped from the side of an anvil, Horace put it in its dusty place as he went through the armory. Inside the gardens, he scared away the piling ravens that feasted on his roses. And finally, he came upon the dilapidated conference room, what remained of it at least. There were standing torches, a map of the land that was torn halfway and cushions surrounding a rectangular table. Horace wiped dirt off the steps as he went up and past the room.


    By the time he had come to the tower, looking up to the spiral staircase and the barred windows, he felt tired. He leaned himself against the wall as he climbed. He could hear something, grunting perhaps, a strained closed-mouth, lip-bitten grunt. The kind of strain only war and sex could do. He came to the top of the stairs, knocked on it, then opened. His eyes surveyed the long room. The first thing he saw were moths. Or butterflies, pinned to sheets of bark and laid out on display cases. Some of them were still writhing.


    The next specimen he saw was a set of bones from the many-legged, many-headed bizarre creatures of this island. He saw the four-headed serpentines stare back at him, biting and rolling around inside a glass container. They snapped at Horace. Their breaths stained the glass with steam. He remembered to avoid them, they¡¯d paralyze you with one bite, melt your flesh with the second, kill you with the third and eat you with the fourth. As tiny as they were. He walked past the snakes (Hydralisks as they were called, Astyanax had nicknamed them such as more of a mockery than a categorical tool. The small-bodied Hydralisks of the East).


    The snacks rattled, bit, hissed. But none were louder than the grunting.


    There was a veil separating the mausoleum and the bedroom. It was a room truly built for Astyanax¡¯s pleasure, a pet pen as he called it. And he had many pleasures here with his many pets and toys. All of them, of all species. And there, furthest from the glass cases was the biggest display of all. A bed, with Astyanax in it and another man below him, enduring his thrusts. Horace walked up, not too closely, he had lost a finger the last (and only time) he had done that. The man below Astyanax had his head in the pillows and his ass pointed up for Astyanax¡¯s member. And Astyanax turned. All of him released from the tight clench, he turned to face Horace.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s you,¡± Astyanax returned his attention to the man. ¡°What do you want?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m wondering why you stuck those two together.¡± He breathed deep. ¡°That¡¯s reckless.¡±


    ¡°Persuasion. Let him see what he wants every day and I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll come around to take it.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°He¡¯ll be convinced, hatred suffocates reason. With reason gone, temptation takes it place and from there. Well. It¡¯ll be easy. Negotiation is just the art of temptation, after all.¡±


    ¡°And guile,¡± Horace said.


    ¡°And guile.¡± Astyanax pressed forward. A very steady and fast rhythm.


    ¡°If it was as simple as that, you wouldn¡¯t be this nervous.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Astyanax stopped mid-thrust. He lifted himself of the soft olive skinned back of the man below. He paused to think and focused on a blemish of flesh in the man¡¯s lower back. Then he smiled. Then he went back to thrusting.


    ¡°You know what I mean.¡± Horace stepped forward. ¡°Three thousand years is long enough to know your habits. And you always do this. These...deviant things when you¡¯re nervous. What has you feeling raw?¡±


    Astyanax did not bother turning. Sweat fell from his hair.


    ¡°It might be that I won¡¯t be able to uphold my end of the deal. Well, if Dion accepts.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I mean to say the West has them.¡±


    There was silence.


    ¡°Oh,¡± Horace said.


    ¡°Yes. The West, an unruly bunch aren¡¯t they? The untamed West, called themselves such even as I crushed their last mutiny.¡±


    ¡°Years ago you did and years is long enough for contempt to breed.¡± Horace scratched his head. ¡°When¡¯s the last time you had contact with them.¡±


    ¡°Months maybe. Years, probably.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°I killed every single one of them and they still act up. I¡¯ve assigned them my most trusted captains and still, I worry. Who knows what drives those demons mad? The desert, methinks. It¡¯s scrambled their brains.¡±


    ¡°Forget the slaves or the boy, campaign and have those cretins killed.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re not cretins yet. I¡¯ll send a messenger to see if the captains and commanders can settle the army down. They still have a chance.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± Horace looked down. ¡°But doesn¡¯t that mean you¡¯re giving them a chance to kill the trespassers? The slaves?¡±


    Silence. Then the sound of slapping wet flesh.


    ¡°Maybe,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°Maybe I lose my bargaining chip, maybe I don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Do you think the West will listen?¡±


    ¡°Yes, no. I¡¯m beginning to think it won¡¯t matter. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll let Dion go any which way.¡±


    ¡°You gave him your word.¡±


    ¡°But will he keep his?¡± Astyanax licked the sweat from his mouth. ¡°I figure if he kills Alestor then I have every right to do whatever I want to him. Hah. What would you call that, a safety net?¡±


    ¡°And do you think he¡¯ll listen easily, follow your rule easily?¡±


    ¡°If he doesn¡¯t then we¡¯ll fight. Won¡¯t that just be great?¡± There was spasm. A shaking of his legs as Astyanax came and removed himself from the man.


    ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m worried about. The fight.¡± Horace said. ¡°I¡¯ve never lied, I will never lie. And I can¡¯t hold my tongue when I say that boy is a threat.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t fear the second death.¡±


    ¡°You should. There is no coming back from oblivion or whatever which God has prepared for you.¡±


    ¡°Three thousand years, Horace. Three thousand years of solitude and you still cling to this worthless life?¡± Astyanax put on his robe. There was a sheen to his skin. ¡°I¡¯ve a found a thrill and you¡¯ve found a fear. We should be thankful that our old hearts still beat with the life pulse. What is there besides that? Why exist for the sake of existing? That seems worse than death to me, to live without passions.¡±


    ¡°And passions bring fears. And fear, suffering.¡±


    ¡°What false reason is that? I¡¯m already suffering.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve said this before.¡± Horace walked closer. ¡°But redemption is still your reach. Please, give up your vanity of vanities. That senseless warrior spirit of yours. You stand to gain nothing, yet you gamble everything.¡±


    ¡°Gain nothing?¡± Astyanax bent over and let the air escape him with long-winded scoffs. ¡°There is nothing worth gaining but the taking of one man''s life by your own. Every other pleasure is second to that.¡±


    ¡°This is enough, don¡¯t you think? I¡¯ve seen you through many years. And this, this I must say is enough.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve foreseen it already, dear Horace. My victory. It¡¯s already being sung by the muses.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know that. Not with absolute certainty.¡± Horace walked over to Astyanax who towered over him, soft and fair.


    Oh, Horace.¡± He put his arm down on the small old man¡¯s shoulder. ¡°But I do know. It came to me in a dream. A vision through God.¡±


    ¡°A dream? You put your faith in a mad dream?¡±


    ¡°Everyone does. And I dreamt of death. I¡¯ve seen it, last night. A red glowing heart removed and raised to my face and a wide mouth that mauls it whole. Yes, I¡¯ve seen it. Both of us, putting our lives on the scale, so evenly matched at each side that only the featherweight of tenacity can decide winner from which. Loser from winner, dead from alive. Oh, yes, I live and put my faith in that featherweight and that dream. And what a glorious day it will be when the angels of heaven shine down at me, their cluster of wings surrounding me.¡±


    ¡°Madness.¡± Horace tugged at his legs. ¡°Please, stop this madness.¡±


    ¡°Three thousand years I¡¯ve heard this from you and now, you didn¡¯t change my mind the first time and you won¡¯t change it now.¡±


    And Horace stood quietly for he had nothing to say to that blinding confidence. Astyanax looked down at the old man, his smile dropped as he knelt down to Horace. He rested both hands on his shoulders, then rubbed the old wrinkles of his forehead.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯ve stuck around to see my passions through. I hope you¡¯ll continue too.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°You¡¯re the only one I give that privilege of choice too. Remember that.¡±


    Astyanax kissed his cheeks and it eased Horace. He was still soft, somewhere inside, he thought. Astyanax left the room.


    ¡°Passions¡­¡± Horace repeated as he looked back to the bed. He rubbed his eyes, they were wet. ¡°Passions kills.¡±


    The man still laid there, the color of his skin receding to a pale white. He laid with this butt up and high, his body cold and lifeless, for his throat had been slit long ago.

 Chapter 68 - Episode 6

    Jeremiah


    ¡°I want her.¡±


    ¡°No. She belongs to me.¡±


    Two caricatures of men slapped and tripped and pushed each around and through every table in the room. The instruments, the devices of torture, all broken and scattered about, scratching and dragging across the floor as the two found themselves wrestling. Each eager to gain on the other, each attacking and scratching relentlessly. Of the six standing above in the room, five cheered and one settled into a grimace as he watched his underlings fight.


    One of them had found his balance. He pressed. His ponytail spinning wildly as he punched down on the face of his victim on the floor below.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough.¡± The Captain said behind his tight helmet.


    The underling did not listen. Instead, he found a small hammer sitting by his side.


    ¡°That¡¯s enough!¡± The Captain said again. He tried to move forward but felt two hands grappling his chest. They pushed him away. He fell, just as the hammer fell. Having come down on one of the skulls of the demons. Four blows is all it took to stop the lesser warrior from breathing. Two blows is all it took to crush his skull. There was cheering, a delight in the viscera that flew in all directions and the growing pool of blood underneath their sandals and heels and boots.


    ¡°Half-face.¡± One of the demons said. ¡°Half-face killed him.¡±


    He was smiling, running outside and spreading the gossip amongst the others.


    ¡°Always half-face.¡± Another said. Almost all smirked, save for the Captain who had to look down at his dead underling. He stared at the open wound, then to the heavy rising of white smoke that came from the corpse of the newly dead. A dreadful, gaping mouth that he swore he saw within the mist.


    What was the conflict about? A dib. A dib for one of the women in the cage. To do what with? Best not say.


    It was already too much for the voyeurs who stared from their large cage. They backed away from the walls. They were shaking, most of them. Others were already in emotional stasis, doing nothing much but breathing.


    And from the crowd, Jeremiah stared. He was forward, one hand gripping a bar and the other above Bartholomew¡¯s eyes. His had was cupped, blinding him from the murder.


    ¡°This is insane.¡± Someone in the crowd said. ¡°They don¡¯t value anything.¡±


    His attention switched back to the Captain who walked up to the murderer, his poise a little ruined, his pride a little muddied. He was pointing his finger at the murderer. Jeremiah saw this. Saw how the rest of the group spat on the floor and passed shifty eyes, too. Wry smiles formed at the edges of their lips.


    ¡°You don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ignore this, do you?¡± The Captain said. ¡°You¡¯ll be reprimanded. I¡¯ll be telling Astyanax myself.¡± There were small chuckles across all the soldiers in the lot. They had returned back to their clique, sneering. The Captain, annoyed, kept wagging his index finger.


    ¡°One of you, carry the body.¡± No one did so. He looked around, nothing but cold stares. His face flustered, color came back to its sickly pale complexion and he went to the cage to pick from the group. Two young men, a young woman and Ishmael.


    ¡°You four. Carry them, don¡¯t think of running either.¡± They didn¡¯t. They complied and when they returned some hours later, they were bloodied across their chest. A bit restless too, rubbing the dark rings around their eyes.


    And those primal five? The deviants, the defiant gang? They played marbles with small gems and cracked jokes.


    That was the first day Jeremiah noticed the disobedience.


    The second discord would come tomorrow and it took the shape of a messenger, a crow with a letter tied to its small pitchfork feet who landed by an open window in the dungeon. There was still a mess, though most of it dried.


    The crow rested itself above a torture device, a stretcher where four ropes dangled innocently. The crow began to peck at the braided rope, picking apart the threads before it was gripped. The message removed and the bird thrown out the window where the violent wind carried its shout. One of the guards looked at the message, he sat on a table and tried reading with beady eyes. He could not transcribe the scratchings. Jeremiah barely could too. The writing was sloppy, italic and bold. It was a foreign tongue or maybe a collection of foreign tongues, just a mess of letters and scribblings. The ink was rubbed and left streaks and it frustrated the demon who looked dumb-faced with squinting eyes.


    ¡°What are you looking at?¡± He shouted at Jeremiah. Jeremiah lowered his face. The guard kicked his chair out and went out the building.


    He walked through the door frame (the only door frame in this room) took the steps left and right and up and down and opening a door outside, rang a bronze bell. They couldn¡¯t tell what it looked like, what the bell hung on or if even was a bell. But them, just as the Captain, heard the sound. It was obnoxious, constant and left a dissonant lingering tone.


    The Captain came immediately, shouting, ¡°What is it? What do you want?¡±. Thinking, how have I failed today?


    He read it, the reading sounded like mumblings from their distance. But they knew he had read, knew because of that creeping silence that came about them as if part of the atmosphere itself. One of many ingredients, the others being dread, and violence, and fear.


    The prisoners felt their postures straighten out.


    There was a gasp. A screaming. A punching of adobe and wood. More demons gathered (their steps were loud, even from outside), the prisoners could hear their clanking of metal like a warmachine. There must have been a dozen, all there to listen to the contents of the letter.


    There was a voice. A loud, nasal one.


    ¡°Oh? He¡¯s finally decided to pay attention to us. Our precious king¡­¡±


    ¡°It must be hard to leave that little bowl of his.¡± Of course, they spoke about the dome walls of New Troy. It was not, by any definition, small.


    ¡°Oh, piss off. Who summons us? Astyanax? King of New Troy?¡± Another scoffed. ¡°Hermit of Old Troy. The desperate infant.


    The Captain took the note. His feet were swift. His gladius scratched the walls of the lot with his uncomposed stride. He walked immediately to the cage, his teeth clenched. His rotten, diseased face looking at them, his mellowed yellow eyes scanning left to right.


    ¡°He wants you all.¡± The Captain said. ¡°I don¡¯t know what for, but he wants you even though we went through the trouble.¡±


    No one spoke. No one knew a thing. Who wanted us? The king, king of what? This land, if you could call it land. Jeremiah thought.


    ¡°They won¡¯t like this. I promised them some slaves, but he demands all of you.¡± The Captain shook his head. ¡°They won¡¯t like this one bit.¡±


    He was wobbling, crushing the bars of metal in front of the prisoners.


    Half-face hung by the door frame.Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°Won¡¯t like what?¡± Half-face said.


    The Captain turned to him. His eye was twitching.


    ¡°We are to bring all slaves, all troops to our king, Astyanax. No exceptions, no compromises.¡±


    Half-face pushed himself off the wall. He walked up to the Captain.


    ¡°I was promised some of the women. I won them yesterday.¡± He said in a low growl.


    ¡°You won nothing and you get nothing. Deals between scum aren¡¯t worth anything.¡± The Captain¡¯s voice was shaken, his loose grip on the chain of command slipping away. ¡°All of them are going to the king, not a man or woman will be spared.¡±


    Half-face loomed forward. Jeremiah did so as well from his cell. His arms hung from their cage, his shoulders rested against the bars. They¡¯re apes, he thought. Violent apes.


    ¡°Half-face won her!¡± Half-face said. ¡°And I take what I win.¡±


    A group was beginning to gather on the door frame. They were hollering, lecherous, hungry hollers.


    They said (shouted): He won her. He won her fair and square. Take her, take them all. I want the small one. The boy? Yes. Give me that man, yes with the brown hair. Let me have a taste for that leathery hag in the back.


    It went on all and they formed a pressured dam wall against the door as half a dozen more began to swarm. The Captain took out his whip, he attacked the floor in front of them, he marked that line of which none moved past. He marked it with five lashings and his tired screaming.


    ¡°You¡¯ll do as I say. Or you¡¯ll die wishing you had!¡± He slapped Half-face away. ¡°Now go ready the carts! We¡¯ll leave tomorrow.¡±


    And not a single one crossed that line. Not yet. They smiled, chuckled, stone-faced the Captain. But they obliged him and after a while, stubbornly, they left.


    The captain had his hand steady on his blade. His legs, ready to strike and his stance did not change until he heard the final group of footsteps leave the wooden floors of the building, out into the rocky lands beyond.


    There was no one but the prisoners and the uneasy Captain now.


    ¡°I was under the impression that you were in command? Were. ¡± Jeremiah said. "Though...now you seem a little yellow now. do I have that right, Captain? Everyone inside looked at him, prayed for him to stop. Bartholomew tugged at his pants, he could feel his clothes stretching from the grip.


    ¡°You shut your mouth or I¡¯ll rip your tongue out.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think your king would like that.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think he¡¯d mind.¡±


    ¡°Can you say that with absolute certainty?¡±


    Silence from the Captain. A despondent glare. One he would reserve for tomorrow as he left the building.


    ¡°You trying to get us killed?¡± Sam asked.


    ¡°What do you care? Weren¡¯t you thinking of slitting your wrists a couple days ago?¡± Jeremiah asked. Ishmael sucked in his lips and released a dry gasp.


    ¡°They said they¡¯re taking us somewhere else. So I¡¯m going to give it a try.¡± Ishmael walked up to Jeremiah. ¡°Why don¡¯t you cool down and think for a second?¡±


    ¡°And you think wherever we¡¯re heading is any better than this dump?¡± Jeremiah asked. ¡°Any safer? Any more promising?¡±


    ¡°I think we won¡¯t know until we get there, kid. I know running away is all you got in your brain, hardwired like DNA, but the rest of us are going to be as compliant as we can be.¡±


    ¡°From suicide to obedience. And you say I¡¯m the one who runs away? You¡¯ve got no spine.¡± Jeremiah put his back against the bars, he slid down them and fell on his butt and looked at the crowd against him. The child too, who hung by an elderly woman.


    ¡°Go ahead and do something stupid then, don¡¯t expect me to help. Or any of us for that matter.¡± Ishmael said.


    So it went for the rest of the day. The few who moaned, the few who sat, most of them who slept. They couldn¡¯t tell what was night or day, not from the small beams of light that penetrated through window and brick cut, not from their onsetting exhaustion. They only knew it was time to rest when the demons came to snuff out the flames of the torches. Like cattle, herded and forced into routine.


    Jeremiah closed his eyes for a moment. An image flashed, that of Heinz and he opened them again. He saw the boy, he saw his obligation too. Or curse, whatever it was that made him sad and desperate as he stared into the innocent face. And he tried again to sleep. And he woke up again to that haunting image.


    He didn¡¯t try for the rest of the day and it showed when the demons came back. His tiredness, in his wide eyes, red and glossy and reflecting with a low hue the fire of the torch inside the hands of the demons. The bars opened with a cry. They were lead out, forced into a line. A rope was tied to all of them, like those mountaineer chains, all of them held accountable to one another around the waist.


    They walked up the stairs. Jeremiah felt a tug on his body. An elderly woman behind him had slipped. He tried to help but saw a green hand travel past him. The old woman was slapped, pushed up and hit against the left breast with the pommel of his sword. It was a surprise (or miracle) she didn¡¯t break into two. Though she coughed and wheezed most of the trail up through the building. Jeremiah grit his teeth, almost felt an urge to attack but saw the other four demons winding around them. He didn¡¯t move, not yet. He held his anger like a small explosive in his body, ticking, idling.


    They came out of the madhouse. The adobe lots around them were dirty, the wood even worse, covered in a cake of soot that wrapped around the grounds of the barracks. There were spearmen atop towers, shields upon the wooden spiked walls. Jeremiah eyed a head sitting atop of a stake. He cringed and was pushed back into walking. They made it to one of the gates where the Captain took the lead, his red plumed helmet flowing wildly like horse mane. He had, on one hand, a sword. And in the other, a whip.


    ¡°We¡¯re leaving. It¡¯ll be a long walk so make sure no one gets left behind.¡± The Captain broke the floor with his whip. ¡°And. Don¡¯t. Run.¡±


    ¡°Not as long as the sword I¡¯ll stab through your heart, prick. Just you wait.¡± Jeremiah said underneath his breath. The demon turned. He heard it, Jeremiah thought. He heard it and it made his blood coagulate and his body stiffen. A bite by a snake, a paralyzing thing. The demon walked up next to him. He looked at Jeremiah. His face dull, serious.


    Until he smiled.


    Chuckled even. And walked away.


    Jeremiah felt beads travel down his forehead. He thought, what does that mean?


    ¡°We¡¯ll head out from the west end. We¡¯ll go around the valley geysers, it¡¯ll take a while before we hit the dome. A few days, perhaps.¡± The Captain said to one of the demons.


    ¡°We should just cut through the area.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t know the lands well enough. We¡¯ll die.¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± It was Half-face speaking. The puss out of his missing nose was leaking down to his lips. Was he mad? Jeremiah thought. It was hard to tell faces when they were missing most of it.


    ¡°We¡¯ll do as I say. Because I¡¯m Captain and you¡¯re not.¡± The Captain pushed Half-face away with a finger on the chest.


    Half-face released a grunt. A small, distinct grunt. A bit humorous, a bit taunting almost. And worse than the grunt? Half-face, who retreated back in file and line. An uncharacterized obedience. \


    Jeremiah¡¯s eyes widened.


    It was bizarre to see. The platoon of demons behind him, the platoon in front of them. The few that hugged the line of slaves. Some of them stiff, others relaxed. Some of them sweating, others calm and enjoying the breezes. Some joking, others silent. Jeremiah looked ahead of the line, four places away was Ishmael. He looked behind. Three away was the kid, Bartholomew. Bartholomew who dragged a bit. Bartholomew whose shoulders were being rubbed by a monster. He felt a hot flash on his face and almost went back to say something. He shook his head though. He went forward instead, towards Ishmael, pushing everyone in the way aside.


    ¡°Do you still have the knife?¡± Jeremiah whispered. Ishmael did not turn his head.


    ¡°I¡¯m talking to you, do you still have the knife?¡± He butt his forehead against Ishmael who turned butt his own head against Jeremiah.


    ¡°Fuck off.¡± He said. Jeremiah would have said something back, but he felt a hand against him.


    ¡°Get back.¡± A soldier said.


    Stubborn he went, still hot in the head. The rope of people wobbled like a bridge caught in a storm. The rope burned Jeremiah¡¯s waistline. He wiggled, turned himself and noticed the Joshua trees and cacti around him. They were overgrown and seemed to span endlessly. A giant wall of needles of green. A wall that cast a shadow over them.


    He eyed the forest of cactus again. White. A beady eye, he swore it upon God (whatever He was worth) and upon his time in the force and upon Heinz, he swore he saw an eye amongst the green, round-planked cactus walls.


    His neck went cold. His scattered. In front. Adjacent. Behind. Past the pedophile and past Bartholomew, to the platoon of soldiers who now riled. He saw one, then two, then a second pair, beginning to unsheathe. Others gripped their shields. More, gripped their spears.


    ¡°Are we lost, Captain?¡± Half-face said. His leather and metal armor rattled, a particular sound amongst the heavy footsteps and the solemn wind. He was rattling, excited.


    ¡°Of course not. Get back into position.¡± The Captain said.


    ¡°Position? Where would that be?¡± Half-face said.


    ¡°Behind him.¡± He gripped his whip. ¡°Or under me. Your choice.¡±


    ¡°My choice you say?¡± Half-face felt his sword handle. The Captain noticed. He gripped his own too, but said nothing, almost hoping him to strike.


    ¡°Death in obedience, obedience in death. What choice is that?¡± He smiled. ¡°I choose neither, and leave you with nothing!¡±


    His eyes went wide as he cocked his hand back. The Captain jumped away, sword in hand. Half-face lunged. His face slobbering fluids from his respiratory holes and his mouth. They clashed sword, brought dust-up upon them and it all began. That slow, process. The adrenaline rush, the chaos. Jeremiah turned around and he felt he could see it all in slow motion, the twitches, the charges, the screams. He ran towards Bartholomew. He felt wind, he felt metal, cutting his cheeks. He pushed everyone down on the floor until he got to Bartholomew. They both fell, closing their eyes and coughing from the dust and the cries of steeds falling and running past them.


    When Jeremiah looked up, he found the pedophile, the demon, looking down at him. He saw his hand reaching for Jeremiah¡¯s throat, those long nailed, necrosis infested hands. Then he felt blood. Hot blood falling down his face, for the demon above him was the first to get a spear through his mouth.


    The body collapsed. Jeremiah wrestled with his bonded hands and from the corner of his eyes, saw a stampede of soldiers hoping to die.

 Chapter 69

    Apollo


    Hours after the battle


    The legionnaire came around the Joshua tree, sword in hand and a burning question in his throat. He sized up the phony with his hostile glance, toe to head. His grip tightened and he asked: Who are you? Where do you come from? Where do you go?


    Apollo decapitated him in seconds.


    He died immediately but had it in him still to twitch on the floor, shaking dirt and dust up into the air. His hands clenched to his throat and his head rolling to his side, near his feet. Apollo shook with one hand and gripped his quivering blade with the other. When he was calm, he lowered it and strapped the silver steel to his hip. The leather belt was tight around his waist.


    ¡°It¡¯s a good thing your sword is short now.¡± The Hyena appeared from the shadow of a tree. He rubbed his head against the bark. ¡°Makes it easier to hide, doesn¡¯t it?¡±


    Apollo dismissed the words. He moved his hands to shield his eyes from the burning hole in the sky and looked out into the horizon.


    ¡°How far is it?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Turn to your right.¡±


    Apollo did. He saw the smoke rising that way, the black rings that made the air undulate and shake with heat. A rising cloud of smog covering the implosion of the locale.


    He looked around himself, checked his armor, checked the small cape that hung by his shoulders and spat on his hand braces. He was rubbing dirt and blood off them as he walked towards the wreckage. The corpse lay behind him, the Hyena having urinated on the body and walked. Both of them chasing destruction, having already laid waste behind them.


    That was the fifth demon Apollo had killed in his time down here. It would not be the last.


    When they arrived at the doors (or what should have been doors) Apollo hugged the walls carefully and peaked through the corner of his eyes. He noticed the quietness. There was no sound around them past the crackling and popping of wood and adobe. No cries for help. No moans, nothing but the distinct sound of a dying city, pops and wheezes and collapsing wood. He pushed the doors of the barracks aside, they nearly collapsed at his fingers. The pointed-tip wood walls were splitting into logs in front of him, separating, rolling down like some kind of medieval trap. He jumped over two. Nearly burned his feet on the second. He heard the roof of a building next to him fall, he jerked away. Behind him, skewered heads and scalps now burned to crisp like giblets at the campfire. He wanted to shout, but couldn¡¯t. His mouth was covered by his hands, the fumes were seeping through his fingers and down his lungs. He just nodded his head in sadness, in disgust. There was no time for anything else.


    He came to the other end and suspected this was the source of the flame, an archers tower laying on the floor as ash. It had no more fuel to give, it laid smoking with the charred remains of soldiers buried beneath the ash, their armor still a hot red, their leather burned and either ash or glue upon the floor. Next to the tower was the opposite door of the barracks. He went through it. He heard the wooden arc behind him collapse. There were bodies on this road that stretched on, into a field of cactus, into a trail of even more smoke.


    He heard breathing. Apollo jumped back, his hand on his sword handle. A demon lay on the floor, his nose (or rather, hole) dripping blood. The Hyena pointed with his snout. He was pawing at the armor of the soldier.


    Apollo walked over, still cautious. He knelt, picked up his ponytail and raised the demon¡¯s head.


    ¡°Are there any survivors?¡± Apollo asked. The demon inched his face towards Apollo. He spat. It hit Apollo across the forehead, the mucus and bloody substance that was sticky at the touch.


    Apollo slammed the demon¡¯s head down on the pavement. He did this twice until all that remained of the foul green face was red and dirt-brown. He brought the face up to him again.


    ¡°I¡¯m not in the mood for your shit. My body is killing me and I¡¯m out of time, you understand?¡± He said. ¡°I¡¯ve got a deal. Not a good one, but a deal. And I''m very fickle, I''ll have you know. You tell me where this road is heading. You tell me what this caravan was doing. You tell me it, now. Or never, and enjoy the nothingness of death.¡±


    ¡°Why should I trust you not to kill me, smooth-skin?¡± It was Half-face, his voice reduced to rasps.


    Apollo slammed his face on the floor. ¡°There¡¯s my evidence.¡± He bashed his head on the floor again, teeth flew out. ¡°Who are you, a monster to judge me, a man?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m...I¡¯m not a man?¡± Half-face whistled through the gaps in his teeth. ¡°What do you think I am?¡±


    His rotten face peeled. The Hyena sniffed the air.


    ¡°A couple seconds away from worm meal. Answers, now.¡±If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Apollo raised his blade. Half-face reached his hand underneath his belly. A slight move.


    ¡°You¡¯re weak. You think weak. You will not be my killer.¡± He was breathing through a broken mouth. It sounded like a long winding wheeze.


    ¡°You¡¯re talking but you¡¯re not saying the right things.¡±


    ¡°Oh?¡± Half-face found his grip on his sword. ¡°Let me show you want I know. All of it, boy.¡±


    Light reflected from Half-face¡¯s blade. It struck Apollo in the face. Half-face rose, his eyes with that glare, yellow and strained. His face wet with spit and mucus and blood and puss and mud, the makeup of warriors. Apollo opened his eyes again. He was staring at the point of the blade. Getting closer, closer, closer. Coming up. High, to his head. Straight through, yes, to his brain and he imagined it then, as he moved quickly to bring down his sword. He imagined the sword through his lobes, down to his stem, severing it all. And he thought, maybe I can kill him with me. Maybe my momentum will carry out the kill.


    But Half-face never made it to his mark. He was gripped.


    The Hyena had bit down on his neck and immobilized him. A growl. A crunch. The Hyena mauled through bone and flesh spilled everything every which way. The shattered spine looked like small white seeds below Apollo¡¯s feet. The small nerves like curled and split hairs inside the gelatin of marrow from the now open spine.


    ¡°Fuck,¡± Apollo screamed. The birds scattered. The Hyena came up, jumping and prancing atop the body. He delivered five more clamps, almost enjoying it.


    ¡°Get this shit off me.¡± Apollo was wiping his face.


    He looked down at the body, then to the Hyena and looked around to the other corpses, almost collapsed. His hands were on the blade handle and his upper torso was low.


    ¡°Almost died again.¡± Apollo breathed heavily.


    ¡°But you didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Well isn¡¯t that obvious!¡± He screamed at the Hyena. His eyes flaring crimson. They stared at each other, standoffish before Apollo looked down. ¡°Sorry. And thanks.¡±


    He took off his balaclava from his face, took his helmet too and wiped everything off. Then seeing the bone and blood on his cloth, dropped it to the floor.


    ¡°Look at this mess.¡± He poked the body on the floor. ¡°What happened here?¡±


    ¡°How would I know? It could have been anything. It could have been nothing. Maybe it was an idea, maybe it was for fun. What do you think?¡±


    ¡°I think everything is fucked, is what I think.¡± He threw his helmet on the floor, he rubbed his eyes, they still felt blurry. ¡°I feel like the world is collapsing and here I am, standing on a little piece of dirt as it all falls down around me.¡±


    ¡°Well, it is Hell after all. There¡¯s only one way.¡± The Hyena almost laughed at the claim. ¡°What did you expect?¡±


    ¡°What did I expect?¡± Apollo said. ¡°If I expected anything I wouldn¡¯t have come down here.¡±


    ¡°But you did.¡±


    ¡°Great idea that was. They should give me a fucking Nobel.¡± He kicked his helmet away from him. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to be an ambassador.¡±


    ¡°If we all knew what trouble would come to us at every moment, who would find the courage to do anything?¡± The Hyena. ¡°I reckon they¡¯d be too afraid to get out of the cover of the bed.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re damn right they would be.¡± Apollo snickered, a little high pitched too, the noise you¡¯d find in an Asylum perhaps. ¡°Especially if they knew they¡¯d be in another plane of existence, in a fucking desert, with a bunch of walking Roman corpses chucking spears at them.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right. And then no one would do anything in the face of danger. And if people did nothing. If they held their breath upon every terror that came their way, nothing would change.¡± The Hyena sneered. ¡°That¡¯d be pretty boring, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    ¡°I hope for boring. I would kill for boring. Boring is a godsend in this godless place.¡±


    ¡°Well, there¡¯s the price for making a decision. They¡¯re not always all good. But at least they¡¯re yours.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, mine.¡± Apollo took his sword out of the dirt. ¡°These great decisions of mine.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s free will for. Surprise, suffering, freedom.¡±


    ¡°Fuck surprise. Fuck suffering. Fuck freedom.¡±


    The Hyena¡¯s tail straightened. His face became unusually stern, his snout tight. He walked to Apollo.


    ¡°Freedom is everything. Take it away and you¡¯re left with machine men with machine hearts who pump that cold oil through their mechanical bodies. Who live only to exist.¡± He looked up to Apollo. ¡°Don¡¯t be mad now, that for the first time in your life you¡¯re beginning to feel what it means to be a free man.¡±


    ¡°Free? When have I ever been free?¡±


    ¡°You were a slave before.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°To your church, to your philosophy.¡± He paused. ¡°To your teacher and your friend.¡±


    Apollo winced.


    ¡°And now, for the first time in a long time you¡¯ve made your own decision. And you want to take it back all of a sudden? Because it hurts a little? Because it¡¯s a little awful?¡± The Hyena kicked dirt to the corpse of Half-face.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t just awful. It¡¯s insane.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a test, nothing more. A test to see how easy you break and how easy you fix. And if it¡¯s too much for you, go ahead and take that little cup in your back pocket and get out.¡± He said. ¡°Because if you can¡¯t move forward, you were never meant to.¡±


    The air blew across and pushed smoke away. Apollo saw the road ahead, the many bodies still waiting. Some of them, with their chests still breathing low and steady. He put his blade to his side, sighed and walked ahead.


    ¡°You¡¯re such an asshole, you know that.¡±


    ¡°From you? That¡¯s a compliment.¡±


    Apollo shook his head, rubbed his scalp with his free hand and walked through the mounds of bodies. He picked out a helmet from the dead, a nice shiny one if there was ever one. It was lean, oval and came down on his nose bridge snug. It blocked the light from the top and made it easier to see the empty expressions of the corpses past him. Most of them, demons. Some, some few, humans. He spent a lot of time killing them, for all had nothing left of them but a painful death. It was mercy.


    He sucked in his breath. His face showing a renewed resilience.


    He came upon a demon with his body hunched over, two spears through his chest. He was fatigued, still breathing and screaming. And he faced a direction, a trail of footsteps that wandered into the cactus and Joshua tree forest to his rear. He looked back to the pinned figure, the demon spitting and coughing at him. Below the legionnaire, some unidentifiable flesh. He was eating - No, cannibalizing, mindlessly and baking in the sun. Apollo had nothing to say. A thank you, for the road, perhaps? No. A farewell. And a welcome, a message maybe, for Astyanax or any other legionnaire.


    Apollo picked up a gladius sword to his rear. He raised it high and brought it low.


    The spears pinning the demon to the floor vibrated. They made a desperate rattle and shook for minutes. Then, stillness.


    ¡°I thought you¡¯d let them suffer?¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be proper.¡± Apollo jumped up to the steep hill. He grabbed a cactus and felt a prickle. He looked at his hand, to the small dribble, like a red pearl. The wound did not close, but he did not stop. The trail was hot, fresh and he knew there was someone, or something, at its end.

 Chapter 70

    Dion


    The bars hurt Dion¡¯s hands when he punched them. Indented them. Made them cry and shake in the silence of the room.


    It had finally been enough for Dion. Having to come into the room, having to see the bitter and anxious face of Alestor, a face torn between anger at his circumstances and reflective on his future death. And it was Dion who made him think and feel this way. It was him who had brought that chill of death. Brought it down on the bars, the little cage as Astyanax called it. Over and over and over again until the room was filled with the sound of slapping metal. Pummel after pummel, a successive beat of blows that had stung his knuckles.


    ¡°Stop. Stop.¡± Alestor screamed. Dion looked down to his knuckles, the flesh was out, his bone exposed. His wounds were regenerating and opening at the same rate and all he could see was a distinct pink and white where bone and muscle was trying to replace itself. He looked at the bars. Only small dents, scratches, here and there and blood that stained and that evaporated.


    ¡°Why should I?¡± Dion clenched his fist again. He pushed against the cage. It rose. Alestor hung to the bars as they did and collapsed to the floor as Dion let go. Like a pinball machine, and Dion the angry player.


    ¡°Did you stop?¡± Dion grabbed the prison again. He put both hands forward and pushed with his knees, against the floor, shoulders forward. He could hear the metal scratch the floor as he dragged the box across and slammed it into a wall.


    ¡°Hear me out,¡± Alestor screamed. ¡°Stop.¡±


    Dion reached his hand inside the bars. He tried fitting himself, body and all, through the gaps. With one hand outstretched he waved wildly inside. Alestor hugged the wall and waited there.


    Every now and then, Dion would switch, chase him from another side, make him run inside his little cell. It went on for hours before he gave up.


    ¡°What¡¯s this made out of?¡± Dion mumbled to himself. He sat on his hams, a look of defeat on his face.


    ¡°Harder than any metal you¡¯ve ever seen. They mine it from the third circle, you idiot.¡± Alestor wheezed. He was gasping, bent over. His head was a mess of stray hairs.


    ¡°Shut up. No one asked you.¡± Dion kicked the cage. There was an audible yelp from Alestor, a bit high strung and tired.


    Dion looked around. His eyes were red, two giant balls of anger.


    ¡°I should go out.¡± Dion was smiling to himself. Alestor could hear his ramblings, forced to hear them. ¡°I should go out and kill that guard. Take his spear, yeah, yeah! And I¡¯ll¡­I¡¯ll!¡±


    He made a stabbing motion with his hands.


    ¡°They¡¯ll kill you fool, as soon as you do. And then you won¡¯t save anyone.¡± Alestor shouted.


    ¡°I can fight it out. I¡¯ll take them all out.¡±


    ¡°No. You won¡¯t.¡± Alestor pleaded. ¡°Revenge or freedom, you can¡¯t have both. Not at the same time.¡±


    Dion looked around his cell, out the window, around the walls, almost confused.


    ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll just take his deal. If it means killing you, at least. I can tolerate Hell. I can live with it.¡±


    ¡°For how long?¡± Alestor bargained. ¡°Eternity is a very, very long time. How long do you think you¡¯ll last before you become as insane as him?¡±


    He pointed to the drawing of Astyanax on the wall.


    ¡°You? You¡¯re talking about insanity?¡± Dion rushed to the cage. ¡°How many people did you have killed? How many bled to death, offered to your little demon god?¡±


    ¡°It...It wasn¡¯t like that.¡±


    ¡°How else could it be? Huh?¡± He punched the cage. The whole room seemed to shake. The font in the corner of the room vibrated. ¡°It wasn¡¯t your hand that gutted the poor girl? It wasn¡¯t your words that riled a cult of freaks? How many dead? Do you even remember them?¡±


    Outside they could hear the shuffling of the guard, a large heavy sound as if a sentinel had just awoken from his thousand year slumber. A soldier of clay, of metal, of little humanity. He peeked inside, took a glance at the two and smiled. Yes, they were at it again, he must have thought and enjoyed it. Dion looked back at him, glared at him. He hadn¡¯t worn a different face since and it began to worry Dion, only a little, if he would ever be able to take off his frown again.


    The guard closed the door. Dion looked around, the small pots of flowers hanging by the sides of pillars in the corners of the room. A table with a long-faded candle whose smoke still filled the air with a strange scent, a bit fruity, a bit like incense too. Burning oranges. Can I wear this face forever? Dion thought. With him?


    On a table, where the candle burned, a dribble of wax came down and onto the floor. It hardened immediately.


    Can I live here forever? Dion thought. Astyanax did. And look at him. Look at all the things he feels or thinks or does.


    It made him nervous to look at Alestor again. He felt it down in his stomach like a full bladder.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    ¡°It was a mutual ritual. I was lead to believe that I was purifying these men and women, bringing them somewhere closer to God, you see. God, for fuck''s sake!¡± Alestor threw his arms in the air.


    Dion sat. His whole body felt weighed. Morose.


    ¡°You thought,¡± He almost laughed. ¡°You thought killing someone would purify them?¡±


    ¡°Yes, well, I was lead to believe it. He told me, he said - ¡°


    ¡°He told you but you did it. Thinking and saying and acting are all different things. You can think all the things you want, but finding the strength to do them. That¡¯s something else.¡±


    ¡°Listen! My wife was dead. My second-born, dead. I had to, it was for them - ¡°


    ¡°And think of all the children you killed. All the mothers and the fathers you stole. All the families, ruined. And you..You, who created the very misery that brought you ruin.¡±


    ¡°Some of them¡­some of them¡­ They were!¡± He bit his tongue and paused. ¡°They were criminals. Murderers, rapists.¡±


    ¡°Shut up.¡± Dion stomped on the floor. ¡°Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.¡±


    Once again the room was filled with that decisive silence. And once again both were left to their own corners, like boxers in the ring. A stack of books besides the bed entertained Dion with their bright covers and their tails for bookmarks. They did, at least, up to a point. Dion opened one. He saw scratches, weird glyphs, and pictures. Some strange, some horrific. He felt his head hurt and he threw the books aside. It hit one of the pots on the pillar. Something of a vase of roses. He walked over to it and looked at the dirt all spread out on the floor. He could see worms, maggots even amongst the shattered clay and bruised green stems. He knelt. Then stood again for Alestor.


    ¡°Why¡¯d you do it?¡± Dion said. His voice sounded easy and steady. ¡°What compels a man to do all this?¡±


    Alestor sunk a bit. His bearded face brushing against the metal. He gripped his rags and pulled them down a bit. His scarred collarbone showed.


    ¡°I did it for love.¡± He said. ¡°A love for a family I lost. That¡¯s it.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t even ask how much you loved them. I know it.¡± Dion walked back to the cage. ¡°The whole city knows it, experienced it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. He told me, he said it.¡± Alestor articulated with his hands. ¡°He promised me they would get fixed. The broken, he called them. The pedophiles and the rapists and the murderers I helped kill. I swear it started like that. Out of pity, out of hope.¡±


    ¡°Then you killed children. Why?¡±


    ¡°Astyanax asked for it. He¡¯s the one who demanded it. For the ritual, he said. But I promise you! I promise we went for orphans, the sick, the decrepit. The kids with no future.¡± Alestor was crying, though he didn¡¯t notice it. Maybe it was just second nature at this point. ¡°He said he¡¯d deliver them unto God. He said they would live eternally in peace. It was a compassionate euthanasia!¡±


    Dion wanted to vomit. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear this man''s head off. He could feel his hands shaking, his pupils dilating, his nape going cold. He felt inside his pocket. What was in there? Something sharp?


    Nothing he would show today. He removed his hand and took a breath. In, out. What does the scripture say, Dion? Of those who throw stones. What does it say? If I loved as hard as he did, would I have done it?


    He couldn¡¯t answer. But he couldn¡¯t attack either.


    ¡°What was originally planned with all the blood and bodies? What did you want from Astyanax that could have only been done through a black Sabbath?¡±


    ¡°Well, does it even matter?¡± Alestor¡¯s face was low, his body against the wall and bars behind him. The standing torches inside the room shook, waved, then fixed themselves and through the embers, Alestor¡¯s face was lit. Nothing more. The rest of him was in a kind of shadow made by the lowered ceiling and the covered windows.


    There was a wind. It blew out some of the curtains and subsequently, some light.


    ¡°I thought. With his cup, that we could summon him. Bring him to earth. That¡¯s what I hoped. And then from there¡­¡±


    ¡°The cup doesn¡¯t work like that. Hell doesn¡¯t work that way. He¡¯s marked. There¡¯s no going out for him.¡±


    They spoke of course, of a branding neither had, as they were living dead. In a way.


    ¡°I know that now.¡± Alestor slapped his forehead. ¡°He was supposed to come up there and raise the dead. He was supposed to bring us all into a kind of rapture. Just us, just the chosen.¡±


    ¡°Well, he brought you somewhere. Didn¡¯t he?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Yes, he did.¡± Alestor could barely talk.


    Again silence. They both sat around, fiddled with their fingers and their feet and let the hot breeze outside cool them. Dion was the first to break the silence.


    ¡°I heard you were a Doctor.¡±


    ¡°I was a licensed therapist,¡± Alestor mumbled.


    Dion sat on the bed. A bit easier, his shoulders less strained, his chest less winded.


    ¡°How¡¯d someone as smart as you get duped? I thought you¡¯d know everything about liars and psychopaths.¡±


    ¡°I guess I was desperate. Sad and desperate.¡± He said. ¡°When you see a miracle performed in front of your eyes, when you see countless acts of magic. When that same miracle-giver promises you hope and family, how can¡¯t you see them as the next coming of Christ? No one can resist that.¡±


    ¡°I can see it, I guess,¡± Dion said. ¡°Magic is hard to do.¡±


    ¡°So there are others, huh?¡±


    ¡°Not many. But there are a few practitioners, yes.¡± Dion walked up to him. ¡°But I¡¯m not one of them. So don¡¯t ask.¡±


    It didn¡¯t matter. Alestor had lost hope long ago. He slumped down on his metal bars.


    ¡°Must be an interesting world you live in. Huh,¡± Alestor rubbed his eyes. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t know. I don¡¯t know. Not anything, not a thing. And now I¡¯m even less than stupid. I¡¯m alone now. My baby dead, wife dead.¡± He paused. His voice choked. ¡°My son, dead.¡±


    Dion let him weep a bit on the floor. Only a moment, that¡¯s all he would give him.


    ¡°I can¡¯t forgive you. You know that, right?¡± Dion put both hands on his sides and clenched his fists.


    ¡°I know.¡±


    ¡°But at least I understand you.¡± He said. They looked at each other for the first time it felt. Both of their eyes were weak, both of their heads were low. He didn¡¯t want to understand this man. But seeing his weak face, his spirit in a loss, he couldn¡¯t help but feel some kind of kinsmanship. It was a disgusting feeling, to be similar to someone so disgusting, to see how thin the fence line was between them. And worse. To imagine, somewhere along that fence of good and evil, to imagine a rotating door. Perhaps he was going to go through it, perhaps not. Perhaps it had bled into each other that each side didn¡¯t even matter.


    There was a knock on the door.


    ¡°The king wants you.¡± The voice said, a bit of a haughty voice. ¡°Don¡¯t make him wait.¡±


    Dion stood.


    ¡°Tell me, Doctor,¡± He breathed heavily. ¡°What do you want now? After all is said in done, now that you¡¯re here. What do you want?¡±


    Alestor looked up. He pushed his head to the side in a slant.


    ¡°I want to stay here.¡± He said. ¡°I want to rot here and repent. I don¡¯t deserve oblivion, I don¡¯t deserve the peace of nothingness. I just want to be here. Forever and maybe, with an eternities worth of pain, I¡¯d have suffered the price of what I¡¯ve done.¡±


    The door opened. Horace burst in. Yelling, hurry, hurry. Screaming, you¡¯ve made a mess. Fuming, in the throne room. Horace went over to the vase and began piling the pieces, fixing the dirt into a mound. Dion walked past him, towards the door. He heard a dying voice behind him.


    ¡°And you, Vicar? What do you want of me? What would satisfy you?¡±


    But Dion didn¡¯t look back. He didn¡¯t answer. He walked and disappeared into the light of the door frame. It was time, after all, to settle the deal.


    He thought.

 Chapter 71

    Jeremiah


    Jeremiah held the arm and the leg and rested the bleeding body on his shoulders as he ran. Far, further down the incline and into the large valley of corrugated stone pillars. Steam shot forth that burned his arm and burned his hairs off and left his skin shaved and red. The body on top of Jeremiah struggled for a bit. The boy, Bartholomew, stood behind Jeremiah at a close distance with one hand wiping sweat and the other pulling on jeans. That was the scene, the three. The boy, the man and the dying, going through the valley and the geysers that shot forth around him.


    A woosh of air blew past him. A large push of hot steam blew past him. It was colored green, it smelled ill and also strangely of chemicals, like ammonia. He pulled his face away from the steam. His sideburns were burned, his face a bit charred. Most of his skin was red behind his juvenile beard. He had to stop and looked around. Below him, the giant holes and the small gasses that escaped. It looked like the surface of a meteor, porous and frightening. To his left, away from the drop, the side of a mountain. He clung to it and the warped arches of stone. They were warped, he could tell, shaped by the heavy and hot air. He could see where the stone had been touched because it drooped and because it was red and glowing from heat.


    It reminded him of his burned face. It reminded him of the pain and his wincing body and his blinking eyes that tried to wash out their blur.


    ¡°It¡¯s so warm,¡± Ishmael said in that gentle voice. He was atop of Jeremiah¡¯s shoulders.


    ¡°Yeah, it is. Isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Reminds me of California.¡± He coughed and expelled himself on the road. ¡°It was nice. On the beach. In the sun.¡±


    ¡°Keep talking, Sam,¡± Jeremiah said.


    ¡°Never liked that nickname.¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡± Jeremiah looked at the boy. He was getting curious around the edge. ¡°You get over here, alright? Stay close.¡±


    ¡°Mm-hm¡± The boy ran back and mumbled. His head was low. His eyes now focusing closely on Ishmael¡¯s discharge.


    Where did this begin? Jeremiah thought. He heard a rock slide past his feet and down to the geysers and blowing gasses below. It made an echoing noise that tapppppeeeed-tapppeed-tapped. Until no more, until it was lost into one of the smaller holes below. Jeremiah stared off ahead. He never realized how tired he was, didn¡¯t notice it until he waited here on his knees with the body above his shoulders, dangling and turning.


    Was the road going to get smaller?


    He shook his head and walked. Better to remember, better to re-feel that cold shiver down his spine.


    How did it come to this?


    He tip-toed. There was nothing but a small ridge now, more like a crack on the side of the mountain. A ridge and the floor and the queasy vertigo.


    ¡°You scared, Ishmael?¡± He tried to laugh it off.


    ¡°Huh?¡± The voice was nothing more than a hum.


    ¡°I said, are you scared?¡± Jeremiah screamed. He couldn¡¯t stop staring at the floor and laughing, he couldn¡¯t understand it.


    ¡°Oh,¡± Ishmael whispered. ¡°I''m just tired. So tired.¡±


    ¡°Hard to sleep when your this high though, right?¡± Jeremiah felt his legs shake. Steam jetted by. He hugged the wall. What would his body do if it fell, like the rock? Would it tap, would it crack, would it disappear?


    Better not think of it.


    ¡°I bet you were rich back home. Right?¡± Jeremiah asked. The boy dragged a stone. It fell and it made Jeremiah snap up right.


    ¡°Where I worked?¡± Ishmael leaned onto Jeremiah. Jeremiah almost slipped. He could feel his heart working, it felt like a heavy pulse on his limbs. ¡°I worked? Where did I work?¡±


    He was mumbling. Jeremiah stopped and pressed both feet firmly on the ground and stood there breathing heavily. The boy was close behind, aping Jeremiah¡¯s fear and hyperventilating.


    Imagination. Reality. It all frightened him.


    Where did this all begin?


    The first spear. He thought. A little after, he remembered. The images began to appear like a slide show, increasing in speed as he focused. His body adjusting, moving across the ridge in rote fashion. He¡¯d rather remember the blood and the violence to this, the steep fall below.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    So he thought of that violence as the vertigo crawled up to him, grabbing him leg first with anxiety. He remembered now. The heavy dust clouds and the sound of spears and their feather fletchings as they tore the air with that vile hiss. Like a snake bite, coming and going, their brown tails flying like the open fanged-mouth. He remembered holding Bartholomew and defending his scared body and watching the men and women fall all around him. The feeling of his stomach as it scraped along the floor and as they crawled on their bellies towards Ishmael. Ishmael who had taken his small knife, the knife brandished at the cell and who had started working on cutting his own rope bondage. Who freed his arms, and who worked on his feet and who pushed aside the corpses of legionnaire demons.


    The sound of the soldier as he choked on his blood, helmet rolling on the floor, armor stabbed through with a javelin. He also remembered the face of Ishmael and remembered wondering if he would even help them (Jeremiah and the boy).


    Ishmael who looked at them in that cloud of violence with the sharp ring of clashing metal and the faces of confused demons staring wide-eyed at their deaths. Ishmael who amongst that crowd, had decided, with a pained face to run for Jeremiah and Bartholomew. Who told them, with an anxious voice, to be quiet and still. Who took out his knife and cut their ropes and looked around at all the people around begging for the same treatment.


    More rocks skidded. He saw a small Joshua tree fall with them. A gust of heat pushed it up. Burned, then washed the fires as soon as they came. It looked melted. It made him think of his own death. He tried to shake it off again, back to the memory.


    Monster horses who dragged with their ghost-white faces, howling and rising to show the hooves that stamped upon the bodies. Unholy steeds who dragged and stampeded through, trampling every other dying person. Jeremiah remembered that, ducking and pushing the three of them aside as he heard the sound of shoehorns.


    He had worked hard to avoid the soldiers or demons or steeds. All of them had. And it took them a great strength of will to ignore the crying sounds of their cellmates. They had to though, there was no time. No time, no courage, no hope for them. They were dead. Most of them, speared through, most of them. Dying, most of them. And the ones who survived were too stupid or cowardly to even make the effort to run. Some had even succumbed, reasoned it, and had laid on the floor hoping for death. Wishing, only, to have it be done quickly. That was probably the most painful memory for Jeremiah. The shouts for help. It almost was enough to have him turn back. But the boy was with him. The boy. The boy who meant it all, who was the cause of his being here. Who he hated, and who he loved.


    They had made it out of that arena of chaos, had taken the steps through the cactii and the trees, had pricked themselves with the needles and were so close to the empty and safe space of desert. So close, almost there. A few steps. But the spear whizzed by. Had torn through the greenery and shrubs and plants, had ripped them all out of their stems and roots and had landed promptly on Ishmael¡¯s side. Ishmael collapsed there and had not stood up since then.


    He shook as he watched his fallen companion struggle and contort and flex, like a worm. Then he jumped. A chariot had collapsed near him, the wheel rolling innocently past him. The horse and the driver smashed together on the ground, turned into a paste of red. A spear through the side of the metal vehicle. This is what the first spear had aimed at. It was all to kill this vehicle, not Ishmael. It made him sick.


    But that¡¯s how it was. Jeremiah who had leaned down and had treated Ishmael and had lugged him around his shoulders and backs. Not as paid debt, but as goodwill.


    The last of his memory ends there. With the two of them, looking back at the demons who clubbed each other and beat and stabbed. The rising clouds of dirt, like golden clouds as each body hit the floor and the hell mounts that drove through and pushed aside the smog with snarls. The skewered bodies of demons, of men, of women. The confusion of death everpresent on most of them, calm and happy on others.


    A circus of murder, Jeremiah had thought at the time. Confused, violent ghosts who played for fun and shock.


    His slide show, his film ended there. Nothing past it, exciting. It was all dull, rather. The travel, the coughing and spitting blood Ishmael shot out every few moments.


    He felt another geyser vomiting its anger out. He felt it through small quakes from the floor. Jeremiah braced himself and felt his shirt blow up with air. His stomach felt warm. He couldn¡¯t tell though, whether it was anxiety or pain.


    ¡°Come on, stay awake Sam.¡± Jeremiah ran. The road was wider, at last. ¡°Where did you work? What did you do? Talk to me. Keep talking.¡±


    ¡°Stocks¡­¡± Ishmael mumbled.


    ¡°Yeah. What kind? Win big?¡± Jeremiah sounded desperate. A rock fell again. It banged on the side of the mountain as it died, he wished it hadn¡¯t.


    ¡°Stocks¡­That¡¯s what I told my mom.¡± Ishmael breathed heavily. ¡°I was just a vacuum salesman. Just a door guy, always a door guy.¡±


    Even the voice sounded cold. Stern. Meaningful, in some strange way. It sounded like a long lost secret, that stupid sentence. But it hurt like a knife in the heart.


    Jeremiah felt blood down his chest.


    ¡°Yeah? There¡¯s still time to do more though.¡± Ishmael jumped a gap. He braced himself with two knees and felt himself stop as he looked around him. The road was getting wider again, but he was still nervous, still sweating.


    ¡°Come on? Speak up, yeah?¡±


    The boy left his mouth open. He stared up at the man. Jeremiah tugged on the dangling arm around his shoulder, he pinched on the legs he carried, he shook and cradled and eased his shoulder over. He lowered Ishmael down to his chest, then down to the floor. He felt no movement. No pulse. No turning or derelict eyes. There was nothing but a fixed face upon the sky and eyes that looked out into an empty horizon.


    Jeremiah grabbed his hand. He sucked in his lower lip and stretched his face and held onto that hand for as long as he could, around the noisy and restless mountains. An exhaustion of heat came up. A shaking of the ground, an uncontrollable scream of the splurting earth. Astyanax¡¯s rage, perhaps.


    He let go of Ishmael. His hands were smooth, surprisingly smooth. Even in the arid, sediment-filled air. Jeremiah rested him on the side of the mountain. There was nothing there anymore. No pulse, no voice, no thought. Empty, like a doll.

 Chapter 72

    Dion


    He could feel his heart betray him. He could hear it enter that quick, monotonous speedy pace. He could feel his pupils shrink and the devil¡¯s blood in him rush, in giant waves of muscle tensions through his abdomen and up to his cheeks. His toes were numb. His fingers were numb. His palms were sweaty and he spent so much time drying them on his pants, then waiting, then drying them again. Over and over, while the men in their metal suits lead him through the giant doored rooms. The villa with its dismal emptiness, with that moaning wind. He stopped, at once, in front of two wooden doors and there, his heart betrayed him again. For although he felt in him that urge to kill, the fleeting sensation of violence, he walked calmly. He waited calmly. Let the two demons move the metal machinations of the door to their side, let the iron chains fall to the floor. Horace came around from behind Dion, he struggled to push the doors. His clothes trapped between the the gaps, stretching and shredding his robes.


    Dion pushed him away. The cloak ripped in two. He looked at the door.


    The bars, the chains, the locks all gone, the guards at last nodded their heads. Dion put his hands gently on the door. He couldn¡¯t feel the puncturing splinters, the small beads of blood by the handles of the door and with loud squeaks, he pushed the two doors open. They crashed against the wall, a loud clamor for the room. Then they dangled again, moved back and forth like drunks, whining with their rusted hinges.


    Dion walked in. His eyes were fixed on the pillars that cast two different sets of shadows. One black, the other short and gray like sets of clock hands. His eyes wrapped around, up to the ceiling. A gem cut into a pyramid, dividing and focusing light in three directions. The light ran to other, smaller gems. There were no torches, no. All light was divided, all light glistening and colored and frantic and overcast on the pompous pillars and fonts and urns was a rainbow. Dion wondered if he was schizophrenic. No, this was just a vile room. Gaudy and brilliant. Disgustingly illustrious, bordering parody.


    The doors were sucked back in, creating a vacuum sound before they shut still. The old-woven tapestry on the walls (flags and stories mostly) blew violently.


    Dion walked up to the center, underneath the white colored gem on the ceiling. He looked in front of him, his eyes following the thirteen steps up. There, a seated Astyanax waited for him. Not so much on a throne, as much as a mound. A collection of stripped leather and bronze armors smelted down it seemed, contorting into a multi-layered stool. The gold colored breasts and sleeves of armor were spilling, giving the appearance of corpses trying to crawl out of Astyanax¡¯s sitting position. Astyanax was hunched over, his arm rested on his knee, his hand carrying his head.


    ¡°How have you been treated?¡± He asked.


    ¡°How do you figure?¡± Dion asked. ¡°You left me in a room with the man I¡¯ve been chasing for weeks. How do you think I feel?¡±


    ¡°Like gold, I hope.¡± Astyanax moved his head from one hand to the other. ¡°I just wanted to remind you of what you stand to gain. That¡¯s all.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Dion walked forward. There was a guard for each pillar, twelve in total. The guards looked like clay suits and statues, might have been, had it not been for their quick reaction. A jerk of their round shields and spears. Dion took another step. They moved again. Astyanax waved them back and they nestled into their places, the man-shaped stains on the pillars. They were furniture too, in some capacity.


    ¡°So what¡¯s your answer?¡±


    ¡°If you don¡¯t mind. I¡¯d like a recap. What is it that you¡¯re offering me?¡± Dion put his hands in his pockets. It looked almost arrogant. Almost? Was. But it excited Astyanax. Ignited a flame and spasm in his stomach and groin. He clasped his hands and scratched his hair.


    ¡°Forget already?¡±


    ¡°I just want to make sure the wording is right. I don¡¯t want to get tricked. After all, you are a demon, right?¡±


    ¡°Maybe. That¡¯s very uncharacteristic of you.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°I thought your friend was the thoughtful one.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve had time to reflect.¡±


    ¡°A Catholic or a monk, which is then?¡± No answer. Astyanax stretched his back. It made a cracking noise. ¡°Well, I¡¯ll give you everything that matters. The slaves, Alestor, everything, in return for your servitude.¡±


    ¡°You want one slave for the many.¡±


    ¡°Oh, sweetheart. You make it sound terrible.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°I promise your existence here will be everything but. All the islands we can roam and conquer, all the wars to be waged. The love to be made. What¡¯s so bad about that?¡±


    ¡°Morality. You.¡±


    ¡°You still call yourself a moral man? Oh, my. But I can work with that. What¡¯s violence without prohibition, after all? White noise. Yes, I need a moral man.¡± Astyanax stretched his neck. Dion stepped forward. ¡°Aha. I can be quiet endearing if you give me time.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ll be giving you all my time. Every second and tick and drop of it. Forever is a very long time.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Well, if you don¡¯t want to take the deal, say so. You¡¯re free to leave.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Dion searched his pockets. He gripped something. He put his foot on the floor and stomped at what looked like a small fly, stomped it harsh and brutal until it left a green dime-sized stain on the floor.


    ¡°I got a question,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Spill your heart out, Hunter.¡±


    ¡°Why are you treating me kindly - I mean, kinder, than the others. If politeness and civility is your deal, why not extend it to the other people - slaves. You¡¯re inconsistent.¡±


    ¡°Inconsistent?¡± Astyanax said. ¡°It¡¯s only inconsistent if I consider those worms in the same category as you and me.¡±


    ¡°How can you say that they don¡¯t have fears and loves, like you and I?¡±


    ¡°And what of fear and love? Dogs can do that all the same, would you say they¡¯re in the same category as us? Don¡¯t work yourself over the other half, that kind of interspecies sympathy will get you hurt.¡±


    ¡°What are you getting at?¡± Dion pulled his shoulders back.


    ¡°Forgive the confusion. What I mean to say is that you and I are of a completely different make as them.¡± He stood. ¡°I¡¯ve seen over the years, the stupid modes people would use to differentiate amongst each other. Skin, tongue, flag. That¡¯s a dishonest way to categorize. Wouldn¡¯t you say? Especially when they¡¯re missing the point.¡±


    ¡°Point? We¡¯re all humans, you and I. We should be helping each other.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you call me a demon earlier?¡± Astyanax took his index fingers and tapped his temples. ¡°And you were right. I am a demon, as are you. We are part of a deadly species, we¡¯re warriors. You and I. Why should we mingle with the weak? The only category in the census of man that matters, the strong and the weak. The haves and the have not.¡±


    ¡°Men are more than the way they kill.¡±


    ¡°Are they?¡± Astyanax walked four steps down. ¡°All men are killers or leeches, never both. And they both utilize the craft that suits them best, either force or pity. I have no interest in playing the game, so I kill them all the same. That¡¯s it.¡±


    ¡°How can you say that of all the suffering souls here and beyond?¡±


    ¡°I say it with ease. Pity and the laws they instigate are the means to disenfranchise the strong. Stop playing their games. Stop living for them. Do what you want, for yourself and no one else. There is no other way to live life¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re crazy.¡± Dion walked forward. His hands on his side, his right hand gripping something discrete.


    ¡°Because soothing my pain, my boredom, is of a higher order than soothing someone else''s. That¡¯s why. Because anything short of selfish greed is stupid and an exercise in suicide. Suicide of the self, the ego.¡± His hands were open, almost in an embrace. ¡°There are hundreds of billions down here who suffer, who will suffer, seemingly for eternity. Will you help them too? Can you? Probably not. So why try? It¡¯s much better to live for yourself.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just bored?¡± Dion walked forward, his gripping arm carrying his stride.


    ¡°I¡¯m not crazy, I¡¯m just trying to wake up from an abstract boredom. A three thousand years long boredom.¡± They walked towards each other. Have you ever watched the sky for years just to realize it never moved? Not a cloud, not a sun or star. That¡¯s torment¡± Astyanax smiled.


    ¡°It¡¯s enough to make you cry, isn¡¯t it? To harbor your sympathy?¡±


    Dion ran forward. The guards tried to move. He avoided them. The wind broke past him. The tapestry fell from their hanging places from his gallop. Dion had in his hand a piece of clay, a shard of it, that very clay of that very potted plant in his room.


    The dagger was in front of him, he reached his arm forward and aimed for Astyanax¡¯s neck. He skipped the first two steps of the stairs, jumped. He was heading for it, waiting for it. His eyes a hungry crimson as they sought the tender white-skin of Astyanax¡¯s neck. All momentum, all forward. It was the quickest, he thought, he¡¯d ever been or ever would be.


    And all it took was a quick sidestep to dodge.


    A shuffle of feet, rightward, for Astyanax to turn.


    Dion watched it all slowly through that adrenaline high. It was just a dance move to Astyanax, just playground games. Dion tried to move, but in midair, knew it to be worthless. He instead braced himself, readied his hand to bounce off the floor and to try again from a new angle. His hands reached out again to touch the floor as quickly as possible.


    They never did.


    Astyanax grabbed his arm with both hands, and in one move lifted him above his shoulders, then slammed Dion back down. A judo flip, as it was.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t seen this much enthusiasm since Troy fell!¡± Astyanax roared. ¡°Since the butchering and rape.¡±


    The floor shattered. The rubble fell down the steps. Dion tried to breathe but found himself caught in between screaming and gasping. His left shoulder felt broken, in four different spots and he clutched them. He could feel himself healing, slowly though. Weak from famish. It wasn¡¯t fast enough to stop the pain, it might have worsened it even. Dion turned his head to look at his wound. He saw bone sticking out near his bicep. There was a piece of rock in his ribs and breathing out, he could feel it move and loosen from the hole. It fell, weighed by blood and rolled down four steps.


    The guards moved forward but stopped, almost afraid, as Astyanax raised Dion¡¯s good hand and forced it to wave. Somewhat like a puppeteer.


    ¡°Let¡¯s see what¡¯s in this hand.¡± He straddled Dion by the chest. Dion felt his air push out like someone had taken a rolling pin to his body, had flattened him and had forced every ounce of blood and juice and oxygen out into a defeated gasp.


    Astyanax worked on Dion¡¯s hand. After a while, he stopped and just broke his fingers and watched the clay dagger fall to the floor. He picked it up, inspected it with childish glib, then shook his tips above Dion. It was almost playful, had Dion not wheezed and coughed blood.


    ¡°Now what¡¯s this?¡± He presented the evidence to the court. Horace in the back stood, somewhat ashamed. ¡°No one thought to baby-proof his room?¡±


    Astyanax laughed. Alone.


    ¡°What an affront to my offer.¡± He slapped Dion¡¯s face and pushed it side to side, letting him spit blood everywhere like a pressured hose. ¡°In the old days, my people would have cut your head off and offered you to Zeus. Your scalp would have been made a weight for the holy scales of the tribunal.¡±


    Dion¡¯s eyes rolled around like billiards on the break.


    ¡°Could you heal that? Decapitation? Would you, would you?¡± Astyanax slapped him. ¡°Aye, Vicar?¡±


    Nothing but wheezing. Astyanax paused. Disappointed, almost, beginning to form a frown on his lips. He shook it off and stood off him.


    ¡°My uncle, Aeneas, founded Rome. Do you know what the Romans did to people like you?¡± Astyanax walked down the steps. Two guards came to lift Dion. ¡°They¡¯d crucify you with three nails, no more, no less. They¡¯d stab you and bake you out in the open sun and they¡¯d play a guessing game of what would kill you first. The heat, the bleeding, or the insanity.¡±


    Dion¡¯s body dangled off the two men. His feet made a loud thump with each step he passed down.


    ¡°Maybe they¡¯d all come at once like a hot fever. Would you like that?¡±


    There was nothing to Dion, nothing but a string of blood and saliva that hung to his lips like cut webbing.


    ¡°Well how about that then. If you can¡¯t decide how you¡¯ll live under me, then you¡¯ll decide how to die under me.¡± He waved the men off. They saluted. ¡°Send him to the dungeons.¡±


    ¡°Ave.¡± The demon¡¯s said with their broken faces and their broken souls, all eager to satisfy King Astyanax.

 Chapter 73 Part 1

    Jeremiah


    Hours after the battle at the Barracks of the 23rd


    It was strange to walk around the lonely desert and still, to feel as if someone was watching him. But maybe it was just a feeling. Just maybe, it was just the volatile winds of that green and yellow hue that spilled forth from that geyser hell from before. It might have just been the clouds of rolling dust along the desert floor. Or it was nothing (which he never believed to be true). What he did know was that feeling in the back of his head, the feeling of being watched was very true. It was, after all, a unique feeling that he could only describe as a cold yank at the back of his head. An acute sensation of unrest.


    Jeremiah rubbed the back of his neck. All around him was the presence of sand, multi-colored and all of it fine. It looked like streaks of green running horizontal across the plain and it had a fine texture (he noticed because it dug deep into his feet). It looked like the mountains, if there were any here at one point in history, had been reduced, stone and gem and all, into the flamboyant sand. He shook his head. The gristle was in his follicles, in his eyes, filling every fleshy corner of his eye with the light coating of sand. He rubbed his eyes, looked at the boy. He looked like he had golden-green cataracts on him. It must have been the same for himself.


    He pulled the boy by his shoulder.


    Behind them were the fumes of the geysers past, like factory stacks. It was a cloud that carried itself and dispersed among the boundless expanse of mountainous sands. The valley of geysers so far that their little alleys and their cracked plateaus seemed to disappear into small smudges. He began to wonder if they were even here. If this wasn¡¯t all just some big heat-stroke induced illusion.


    There was a sound. His eyes snapped.


    He turned.


    It was just foliage, dragging its thorny tails down a slope.


    "Where are we going?" Bartholomew asked.


    "Does it matter? We''re going away. Far, far away."


    "I know. But where are we going?" His small hands were together and it made him walk awkward with trepidation.


    There was nothing in his brain that even resembled an answer. There was no answer. Where were they going? Nowhere, probably. So why run? Jeremiah asked himself. Why run, why struggle, why, why, why. Successive blows of questions that made him hunch over and gasp.


    Why?


    The strong wind blew. It lifted him, gripped his hair and his clothes and pushed them like an inept parachute. Jeremiah braced his face and felt gale like a blast, like a wave of the ocean. The boy fell, Jeremiah put his hands over him. A giant surf of sand rose high into the air, several feet above Jeremiah before it came down. It looked like the brown tongue of some hungry behemoth. But it left him dry and coughing.


    All around, the hot and wicked wind was lifting the sand, and pushing Jeremiah back with tempests of sandy waves like currents. It was strong, even for him, an adult and it stung like lashings against his skin and it pulled his cheeks.


    The boy was lifted off his feet. Jeremiah had to pull him back down before he started levitating.


    He looked around with squinted eyes, there was no tornado, there was nothing but those toxic, hot, geyser fumes manifesting into wild currents as if the very soul of this island wanted him gone. And he saw the manifestation at last. Illusion? A mental distortion? It couldn¡¯t be, he thought.


    He saw a lone figure out, from where those geysers had once been in his vision. He saw the black figure walking towards him, without any defining attributes but a shadowy vengeance, Jeremiah presumed.


    He had the outline of those demonic legions, at least, someone tall and big and frightening and whose figure loomed over. Yes, the desert and island must have wanted him dead. And it must have sent this assassin for him, he felt in his heart.


    And now, Jeremiah couldn''t even waste his time to think of an answer the question (if there was an answer) to why he was here. It didn''t matter. Why didn''t matter, running mattered.


    He pulled the boy from his arm and began dragging them both up the sharp incline of a sharp dune. He felt his legs sinking, he felt his eyes hurting from grit, but he ran. Bartholomew stopped only a few seconds after jogging. Jeremiah grabbed him and put him up on his shoulders like a wagon. He felt his feet sink, but he ran anyway, dragging sand up the hill with him.


    There were no birds that waited hungrily, none could survive the heavy wind. There were no creatures, at least on the surface, for they would have been lifted. There was no one but the three. A terrible place to be, Jeremiah thought. Too heavy, and he¡¯d sink. Too light, and he¡¯d fly.


    He just had to outrun it.


    With the boy on his shoulder, held by that death grip around his stomach, he braced himself through the rounds of heavy wind. They came in pulses, at least. One, two, one, two. It was an ocean of sand and he felt in the midst of the tsunami.


    He looked behind himself.


    The figure was slowing, but still at a steady pace. He seemed to sink (he definitely had no problem with the ear-shattering winds, he looked heavy after all). No, this person kept his way and raised his hand to wave, as if to taunt.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    At least that''s what Jeremiah figured, that''s what he read in the movements and that''s what kept his heart rate up and his senses sharp and his brain empty of those stupid questions.


    "Slow-down." The boy said with that broken, dry throat. "I can''t see anything."


    "You don''t need to see anything." Jeremiah was screaming though he was centimeters away from his ear. The air carried with it a howl. It was a strange noise, a bit like crashing waves and a bit like a collapsing building. It¡¯s what he imagined those haunted tombs of kings to sound of.


    ¡°Shit.¡± Jeremiah screeched.


    He felt a whip of sand hit his back. Jeremiah put his hand on the injury. He could feel the swelling flesh, imagine the red skin behind his clothes. He turned to look and made a fool of himself. There was a decline in front of him. His feet rushed to balance himself. He failed, he slipped. The boy flew out of his hands and rolled like a log down to the base. Jeremiah followed him, with one foot forward and his body leaned to slide himself down.


    ¡°Are you okay?¡± He rubbed the dirt from the boys face. There were no tears though his face looked hurt.


    "Who are we running from?" The boy coughed up sand. It looked terrible, the phlegm covered globs of packed sand. They looked like small tumors of earth.


    "From them, from whatever and whoever is chasing us. And they won¡¯t catch us, you hear me? We didn¡¯t escape for nothing.¡± Jeremiah said. Sam didn¡¯t die for nothing, he thought.


    "Why?" The boy curled into a ball. Jeremiah covered him and the oppressive wind pushed at them again. Nudged them, prodded, poked, slapped with loud caustic concussions, spinning rocks and clothes into a fine whirlwind of chaos. The stones were hurled at Jeremiah. He couldn¡¯t feel them much anymore, not with the adrenaline. But he noticed the blood, the long streaks covering his vision.


    This wind, this sadist in heat, this abuser.


    Jeremiah looked over the boy. He wasn¡¯t hurt at least.


    "You¡¯re still asking that shit?" Jeremiah said. "Why are we going? Because if we don''t move, we die. That''s why."


    The child, still low and on the floor, gripped sand. He flung it randomly, defiantly. His face, a contorted mix of strain and sadness.


    "Where are we going." He said again. Less of a question, more of a statement.


    Jeremiah grabbed him by the hand and pulled forward. The boy shimmied out of the grip.


    "I won''t walk until I know where we''re going."


    Again, Jeremiah grabbed his sleeve. He pulled the shirt and the boy pulled back until it ripped. He arm looked like a broken flower, with half the petals strewn on the floor and the other half drooping hopelessly from the bud. The wind cast out again, grabbing the rags high and up into the air, tossing it like confetti in celebration.


    "How can you ask me that?" Jeremiah screamed. "I don''t know where the fuck we are! Or where we''re going! Or why anything like this is happening!"


    "Then why even try." He fell on his knees. "There''s nothing. Just dirt."


    "You need to stop thinking like that. The minute you give up is the minute you die."


    "And what¡¯s wrong with that?"


    His heart sank. His lips quivered and he realized, looking at the boys face, that he had accepted the situation long before Jeremiah had. That for all intents and purposes, Jeremiah had been carrying a corpse on himself and this was their sepulcher.


    He looked at the boy''s empty face.


    "Because I made a promise, that''s why."


    "My dad¡¯s not here. He won¡¯t care. You don¡¯t need to try anymore." Bartholomew said.


    Jeremiah struggled to stand.


    "No." He said in a voice so low as to be indistinguishable before the white noise of the sandy plane. But the boy could read his lips, no. No? "It¡¯s easy to give up, isn¡¯t it? Painless and easy. But it¡¯s not good enough. Alright? This isn¡¯t about having hope or not. Fuck hope. This is about putting up a fight the only way you can. You hear me? This is about not letting those fuckers get your tears, or your pain, or your joy. Because they don¡¯t deserve it. You don''t give them a thing. Nothing. And when you do that, it doesn''t matter where you''re going or where you''re not going. What matters is making it as hard as possible for those tin-head fucks. Let them try to take your soul.


    ¡°This is all I can tell you. This is what your dad would have told you and I¡¯m sorry he¡¯s not here, but you need to take it from me when I say, fight. You keep going. You carry the fire, you keep going until all they have left of you is ash and a big, wide smile. You let them know they didn¡¯t break you. This is how your dad was, always a troublemaker. Always getting into business that wasn¡¯t his. Always trying, even if he couldn¡¯t do much. Putting up a good fight even when you¡¯ve lost is the essence of being a noble human being. It¡¯s an important lesson, it¡¯s one I was taught only recently and one I¡¯m teaching you now. So you better learn it, your dad would hold it against me if I didn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°But he¡¯s not here.¡± The boy screamed.


    ¡°He doesn¡¯t have to be. You¡¯d be amazed what a ghost can do to your sanity.¡± He laughed, for the first time in a long time. It almost felt foreign to him.


    The boy rubbed the sand from his face with his small hands.


    "You can keep going.¡± Jeremiah raised his chin with a tender finger. ¡°I remember the first time I ran at a guy. Fucker was high on meth, running naked across the street. He ran laps around me. I tried ten minutes before I vomited. And you¡¯re dad.¡±


    ¡°My dad?¡±


    ¡°Took him fifteen seconds. I¡¯ve never seen a middle-aged man run as fast as him. He looked like a god damn sprinting whale.¡± Jeremiah wheezed out a small heckle. ¡°I asked him what his secret was and he said it was his fat belly. You see, he said, you put your weight forward and you run like mad.¡±


    They both went at it, with their heads sharp at an angle against the assault of wind.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you start philosophizing now,¡± Jeremiah screamed. ¡°Save that for the egg-heads in their lazy, cushioned chairs, alright?¡±


    He smiled, however false it was and he was glad the boy copied him.


    "I don''t know why you got this kind of life, I don''t know why God designed it for you in this way, but it''s still your life. It''s all you have, in the end. You hold on to it as long as possible and you don¡¯t hand it to anyone. Not to monsters, not to men, not to God. You make ¡®em suffer to try."


    Jeremiah looked up, his head barely reached the edge of the dune around them but he could still see the distinct figure, the footsteps of the figure, in a place he hoped to be far away, but what was eerily close.


    He wiped his face of sweat and snot.


    "What the fuck am I saying?¡± He laughed to himself. ¡°I''m in my twenties and I¡¯m talking like an old man." He said. "Must be the climate, sun must be getting to my head. Scrambling it.


    ¡°Keep going.¡± The boy protested.


    Jeremiah sneered. ¡°That¡¯s good, that¡¯s good."


    The boy ran ahead. Through that molasses sand. They felt it in their shoes, between their toes, in their thighs. The heavy, grating feeling of sand like a file was working at them, shrinking them.


    Jeremiah looked at the boy.


    "It won''t always be this bad, trust me."


    They ran for an hour and at the end were rewarded at last, to the revealing flat desert ahead where dust turned into solid stone, where the road was cracked and hot and the image of the horizon shook with heat.


    He felt glad, funnily enough, at the sight.


    And something else was glad beneath them. A rumbling had begun, something unnoticeable to the two weary travelers. It was a small tremor that they confused for their failing legs. And it was something large, living, crawling, underneath this new territory.


    He looked behind him to the lone figure still trailing them.


    ¡°Go go go. We¡¯ve got a long way to go.¡± Jeremiah pushed the boy. And they both went at it, for whatever was coming, was coming fast.

 Chapter 73 Part 2

    Jeremiah


    He had turned his head over his shoulders twenty-three times and he kept count. He could feel the rocks that came through the holes of his shoes and the way the rubber soles slapped about sounded like a drowning man at the water surface. They clung, just barely, by sweat and will. But it didn''t matter much, discomfort that is. For all he worried about was how to get the boy to safety. He felt two things chasing him, the demon with the large figure and the chasing tremors of a buried horror. He could feel the pulses of the creature, underneath the cracked and desolate earth. He could see the ground move up and vibrate and the twisting of stone as the creature circumvented and went around and played with its food. He saw a tree collapse to his rear. It made a loud bang on the floor and its stems and branches fell off into a rain of bark. Closer.


    Knowing this and knowing the child, Jeremiah wore his best face, something in between anger and determination. He put his hand on Bartholomew.


    "Split up from me when I say so. And when you leave you get as far away as possible, you hear me?"


    The child nodded his head and looked around. It must have been a joke, as if there was any place to actually run.


    They went for some ten minutes, far and steady. Jeremiah looked at the floor, where the bulge of earth was traveling and where the rocks flew out with intense thrashing, hitting his face and his teeth with small particles.


    The astringency on his tongue was harsh, as if his mouth was shrinking and with it, seemingly every muscle on his body. First, his mouth, then his arms, then his heart and at last, as if weakness had been pumped through his body steadily, he felt it in his heart. A quiver, a skip of the beat perhaps. Anxiety, was it? Something worse, worse than not knowing. Maybe knowing too well. The sweat on his hair dragged his head low to the ground. He was done processing it, he knew what it all meant, his worry. He told Bartholomew in a whisper.


    "Run far from me, alright." His voice was abnormally calm. ¡°You get as far as you can get, don¡¯t you stop until I disappear to your small eyes. Till I''m a blip. Then you keep running. Don¡¯t you ever stop, too.¡±


    The boy looked him and his face, eerily calm and still. There was not a single crack on Jeremiah¡¯s young face.


    Bartholomew ran. Jeremiah ran opposite, stomping hard on the floor near the creature. And the simple animal, with his simple hungers, chased after the largest piece of meat. He swam through the desert rock towards Jeremiah.


    He was quick paced, he was light and he came to a simple oak tree somewhere in the few minutes of his running. There were no leaves growing on it and its trunk was filled with the shavings of bark. It was great here, Jeremiah thought. With the branches soft and uninterrupted with the chaos of the hunt. Jeremiah looked to see how far he was, maybe just twenty yards away from the creature. He slowed down around the oak and put his hand on it and felt it through his skin. It was strange to have his senses so heightened, to feel the texture of the bark, rough and frail. To smell the wood, somewhat sweet. To feel the breeze behind his ear and to have that sensation of ebbing in his body. His head faced the clear skies, he swore he saw an eagle. He hoped it to be a dignified bird. It was most likely a vulture, probably.


    Jeremiah ignored the closing sound of the burrowed thing. He made a hat out of his hands and looked to find the boy. The boy was looking at him, disobeying him. He could only sigh and raise his other hand and wave wildly.


    Bartholomew understood the message but he stayed anyway.


    Not again, he thought. He couldn¡¯t scream now though. The sound of crushing rock was too loud. Jeremiah looked at the burrowed thing, like a shark, leaving his trail on the floor. He could see two deep-green antennas flickering and moving to every obtuse step Jeremiah took. He decided to just be still then and let it come with that ruthless discipline, the kind you could only find in the simplistic brains of animals. It was just programming, just instinct for the creature. Another day here. The last day, for Jeremiah.


    It stopped in front of Jeremiah. The earth was still for a moment and peace only seemed to magnify the drama of the next event. Without conceit nor ceremony, it rose. A creature he could only imagine in Hell. A creature with a long-striped body, a trunk of sorts. With legs thigh and nimble, whose small claws latched to stone like feet. On it, a large set of pincers for a face, an armored body for a skin. Some nasty cross abomination between a centipede and a scorpion and through some abominable form of alchemy had managed to take the worst of both. It made no sensible noise. It was loud and screechy and it undermined the oppressive sun within moments. It was cold in the shadow. Jeremiah stood, his thighs forward, almost to a kneel.


    The centipede wrapped around Jeremiah, boa constrictor-like, with a slither with its shiny body. It threw rock casually away until the prison was constructed correctly. Jeremiah couldn¡¯t even tell how large it was, most of the body still remained underground. Its beady eyes stared at Jeremiah, he saw his own reflection eight times. The antennas rattled. They sounded like maracas, he almost laughed. This stupid thing will get me, finally. He thought. A fucking bug?


    It lunged. Jeremiah jumped. He tried to climb out of that trap, pushing down with two arms as he vaulted the first circle of the centipede''s body. He was pulled back with the pincer. He could feel them stabbing through his thighs. And it did not let go. It gobbled and ate with that bored, mechanical mouth. Chomping down, little by little, like a wood chipper. Jeremiah saw his clothes go first, his skin second and at last his flesh and bones. He had to look away at that point.


    A sloppy eater.


    ¡°Fuck off me.¡± He screamed. He struggled, trying to rip his leg (whatever remained of it) out. After a while, he was hoping for the natural opiate of his brain to deliver him unto easy death. It couldn¡¯t. There was too much nibbling and shredding happening. He had to feel his bone scratched and drilled through. He had to feel the marrow leave him empty. He closed his eyes, like casual meditation. His forehead could not stop sweating. He could not stop screaming. Then finally, out of mercy it seemed, the creature stopped. Jeremiah could finally see what remained, the few toes and pieces of bone. He mostly saw nubs, the little-tender-bleeding-amputations.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    He raised his fist into a hammer and brought it down. He felt his thumb break. The creature wasn''t even aware. He moved his antennas around and returned to eating. Jeremiah had his body against the large expanse of the centipede. He could feel the digestive track running. I hope you choke on it, he thought. He punched again.


    He hoped at least that it was just him, that this was just his punishment. Hope didn¡¯t seem to come easy down here though and it didn¡¯t then.


    The child was still there. Watching. Holding his breath. Too courageous or stupid for his own good.


    In a crying fit of rage, he ran towards Jeremiah.


    Both his hands were up like a disarmed cavalry rider. He was running towards Jeremiah.


    Jeremiah saw his tiny head through the slits of the slithering body. The small scalp of hair was bobbing.


    "Get away! Ah" He cringed. ¡°Fuck off!¡±


    He couldn''t feel his leg anymore. Thank god he couldn¡¯t feel his leg. He fell down on the floor. What remained of his foot was pale and contrasted sharply against the yellow rock. It looked like a disease shrub, with skin so mangled as if to look like the hundred ends of thorny plants.


    He crawled up again, towards the sound of Bartholomew crying. The centipede was conscious of it. It turned and dragged its antennas, detectors of life and joy. They wobbled and picked up the signal quickly. Then it dug again, which sounded like the march of an army, which felt like numbness to Jeremiah.


    A stupidly smart creature.


    "No, no, no." He said to himself.


    ¡°I said run!¡± He slammed the floor with open palms and immediately felt the motion underneath the floor. It was going towards the child, the child who came towards Jeremiah. Bait for bait.


    Jeremiah pushed himself off the floor. Almost. He slipped on his blood and fell. He leg felt worthless, like dangling wooden parts of a rope-cut mannequin. Red and white, all his lower body was red and white. Again he pressed down. He could stand on a leg at least.


    He stepped forward. Sharp pain hit him, he slipped and hit his chin on the floor. His brain felt scrambled.


    "Come on, let me run. Let me stand, come on." He said, to God, probably.


    Third time. He lost his balance and hit his shoulder on the cruel, cracked earth.


    "Why am I asking?" Jeremiah said. "Why not just do it, why not just fucking move? Will you?"


    He groaned as he came up off the ground. He took a step, a limped step. A button press, maybe a gift of his blood-drained, fatigued brain, but he saw his life coming before him. He watched every person who had insulted him and every person who had loved him, side by side, cheering and booing so fast together that he could barely tell them apart. It was like a strobing light. Just give up.


    Just stop. You wasted your life. You kept chasing after the vanity of vanities.


    On and on and on, he walked down the path towards Bartholomew and towards the land shark.


    Heinz appeared in front of him. Not smiling, not angry. Somewhat disappointed, wearing that dumb drill instructor hat, wearing the stupid whistle and the black boots. He was too embarrassed not to run.


    Jeremiah put his bad foot forward. He felt pain. Then his good, then his bad, even and fair with the insults.


    His eyelids were heavy.


    What was he doing again? He asked himself. The fog formed in his head, his eyes a constant blur into darkness, as if his body was sinking into the dark depths of an ocean and re-surging like a drunk diver.


    Can I do it? The question of his life. Can I do it for someone else?


    He put his arms forward and stroked them. He put his head forward, it wasn''t hard to do with how heavy it felt. His thighs carried his feet, feet that had been obliterated long ago, feet that could not even hold their own shape. They were deflated, cheapened.


    I can''t disappoint again, Jeremiah thought. If running is all I''m good for, then let me this be my best work.


    The dust came to his lungs, he breathed it in. He ran.


    He bit his tongue and felt it bleed. He ran.


    He could feel the sharp pain of air coming into his lungs.


    He ran up. He felt the blood come down. He ran. He felt his head go light. He ran up. His eyes were tired. He ran. His mouth, bleeding. He ran. Ran. Ran.


    Without sweat, without tiredness, without anything holding him back. Not even life itself. He had nothing to lose, everything to gain.


    The boy was in front of him, reaching for a hug, to be held, to fight that useless fight.


    Jeremiah pushed him. He watched the boy hit the floor with a loud thud and watched the small hands reach over to rub the small bruise on his forehead.


    The child raised his brow and looked, at first, with angry surprise, disappointment, betrayal. Then with shock. With his mouth open, wide, with tears following the contours of the strain on his face. He watched with horror.


    ¡°Behind you.¡± The boy shouted.


    Jeremiah didn''t understand. Was there something funny about him? He sure felt funny. And heavy. His legs seemed to wobble, his lungs felt full, as if he was drowning. The heat seemed to disappear from him, escaping with the blood down his nose.


    Jeremiah¡¯s eyes came down. He felt a sting, then coldness. Foam started up his throat like a seltzer had been shoved into his screaming mouth.


    He kept looking down. He understood then.


    Small armored hands stabbed through him. The spots of blood were forming on his perforated torso. They looked like little spurts, splashed of red ocean water. They stained his shirt. He felt funny.


    Jeremiah reached for his chest to hold the wounds that suckled onto his shirt and that winked. He was lifted and raised high, then thrown to the floor. He stopped breathing then. Between the bones and the wounds, his skeleton seemed broken. The frame of his body, falling to small bone chips and pieces. His head was left to stare at the boy who had fallen on his back and who looked up to the monstrosity. Jeremiah wanted to smile, to comfort at least. He couldn¡¯t move his face though. His thoughts dissipated into dark obscurity. All he could think of was fragmented, words and single pictures with long gaps of time between them. It was not a slide show of his life. And if it was, it was played through a broken projector.


    He thought, by association probably, of that other night with Heinz. The shitty day, with the shitty coffee and the shitty punk and the shitty car. With the unfinished walls and doors and the tarps of blue and the headache pain and the nightmare of his sleep.


    Air escaped his pursed lips. It was supposed to be a scream.


    He looked at the boy, who had his eyes covered. And for an instant, only wished above all else, above family and friends and petty pleasures, Jeremiah wished for the child to be saved.


    The behemoth of the earth rose. His body constricted the very earth itself, held it hostage.


    If I could beg. I would. A thought. It was hard to think now.


    The sun sky went dark. There was a splash of liquid on his face. A dying cry of a monster.


    There was the sound of crying. The sound of small hands shaking his body. And for some reason, it was easier to sleep now.


    If there was no calendar, no clock, no keeper of horrid history then let this stand as a beacon of place and time. Today, Jeremiah died.

 Chapter 74

    Apollo


    Am I late? Apollo thought, a many far yards away from the centipede. He was following the tracks, his head close to the ground, feeling the dirt crumble in his hands and adjusting himself to the shaking of the earth. He was just coming out of those dunes, into the flatlands of scorched, cracked earth. He saw the beast rise high and watched the earth encroached upon and the mounds of dirt and sand exploding into swells of desert. It made him trip and fall from the high spot on the dune. The Hyena lowered his head and smirked. Apollo slid down. He was afraid, knew it, from the shake of his blade. He felt his sweat stick his helmet to his flesh and pull it with his bobbing head. The air bellowed, groaned almost. He landed on the ground and broke into a sprint.


    A scream from across the field flared his face with blood. His eyes shrunk. Still, too far, he thought. He looked around to see what he could do, there was nothing, few trees were here. There were pebbles, small stones, twigs stuck in between the interstices of the hexagon-shaped cracked floor. It¡¯s not like they would have penetrated the armor of the creature anyways. His eyes glanced at his sword, he saw it glean back as if smiling. Apollo raised the sword to his chest and pointed out.


    He spun. He felt his blood pushing out to the outer parts of his fingers like small centrifuged vials. His nose and lips turned red, his eyes followed. His hair pulled through from inside the gaps of his helmet. He spun five times, five full circles of confused dance, until the blade slipped out of his hands.


    It flew high into the air, the half-sword with its tiny shadow, a kind of toothpick. And only by sheer luck it seemed, did it hit its target. Hard through the mouth. Apollo watched a pincer fly off trajectory, plunging into the tough earth with a swift swish.


    The wound spurted out blood. Green, and thickly vile. The animal spun, like Apollo, writhed, like Jeremiah. A natural response to having its teeth and bones ripped from its person. Apollo ran to it at this time, with his head forward and his arms outreached to grab a hold of the creature. He found one of the many hands and climbed, digging his fingers deep into the little gaps separating the armored slots of the animal trunk. Ladders, he thought. Ladders leading to the face and the blade interred into the side of the creature''s mouth. It siphoned the green blood, freshly warmed by the red ring in the sky.


    A shake. All of his armor brushed and clanked. He tightened his grip. Both the creatures outraged thrashing and Apollo¡¯s fear wanted him off. He clung anyways.


    He climbed and felt for the little sword of his. He dug it out and felt the pieces of the exoskeleton brush his shoulder. It looked like a spilling dam with all the spilled blood leaking out. He raised it again, cut again. A set of eyes, an antenna fell off the monster. The animal shook again, Apollo lost most of his balance. He hung by a single arm only, his whole body felt the force yanking him away. It was made worse with the blood right above him, like a fire hydrant with the kind of pressure that could rip flesh from bone. He maneuvered beneath the spillage and felt only the mist of blood and small sprinkled wet taps. He was looking for a good spot, a gap of armor to dig his blade in. He found one, near the top where the neck (assuming there was a neck) would have been. Like a chisel, he fixed his blade in there and began tapping it inside flesh. He worked it with that same artisan intensity, his eyes focused, his palms sweaty, worked it inside the armor and inside the flesh. He felt the squishy body, the flimsy, gelatin-like pink mush for a body. Pushing, pushing, pushed. The injected blade came out another end. A piece of armor fell and a giant swelled wound burst into a shower of blood. Apollo kept his blade in. He was screaming, not louder than the shower, but loud enough to remind himself he was still alive. Like mad surgery, he pulled down on the sword and let go of the body. He let the blade guide him down like a monorail and watched as the wound widened with the stroke of the blade, length-wise through the centipede. It was an autopsy, a filleting of the creature. Apollo hit the floor and his blade followed near him, it whistled against the wind and stabbed its broken edge into the dirt.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    The creature fell, with a cringing convulsion and seizure. The rest of the body still laid in a circle, piled up like a giant green and black rope. The wound poured blood out, that thick, viscous goo as if Apollo had struck an oil vein. It filled the pool green.


    But it was somewhat comfortable, to be sitting in a pool of your enemies life force. To stay there, listening to the death throes of a behemoth disappear into the wind. It was good knowing even monsters bleed, that they die too.


    Apollo¡¯s breathing calmed into a set interval of proper deep gasps. He stretched out his armor and his clothes. It was suctioned on to his flesh and opening the little gap, a small puddle of green good fell out.


    Apollo wiped his forehead, he was watching the flow of the blood, following it as it extended out to the other end of the arena.


    There he saw a boy, still untainted with the green-stuff. He took a step towards him but stopped. He wanted to say something, to offer a hand, but watched closely with tired eyes.


    He was a peculiar boy who did not cry (not yet at least). Who rubbed his eyes and looked around with wide-eyed curiosity. Who looked at Apollo, then adjacent to him. The boy screamed. Not at the monster or to the red-eyed half-devil in front of him. He screamed at Jeremiah. He scrambled for the body on scraped knees. Then his head fell and his body drooped and he sat on his knees, with his nails digging into the dirty earth.


    He was prostrated in front of the corpse of Jeremiah.


    Apollo couldn¡¯t speak. There was a strange quietness about this all. The sound of rushing water was still coming from the body of the giant arthropod. It lent a calmness to the ceremony. There was wind, though it seemed to circumvent the coiled corpse. Apollo let his helmet fall, wind brushed his sweat-grossed hair past his face. It was greasy, wet, tacky. It couldn¡¯t compare to the feeling in his heart though.


    Bartholomew crawled over to Jeremiah. Tear-dry, red-cheeked. He shook the body and prodded the pale face. He looked back to Apollo, Apollo who had nothing to say or do and offer solemn rejection. His tired eyes looked dismally into Jeremiah, the boy knew what this meant, almost instantly. Why wouldn¡¯t he? This wasn¡¯t the first corpse.


    It didn¡¯t hurt any less.


    Bartholomew frowned. His face, undecided in emotional outrage. He grit his teeth, his cheeks swelled.


    He massaged the body again. He put his hands on his chest, pushed down. CPR like he had seen in the movies. Nothing. He slapped Jeremiah¡¯s face. Nothing.


    He grabbed small piles of sand from the dug earth, compressed them as much as his little hands would and pushed them down on the holes of the corpse. Maybe, Apollo thought, maybe he thinks he could fill the holes.


    A small draft blew the dirt aside and left the wounds blood-blackened and exposed.


    Nothing.


    The boy slumped over, his dirty hands in front of his face to cover a new outbreak of tears. Apollo looked up into the sky. He saw birds. He rubbed his nose and looked around and tried to strangle the feeling in his chest. But it popped up, like a hiccup, like a diseased cough. That small uncontrollable tick. When the boy started to scream unintelligibly, when the sound of outraged sadness struck Apollo¡¯s ears, he stopped thinking about suppressing anything. His body stopped shaking, his chest stopped stretching. His body let go.


    It must have been the first time in eight years since Apollo cried. And now he remembered how bad it felt.

 Chapter 75

    Dion


    The choir of men played around the white circle. They screamed vulgarities at Dion. Dion whom, just punched in the face, crumpled on the floor with his loose teeth hanging down his lips. They did not grow back as fast, as well, as they should. He sat there, on the floor, like a small teething infant, with his hands to his face and the little knobs of white forming on his bleeding gums. He faced down. His body was bruised and healing and bruising again, his flesh changing color from green and purple to pink to tan like a confused chameleon.


    All around him the men threw small bronze coins, crudely etched onto them, a different number and a different face of Astyanax. They threw them on the floor near Dion, somewhere outside a white chalk line. They were betting on him or rather the many things about him: whether he would stand up again, whether he would survive another five minutes, whether he¡¯d win or live even. It went on, some demons taking tallies and small tips as people lost and won.


    The demon in front of Dion walked up. He was nude almost, with a brown cloth covering his genitals. He pushed his scarred and dry, flaking feet on Dion¡¯s face and rubbed it down on his chin.


    ¡°Come on, fight,¡± Astyanax said from behind the crowd. He was looking with suspicion more than pleasure.


    Dion spat blood on the floor, it tainted a bundle of bronze coins.


    The foot rose high above him.


    ¡°Show me something, I tell ye.¡± Astyanax screamed. Dion closed his eyes and breathed heavily, the foot hovered over his skull.


    ¡°You won¡¯t heal that, you¡¯ll die. Understand?¡± Astyanax said. It was coming down, Dion felt the air push back as it did.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Astyanax screamed. All the deranged creatures turned to stare at Astyanax. His chest jumped up and down, his breathing was quick and deep. He stood from his wooden rocking chair and walked to the wrestling circle.


    ¡°Why stop me?¡± The competitor said with that stupid, deformed smile of his. Astyanax eyed him up and down. His face soured and he cocked his hand back. Blood flew everywhere. The competitor hurled back. Astyanax grabbed his head before he could land and sunk a thumb into his left eye until he felt it pop underneath.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you ever question me.¡± He said. The other men heard it better than the demon, who lay on the floor in throes.


    A deviant demon, a small imp-like specimen, shuffled below the feet of the other betters. He was collecting.


    Astyanax knelled over Dion, who looked up with his half-healed, half-broken face. It looked like steel sheets at the forge, some of it mended and treated and the other red and dark and malleable. Dion whistled from his broken nose. He coughed some. Astyanax fixed two thumbs around the hook-shaped thing and felt for the cartilage and bone. He snapped it back into place.


    ¡°You might redeem yourself if you¡¯d just fight. I¡¯d even forgive your transgression if you would.¡±


    ¡°I have nothing to fight for. I have nothing to apologize for.¡± Dion belched snot and blood. ¡°I had a chance to kill you and failed.¡±


    ¡°The men will kill you and rape you and take from you everything. You will be a figure of fun for the rest of your days, is that what you¡¯d like? O¡¯ noble Dion?¡± Astyanax tapped his face, amicably. ¡°You¡¯re not a pacifist. It¡¯s not in your blood, believe me.¡±


    ¡°If it makes you more miserable, that¡¯s good enough for me.¡± Dion looked past the king and towards the candle holders and wicks circling the small room.


    ¡°What do I care what happens to you?¡±


    ¡°Well, you¡¯re here, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re so stupid,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°Feel free to meditate in your small box, then.¡± Two men came up behind him. ¡°Take him away and don¡¯t feed him this time. Starvation will break him.¡±


    Two demons came around with their beige tunics and lifted Dion, dragged him by his arms and legs through the doors and the many halls of the dungeon. He laid in their arms coming in and out of consciousness and caught glimpses of the blurry shadows across the walls. They morphed and curved.


    He awoke again at the height of air. He was thrown into a cell. The four-inch-thick metal bars clanked behind him as he rolled down the filthy floor, stopping only at the end of the room. Near him, a bucket and the smell of excrement.


    Time passed even slow down there, as if the everlasting sun wasn¡¯t enough a prod and poker of sanity, there was darkness now. Torches that seemed to burn forever, brick and mortar walls with the small gaps that allowed dust and light inside. There was no change of day, he knew. No escape, he felt. Dion dragged his body up, two joints rubbed against each other wrongly around his shoulder. He snapped it back into place and rested his bad side against the wall of the prison. He was feeling residual pain, which was odd.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Mortality, after all, was odd for Vicars.


    He laid in a corner of the room thinking that, with closed eyes and his cauliflower ear stinging and ringing. He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to fall into it, to dream. His eyelids began to burden themselves, to overwhelm him. And just before he could close them fully, before the sound of distant footsteps could disappear, he slipped out of it. Rather, was thrown out of it.


    There was a loud bang in the front of the cell. A collection of successive blows against the metal bars, the sound made the local prisoners aggressive. They began to screech in strange languages.


    Dion turned to face the source. He felt worse for some reason.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± He asked.


    Alestor sniffed and covered his nose with one hand. He extended a metal cup with the other, it barely fit through the bars. A drink? Something like it. It looked like that bitter black sludge he had earlier at the kitchen, days ago (or what felt like days).


    ¡°I managed to convince him to give you this. As a diplomatic gesture.¡± Alestor said. ¡°He wants you to know that you are not, in his words, a plebeian. Though you may act like one. And he would prefer that you, in his words, act with more dignity.¡±


    Dion took the cup and drank. He felt better, his pain seemed to subside a little. Calories, after all, wherever they came from, were vital to that nasty process of revitalization and regeneration.


    ¡°I bet you feel smug and strong, huh? With me behind the bars now.¡± Dion said. ¡°Does it feel good being a lapdog?¡±


    ¡°Better out here than in there.¡± Alestor pinched his nose.


    ¡°So was your cry of guilt a lie too?¡± Dion asked. ¡°Is that all it takes to make you feel good, a little air?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Alestor said. ¡°No, none of what I said was a lie.¡±


    ¡°Good.¡± Dion drank again. ¡°Is there another message from your master?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Alestor looked down.


    Dion sipped. He limped all the way to right side of the wall and put his back against it to slide down gently onto his ass.


    ¡°It was stupid trying to kill Astyanax.¡± Alestor said.


    ¡°Is that what he told you to say too?¡±


    ¡°You knew that you would fuck it up. You tried killing him with a potted plant, after all.¡± Alestor rubbed his forehead. ¡°What a stupid plan. Why do it? You had a good deal.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re still so stupidly gullible, aren¡¯t you?¡± Dion scoffed. ¡°That¡¯s what my friend would have said, anyways. And he¡¯d be right. I may be an idiot but at least I still have a brain, doctor.¡±


    Alestor wrapped his hands around two bars and pressed his face against them.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°You believed him when he said he¡¯d bring back your family and you believe him now, with his convenient deal?¡± Dion asked. ¡°That everyone is nice and safe and that they¡¯re free to go so long as I comply? Did you even see these supposed prisoners?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Because they don¡¯t exist.¡± Dion said. ¡°I¡¯ve accepted that fact long ago.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s keeping you alive so maybe you should cooperate, make your life a little easier.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s always wanted me here. It¡¯s all a game to him and I¡¯m the zoo animal. And if he¡¯s frustrated, it¡¯s because that¡¯s part of the fun too.¡± Dion looked away. ¡°That¡¯s all he wants, company to harass. Company to destroy. Nothing more. Why would he tell the truth, after all? He has what he wants.¡±


    Alestor bit the interior of his mouth.


    ¡°He has as many docile pets as he¡¯d ever need.¡± Dion laughed. ¡°Who am I kidding? He¡¯ll probably be bored within the month. And out again, he¡¯ll hunt for more. A living Venus fly trap. He¡¯s probably sweet mouthing another poor idiot like you as we speak.¡±


    ¡°So that¡¯s it? You¡¯ve given up?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m taking things as they come.¡± Dion sighed. ¡°My hot-headedness, my violence brought me here. If I was a bit calmer, more compliant, more thoughtful. If I¡¯d just listen¡­¡±


    ¡°You could have stopped yourself.¡±


    ¡°I could have stopped you.¡± The torch fires flickered. ¡°I could have killed you a long time ago. Now? Why does it matter now? Revenge? Revenge only makes my situation worse.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± Alestor said. ¡°You were a pain in my ass before, so why can¡¯t you show me that same energy now and try and kill that prick again?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯d like that.¡± Dion said. ¡°You¡¯re always thinking about yourself before anyone else, after all, Doctor.¡±


    The word doctor seemed to stab into Alestor¡¯s guts. He twitched.


    ¡°I¡¯m angry at how calm you are with all of this. I¡¯m frustrated that you¡¯d let that demon run around, knowing he still causes that much grief. I¡¯m frustrated you¡¯re a pushover. Who cares what happens to me?¡± Alestor asked. ¡°I¡¯m already doomed. At least punish him too, isn¡¯t that what you¡¯re here for? Vengeance? Punish him as much as me. We both deserve it.¡±


    ¡°I am punishing him.¡± Dion laid on his back. ¡°I¡¯m boring him to death. I¡¯m not even giving him the pleasure of watching me. If I suffer, I suffer quietly. That¡¯s the thing that drives him wild, seeing his exceptional pet act in very uninspiring ways. He hates that.¡±


    Alestor banged on the bars. The other prisoners howled.


    ¡°That¡¯s it?! That¡¯s your plan? Behaving like a fucking saint?¡±


    ¡°Until my time comes, yes.¡± Dion said.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to rot is what you¡¯re going to do.¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not.¡± Dion closed his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m repenting. I¡¯m making myself a meek man. And I¡¯m sure the Lord will save me, one way or another.¡±


    ¡°Show some spine.¡±


    ¡°It eats away with me,¡± Dion said. ¡°Knowing that whatever lives in your king lives inside of me too. That long-lasting desire, that primitive thing. I can¡¯t keep fighting knowing each time I do I get closer to becoming a psychopath like him.¡±


    ¡°Stop being so pretentious, you little ass. Do your job and hunt him down.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Dion said. ¡°I spent so much time hunting you down. Enjoying the process, feeling guilty and sad. I don¡¯t even know if my tears were authentic, sometimes I think that maybe, deep down inside, I just wanted an excuse to kill someone. I just wanted to be mad to be mad. And my voracious appetite made me sloppy, it let you slip away. If I had worked as hard as Apollo, together with him, maybe¡­¡±


    His head nodded back and forth.


    ¡°Stop self-reflecting, act.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m praying now. For my soul, for yours, for everyone you killed down here. I¡¯m just praying.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t need a Catholic right now.¡± Alestor kicked the bars. He felt another bout of melancholy coming up. ¡°I need a soldier!¡±


    ¡°Then maybe you should start praying too.¡± Dion said. Alestor cringed, he pointed to the cup, demanded it. It rolled down, below the gates, most of it un-drunk and spilling on the floor. Alestor looked at it for a moment in his hands. He poured out the rest in front of the cell, hoping Dion would watch, hoping he would feel regret.


    He didn¡¯t. He laid down with his back on a pile of hay and his head nodding off to some imaginary rosary, to some imaginary lines of scripture.


    He wanted to scream again. But didn¡¯t. He walked away and soon even his footsteps disappeared. He walked away, saying (screaming), into the ward of prisoners: ¡°We both want the same thing, idiot. Why can¡¯t you see?¡±


    It sounded pained, like a groan.

 Chapter 76 - Episode 7

    Apollo


    ¡°You should say something.¡± The Hyena dug its snout into the ground and threw the black dirt towards the rising fire. A modest gesture.


    ¡°No.¡± Apollo said. Because there was nothing more seemingly frightening than having to share words with a mourning child. He could barely do it with an adult, even with all the years of toughening and forging. How could he then, help a fragile person? He didn¡¯t have that inconsequential foolhardiness in him. Not now.


    The corpse of Jeremiah laid on a pile of dried wood, the cut-down tree lay some pile away. He burned quickly, efficiently, easily and that made Apollo somewhat glad. There was not much smell to it either, the wind kept blowing against the smoke. There wasn¡¯t any difficulty to any of this, physically at least. He threw in sticks every time the fire looked just about to fall. It was an easy funeral to make, a harder one to tolerate and one that would not have existed period, had the boy not protested.


    ¡°Why does a corpse care if it''s burned or buried or left to rot?¡± Apollo whispered to the Hyena.


    ¡°He can hear you.¡±


    ¡°Then he should know we need to hurry up.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re absolutely, socially inept.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m practical. I didn¡¯t know the man so I can¡¯t say I care for him. What I do care about, though, is getting out and that needs to happen faster rather than later.¡±


    ¡°Practical?¡± His voice sounded sly, smug. His tail wagged left and right. ¡°Was crying, practical?¡±


    ¡°No, but it was normal.¡± He said. ¡°Even I¡¯m not that cruel.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not cruel in the right order.¡± He yawned, its wide mouth showing the sleek, yellow teeth. ¡°Stern with your friends, merciful with enemies. It should be the other way around.¡±


    ¡°What do you know?¡±


    ¡°Everything.¡±


    Apollo¡¯s leg shook. He tapped the floor and rubbed his hair and stretched his arms.


    ¡°Are you anxious?¡± The Hyena smirked.


    ¡°Who wouldn¡¯t be? You¡¯re having me kill a man who by all accounts of reason, seems to be the worst thing on this island.¡± Apollo spat. ¡°I¡¯m getting fucked and I can¡¯t even get a god damn reach around.¡±


    ¡°Still talking irresponsibly? It¡¯s not me who''s having you do anything. It¡¯s all your choice and yours only. You¡¯re free to leave, you know.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± He stepped on the stain left by his saliva. He stretched his neck and those tensed muscles that tightened his face.


    ¡°You¡¯re worried about Dion, aren¡¯t you?¡± The Hyena laughed. The boy looked at both of them, quiet grief reflected from his eyes. It looked like a dying fire. Apollo threw a stick into the pyre and hushed the dog.


    ¡°Maybe. Maybe I¡¯m just curious. I¡¯m wondering if the retard managed to stay alive.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll find him. He¡¯s probably gotten to Astyanax already.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re probably right.¡± Apollo cringed, he felt his eyelid tense. ¡°More of a reason to hurry this shit up.¡±


    ¡°I thought you weren¡¯t cruel?¡± He giggled.


    ¡°Cruelty would be staying here. Letting the living die to watch a dead man burn, what sense is there in that?¡±


    Apollo came down the small slope.


    These were warped lands, waving up and down and from them, an outgrown stretch of dried trees. Little seeds grew from their limbs, a mute-colored yellow. They looked like bells. There were no leaves and no solid shadows, the tall trees kept straying from the winds. It was hard to even call them trees, they looked and felt like weeds. Giant thorns, brittle and chalky at the touch. A forest of thorns.


    He walked over to the boy, the Hyena following steadily behind.


    ¡°Hey, we need to go.¡± He grabbed Bartholomew''s hand. The boy wiggled out.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want anyone to have him.¡± He said.


    ¡°Who? What?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Not you or the monsters or this dump. No one should have him.¡± The boy protested. Apollo stared, confused.


    ¡°He¡¯ll be ash in a second. Specks in the air in the minute. And desert dust within the hour.¡± He put his hand on the child¡¯s shoulder. ¡°You being here or not isn¡¯t going to change that. So let''s go.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not how you talk to a child.¡± The Hyena laughed.


    ¡°Shut up.¡± Apollo looked at Bartholomew. His face was scratched, his lips were burst and the scar tissue on his forehead was overlapping. Is he even a kid anymore? He thought.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to leave him.¡± Bartholomew said.


    ¡°I think your friend would have preferred if you did. Why waste all that effort getting away in the first place?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°He wasn¡¯t my friend.¡± Bartholomew threw a stick into the fire. ¡°He was my father''s friend and now he¡¯s gone.¡±


    There was something to it, a truth hidden underneath that statement that almost piqued Apollo. But a squawk of birds above, a drop of a branch to his rear, a shaking of the trees pushed him away from asking. He waited instead, for the boy to be done, waited for him to throw every stick in his little piles into that fire. And he watched the metamorphosis. It was a funeral for the child too, he thought.


    The fire spat back. Bartholomew reached down for a stick and found nothing. He stopped then to look at the body, if there was even a body left, inside the tower of flames. A blackened figure showed for a moment, then drowned in the orange and red and yellow and white. More embers flew out. Apollo stepped away and worried for a second if the woods would burn down with the outraged fire. Then realized, he¡¯d prefer if they did. That way he could hurt the damned island, even if just a little.


    The Hyena raised his head, at last, shook some dirt off his fur and pointed his nose towards a direction.


    ¡°It¡¯s done.¡± He said. ¡°Let''s get going. We need to make it to the top.¡±


    Bartholomew nodded waited a bit before nodding. He led the way.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°Mine¡¯s Apollo. Just, Apollo.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not.¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°Be quiet.¡±


    There was a pause.


    ¡°I¡¯m Bartholomew.¡± He said. ¡°Bartholomew, Heinz.¡±


    ¡°You sound familiar.¡± Apollo frowned. Of course he did, he thought. Of course, he is. Goddamnit, it could have been anyone and it¡¯s this kid?


    ¡°My dad was a policeman.¡± The boy said in his monotone voice. ¡°He died. It was on the new. You must have heard my name from that.¡±


    He walked with indifference.


    It had to be him, the boy of the man who had been stabbed that day, in the middle of that night. The start of the comatose, the beginning of his death. It just had to be the son of the man he had failed. Apollo felt his stomach turn like a wheel had tangled and twisted his internal organs. He felt the anxiety all throughout, the twisting pain and he tried very hard to walk straight and confident. He knew the boy didn¡¯t know who he was, and that kind of ignorance was a blessing.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry for your loss.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Are you?¡± The boy asked. ¡°People said that to me all the time. Usually when they wanted stuff. Like the Captain or the mayor or whatever person was my dad¡¯s boss. It¡¯d always go like that ¡®I¡¯m sorry for your loss, but¡­¡¯ and I¡¯d know they want something. ¡®Cause they always continued with a but.¡±


    Apollo narrowed his eyes. The mayor? The Captain?


    ¡°What¡¯d they want?¡± He asked.


    ¡°For me to not talk to reporters. For me to be friends. I don¡¯t think they wanted to be friends though.¡±


    ¡°Whens the last time you saw them?¡±


    ¡°At church today. Or whenever today was. They were wearing black hoodies. Masks. They looked like moose''s, pretty dumb.¡± Bartholomew stopped. ¡°I can¡¯t tell. Has a day passed?¡±


    Apollo walked ahead of him. Guilt, curiosity, shame moved him. He stared at the boy''s blank face. There was a dullness to the child, an apathetic stare. It seemed a bit bold, matured even. But something important was missing on his face, something taken.


    ¡°Tell me everything about the church. What happened?¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± The boy asked. ¡°I don¡¯t like you.¡±


    ¡°I figure you owe me, for saving your life and for burning your friend.¡±


    ¡°Owe? I didn¡¯t ask you for anything.¡± Bartholomew said. ¡°You can leave me, what do I care if you¡¯re here or not. Everyone leaves me.¡±


    Another silence passed over them before the Hyena exclaimed, with a loud breath.


    ¡°He¡¯s a detective. A kind of detective. And he just wants answers.¡±


    ¡°What? Like for the police? What are you doing here then? Stop lying.¡± Bartholomew inspected Apollo¡¯s face. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen him work with my dad. And I knew everyone who worked with my dad. Plus, he looks funny, like those dumb monsters with the big trashcans on them.¡±


    ¡°You little shit-¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°What are you going to do?¡± The Hyena asked. ¡°Threaten a child for information? Answers to questions that don¡¯t matter to anyone but you?¡±


    ¡°When you¡¯ve been chasing a man and a thing for so long, you start to get hungry.¡± Apollo steadied himself and rubbed his shoulder. ¡°I need you to answer me, kid. It¡¯s just personal curiosity is all.¡±


    Bartholomew looked at the both of them. Seeing a talking dog, seeing a reasonable monster-demon-thing (as he thought of them), didn¡¯t seem so strange. Nothing seemed strange, nothing surprised him. That was what his face was empty of, Apollo thought, innocence.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care anymore.¡± Bartholomew said. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you everything.¡±


    He told them about the church, about the black sabbath and Isaac who had been killed and everyone who had been abducted. He talked about the Captain and the Mayor in their strange black dresses that made them look like mooses (as he described it) and about how this all happened so far back that the boy didn¡¯t even care anymore. Not about the violence, not about the death. That everyone died around him and that he was used to it, whether he liked it or not. That his eyes couldn¡¯t cry anymore, that he didn¡¯t know where he was or where he was going or how he was getting there. It was like living in the nightmare, the kid said. And you don¡¯t ask questions in a dream.


    ¡°The Captain? The Mayor? The black priest, Alestor. Where are they now?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°They both got killed real early. Stabbed with spears.¡± Bartholomew said. ¡°Most of the weird black dress people died too. Except for that Alestor guy. I don¡¯t know who or where he is. That¡¯s all I know.¡±


    ¡°So, the mayor and the captain are fucking dead, huh?¡± Apollo said. ¡°And those minions, the cultists, all dead? I can¡¯t feel but help that maybe some of them didn¡¯t know what they were getting into.¡±


    ¡°That sure sounds like pity to me.¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°Maybe. I have pity for the kid and the bystanders attending church, sure.¡± Apollo said. ¡°I might even have pity for the mentally diseased Alestor strung around himself. Madness attracting madness, like the orbit of stars and planets.¡± He paused. ¡°But the Captain, the Mayor, Alestor himself? Fuck them. I¡¯m glad they¡¯re gone.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the spirit.¡± The Hyena smiled. ¡°Savage desires meet savage ends, always.¡±


    Apollo frowned.


    ¡°What?¡± The Hyena asked.


    ¡°I get the feeling somethings wrong.¡±


    ¡°Relative to what? You¡¯re in Hell.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± The boy chimed.


    ¡°Something feels off.¡± They both ignored him and walked ahead.


    The wrinkles appeared on Apollo¡¯s face like cracks.


    ¡°You¡¯re weird and you say funny things. Not in a good way.¡± Bartholomew said. He hung his head at a slant. ¡°Your talking dog is weird too.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s not a dog.¡±


    ¡°What is he then?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve been trying to get him to tell me for the longest time.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Bartholomew walked past him. Up the hill.


    ¡°Is this really hell?¡± He asked.


    Apollo scratched his chin, dismissive almost in his deep contemplation.


    ¡°Sure.¡± He said.


    ¡°I thought only bad people go to tell. I wasn¡¯t that bad.¡± He said. ¡°I don¡¯t think¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not by choice or will that you¡¯re down here. You¡¯re a victim of circumstance.¡± He said.


    ¡°Oh.¡± The boy said.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t asked me where we¡¯re going.¡± Apollo outstretched his arms. He started walking. ¡°You should be more curious.¡±


    ¡°Oh.¡± Bartholomew repeated.


    They continued in silence. Behind them, the smell of burning wood, of ash, of dust and of the past.

 Chapter 77

    Astyanax


    Weeks after the funeral of Jeremiah


    He had gotten sick of it. Staring out through the window, in the corner of his eyes where the slaves towed the fields with their dragging stones of marble, like the slaves of Egypt. He had gotten sick of the lines in the dirt, of the sound of their slopping footsteps stepping onto soft clay and mud. He had gotten sick of Dion, at the head of the pack of six slaves, with ropes attached to his chest like a common barn animal, dragging the stones through.


    And the cathedral. The cathedral that stood near him, near the barracks and the common fields, the cathedral behind the whole palace. With a strange blend of Gothic, Roman corners and pillars, with the high towers and arches that blocked even the aqueducts. He hated seeing it, even though he, Astyanax, had made it.


    The looming tower, the slaves near the fields of it, the demonic legionnaires in lazy wait. All of it angered Astyanax, seeing a man he admired and loved, seeing them this docile, this stupid, this obedient. He felt disgust.


    The beatings obviously weren¡¯t enough. Starvation obviously wasn¡¯t enough. Labor work? Dion probably enjoyed it by now. His body seemed to run on something else, something nonexhaustive, something that glistened his eyes each time he looked at Astyanax. It wasn¡¯t anger, pleasure. It was something that, to Astyanax, seemed worse. Something extremely sinister. A symptom gone undiagnosed that now threatened to plague Astyanax, and worse, the rest of the slaves in the pen.


    Astyanax withdrew himself from the window sill and charged down the stairs. He didn¡¯t waste time putting on his cape, or the large purple tunic. He didn¡¯t wear his pins or embroidered fabrics, he came down with those peasant clothes as if to join the slaves in their toiling.


    Out into the halls, through the first wall of his little city, he opened two wooden doors. The grassy fields blew gently, the little paradise in this desert hell. He ran towards the slaves. Horace followed behind, picked up along the way like like a ship in a storm, dragged and thrown about.


    ¡°What are you doing, young master?¡± He rubbed his hands together and tried to get ahead of the king.


    ¡°None of your business, get back.¡± Astyanax reached inside a wooden compound, an armory it looked. He plucked a leather whip from one of the boxes, the many ends licked the floor. The sound made Horace cringe. Muscle memory.


    ¡°What are you trying to do? Everyones working as demanded.¡± He said.


    ¡°Do I need a reason to beat someone?¡± He kicked Horace away and watched him roll on the floor. ¡°My heart demands I move, and I listen.¡±


    Horace struggled to fix himself up, his clothes were dirtied.


    ¡°Wanton desires will kill you, young master. Please be patient.¡± He said.


    He didn¡¯t listen. He went on through the fields, towards the murmur of moans and the sound of dragging earth. He went towards Dion, whose face was kept forward like a bold look of eagles. There was a tight rope around his chest and arms, they branded him with the design of threads. He turned his face only briefly, his hair didn¡¯t even had time to rest before he felt the lashing on his chest.


    His rags went with his skin, off and away, like small paper strips. Paper airplanes in the air, bleeding red. He fell to the floor and the ton of slab behind him wobbled before being assuaged into standstill.


    ¡°Is this what you want to be?¡± He shot out again. ¡°A beast of burden?¡±


    Flesh ripped, blood sprayed against the marble stone and the swirls of black and white mixed with red, Dion looked up.


    ¡°You¡¯re a warrior, aren¡¯t you?¡± Astyanax screamed. Horace came around to pull him back, but he couldn¡¯t. Astyanax cocked his hands and shot out six times. The lashings were quick and cut deep and on the seventh, when the leather straps seemed broken, when the ends of the whip themselves seemed dangle like busted limbs, Dion grabbed back.


    He tugged on the whip from the bottom of the floor. He had some anger in him, a mild flaring of nostrils and focus of eyes. But those subsided along with his wounds. He ripped his shirt off, it dragged with blood and sweat and he stood to face the king.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    ¡°You¡¯re weaker than before.¡± Astyanax pulled, like a master with his dog. ¡°How long do you think you¡¯ll last? Do you intend to make your death as painful as possible? With an empty stomach and empty strength?¡±


    He circled Dion. Horace tried following but slipped, his old body caked with dirt.


    ¡°I want to see that look on your face break, I really do.¡± He said. ¡°Should I make it slow then, just flay you live, make you beg for it? It wouldn¡¯t be hard.¡±


    Dion breathed deeply. He looked at the blank sky.


    ¡°Is that death fit for warriors?¡± Astyanax slapped the floor with his whip. ¡°Say something!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not a warrior,¡± Dion lipped the words but did not speak them.


    ¡°What was that?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not a warrior.¡± He said. ¡°I¡¯m just a man.¡±


    The other slaves, those morphed and mutilated creatures, looked with their eyes (or eye), their mouths open and their faces drooling.


    ¡°I¡¯m just a man,¡± Dion said. ¡°It¡¯s all I¡¯ve ever been.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re a boy,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°A masochist too, a Catholic choir boy, too stupid to know what greatness and pleasure await you.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine being stupid and childish.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s not fine.¡± He whipped his legs and watched them turn red before healing, slowly. ¡°I thought us kin. I still do.¡±


    ¡°Is that why I bother you? You can¡¯t look in a mirror?¡±


    They all heard the whip crack again. It snapped against the floor.


    ¡°Do you think yourself a martyr?¡± Astyanax said. ¡°I¡¯ve asked you to fight men, to prove yourself, to take yourself the title that of which is owed to you. I¡¯ve offered you a place here.¡±


    ¡°I have no interest in entertaining you.¡± Dion focused his eyes. ¡°I don¡¯t want to be your friend. I don¡¯t want to have custody over a desert, in the middle of Hell. To spend my years here, with you. No. Who would want that?¡±


    ¡°So that¡¯s how it is.¡± He threw the whip to his side. ¡°What do you want?¡±


    Dion¡¯s eyes narrowed. Was this a trick? There was a kind of defeatist posture to Astyanax, that low, boxed up posture.


    ¡°Well?¡±


    Dion said nothing, he kept his focused rage towards the king.


    ¡°Of course,¡± The corner of his lips twitched. ¡°I¡¯ve known what you wanted. The purpose, the stakes.


    Horace came up and touched grabbed his ankles.


    ¡°Stop, don¡¯t do this,¡± Horace said. Astyanax dug his heel into his jaw and pushed the old butler to the side.


    ¡°Do you think I won¡¯t fight you? That I¡¯m afraid?¡±


    ¡°Ever since you invited me here, you¡¯ve kept me de-clawed. You¡¯ve taken my weapons, you¡¯ve made me play the obedient dog. It sure seems like you¡¯re afraid.¡±


    ¡°Afraid of what? I have thousands of years worth of experience on you. I¡¯ve been in this Hell before your precious Jesus was even born, before your church was ever made.¡±


    They both stared at each other, even eyed. The slaves now gawked with similar intensity, the guards became drawn to the conflict, more curious than cautious for their precious king''s safety.


    ¡°We should have done this a long time ago,¡± Dion said. ¡°Wealth didn¡¯t work. Courtesy didn¡¯t work. Stockholm syndrome didn¡¯t work. I¡¯ve known what I wanted.¡±


    Astyanax rubbed his face.


    ¡°I loved you. I wanted you, so, so much.¡± Astyanax felt his grip loosen. ¡°I¡¯ll be alone again, after you¡¯re gone.¡±


    ¡°You were always alone.¡±


    His hands felt loose, slippery. Astyanax took a step back and let his eyes fall on the nearest guard. They looked sharper, thinner, beady like a crow. His breaths were controlled and calculated, his gestures cold, stern. His regal nature, killed. His mood, sobered.


    ¡°You won¡¯t win.¡± Astyanax felt the wind between his red fingers and white hair. His eyes looked like two yellow moons, big and demanding and all imposing.


    ¡°Oh no, no, no, please no,¡± Horace said.


    ¡°Are you sure about that, old man?¡± Dion smiled. He tried to suppress the happy feeling in him, tried to convince himself better than the king. But his hands couldn¡¯t help but tremble.


    ¡°Are you sure?¡± Astyanax asked. Dion nodded.


    ¡°It won¡¯t be today. But it will be soon, very soon.¡± He turned. His face looked down. ¡°We¡¯ll need an audience for your funeral. If you won¡¯t be remembered in life, you¡¯ll be remembered in death. Are you sure about this?¡±


    ¡°I have God on my side, what am I to fear?¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t we all? We¡¯re all to His image, we¡¯re all apart of His plan.¡± Astyanax slicked his long white hair back. ¡°And if everything exists only with his say-so, that if my desire is also God¡¯s will, then it¡¯s safe to say that I have him on my side, as well. Right?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to think you¡¯d have a chance to ask him yourself, but where I¡¯m sending you, there¡¯s nothing. No answers, no questions. A man without form, with nothing but his dark soul, I¡¯ll send you to oblivion.¡± Dion said. ¡°I¡¯ll bury you here, in your own kingdom and whatever you were, or are, will be gone. That¡¯s the truth.¡±


    ¡°No, no, no.¡± Astyanax frowned. His eyes seemed to drag in and around his eye sockets like loose billiards. ¡°I¡¯ve already foreseen it. I see it now, your body will be torn, bleeding, and dragged about my home. Like Achilles did to my father, I too will do to you. That will be your glory, as a ragdoll strapped to horses. I promise.¡±


    There was nothing left to say. The wind too, seemed hesitant to blow. Astyanax left there, Horace followed quickly after and Dion, with the other slaves, stood indifferently.


    The guards, as if in accordance to some unwritten law, left Dion alone. He was free, to some extent. He walked the grounds, looking for nothing in particular, seeing nothing in particular. And one seemed to stop him. He was free indeed.


    And it was funny thinking then, that he¡¯d wait in that room with the cage. That bedroom.


    He¡¯d wait for his call, the call for war and he wondered what it would sound like. A moan? A shout? A cry.

 Chapter 78

    Horace


    Horace followed Astyanax through the cathedral and its gaudy chambers. All around the main preacher hall, the wooden benches were broken and splintered, the round ceiling tops in the brink of collapse as the painted glass fell like stray drops of candy-colored water. Horace tiptoed and maneuvered around the stray nails and wood and sharp stone, his whole body small and hunched over. The wide, chubby face with the beard that touched the floor and the long-nailed hands he kept close to him to avoid cutting himself on the wreckage of the church.


    ¡°You should have never taken him in, you should have killed him from the very beginning,¡± Horace said. ¡°You knew he was an assassin, you knew how this would end. And now, now-¡±


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯ll lose?¡± Astyanax asked. They stopped at the very front of the church, where the floor was elevated for the preacher or would-be preacher. Where the baptismal pond, the ceremonial font vibrated with the loud shout of Astyanax. There were rusted organs, crude shaped things like the pipes of an engine that fueled this hell. A critter inside shook, made a scratching noise and traversed the copper.


    ¡°N-no, master,¡± Horace said. ¡°But it¡¯s my responsibility to worry about you.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s the only thing you¡¯ve been good at. Worrying.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°Thousands of years of worrying, doesn¡¯t it get boring? Aren¡¯t you dreadfully bored of thinking the same thing for so long? What do I even lose, explain it to me?¡±


    ¡°The only thing worth losing, master, your soul. It¡¯s everything.¡±


    ¡°Is it though!¡± Astyanax kicked the wall in front of him. The vaulted ceilings shook, bits of stone fell off. The candlesticks, flat and dusty, toppled over. In front of Astyanax, a wooden cross fell down, anchored to the floor. The nail hinges it hung by were broken, the glued sections took with them the piece of the wall they had been stuck to. Both of them looked at it, Astyanax¡¯s demure darkening underneath the shadows of buttresses high and above the glass walls. His form came in and out of that darkness, and with it, the sharp-blaring sound of the cross scratching the uneven floor. Bumps, pivots, like loud drum bangs as the cross moved around the steps and holes of the floor.


    ¡°Perfect,¡± Astyanax said. He took the cross out to the rear door, through a confessional chamber and through a gallery of statues. Priam, Aeneas, Hector. The old family of that old world, with their worn and broken faces, staring down at their heir.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Horace asked. ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of oblivion? There¡¯s no coming back from that, young master.¡±


    Astyanax shielded his eyes from the sun and scanned the area around him. He tried to remember the years in which he built this cathedral. He couldn¡¯t find the memory, only the feeling of what had made him for a brief moment, consider God. When was it?


    Those crusades, perhaps. Those long-lasting crusades that had inspired him to build this church. Not at first, of course. The Gothic inspiration came years after the wars. All he had to the church, at first, was a small house with a small cross. It hadn¡¯t been until nearly half a thousand years later where he would witness the imposing fortress of a proper Cathedral. What a strange thing, he thought, looking out in the field and the shadow overcast by the building. He had held onto that faith for almost five hundred, maybe, six hundred years.


    To build this gaudy church on this gaudy land to satisfy a God that had abandoned him, and the years¡­


    The years! He had crawled onto the steps of this cathedral and prayed in that foreign faith, abandoning those Roman gods of his, for an imaginary blessing.


    That foreign faith had failed him.


    He knew this, immediately, when he awoke on the turn of the sixth century of his drawling knee-scrapping worship. After that, he tried the rest of those Abrahamic faiths, whatever shape and form they took. Centuries of it all, all having failed him. The same God under different names. All of them, slow and painful lessons that perhaps he just could not be salvaged. Not like other people.


    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid, my dear Horace,¡± Astyanax said.


    Thirteen steps led to the cathedral, he stepped down five. In front of him like a path or a fence were rusted swords. Shields, armor, laid around like makeshift grave markings. Which they were. Some were old, too old and now lost to time. Some were fresh, still glistening. What a strange place, this graveyard, and this church. And they both merited the pain it took to make them. Neither were easy tasks, building, and killing.


    ¡°I¡¯m not afraid. I¡¯m angry, you see,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°I¡¯m angry about playing games for gods, from all-seeing Heaven to all-consuming Hell.¡±


    ¡°Hold your tongue, please. This kind of speech is what keeps you condemned.¡±


    ¡°Horace,¡± Astyanax shouted. The servant looked up with a low brow, with his soft pliable face stretched down. ¡°Won¡¯t you mature? I¡¯m three thousand years due for salvation. At some point, you just have to accept it¡¯s not coming.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s because you continue with these vanities. Piety can¡¯t exist in your swollen, broken heart. There¡¯s no room for it! Too much of this arrogance, too much of this fighting. Let it go, or kill it with this last young man at last. I beg of thee.¡±


    ¡°Have you considered, perhaps, that these Gods just aren¡¯t worth worshiping?¡± Astyanax said. ¡°It¡¯s a revelation that might kick you out of that naivety.¡±


    ¡°Then what do you worship?¡±


    ¡°Myself.¡± The shadow of a cross appeared on Horace¡¯s face, he blinked and shielded his face. A reaction to nothing that came, no, Astyanax ignored him and wandered into that high grass. Horace followed, spitting his white hair out of his mouth.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    They went through the fields, the grass felt soft underneath their feet. The shallow graves padded their steps, the overgrown mounds, the fresh holes. They stopped at a patch, a small oval section of the field of grass where small tender yellow flowers grew. Yellow and white field flowers. Astyanax turned his shoulder over, he maneuvered his arms around the wooden cross and planted it deep into the floor; turned upside down. A bit rebellious, a bit bitter. With the arms of the cross close to the floor and the stem facing up, he put his foot down and dug it deep like a spade.


    ¡°Here,¡± He said. ¡°This will be a nice place to nail Dion¡¯s corpse. Don¡¯t you think?¡±


    Horace put both hands on his face.


    ¡°I thought as much,¡± Astyanax said. He looked around his little kingdom, the mountainous dome walls that wrapped around, the hole at the very top whose light seemed magnified to a burning glow. There were cracks in these walls, slow-building cracks where the light had wrestled to find home in, where the desert chipped away slowly. He had tried fighting it for a while, but come the turn of the century had decided not to. It was too tiresome. Home-keeping was too tiresome. And without a physical body to sleep, without rest for his tiredness, there was no use in even trying. Nothing short of eating and fighting and violating mattered, the essence of man.


    ¡°Are you sure you¡¯ll win?¡± Horace asked.


    Astyanax felt the draft of wind between his bloodstained hands.


    ¡°Does it make you angry, Horace, when you think about God? When you think of the demons far below us, when you think of how small we are, in this world?¡± Astyanax asked. Horace rubbed his arms.


    ¡°Look at how much has happened in our lives and how short and small it still, all is. A man can live a thousand lives and he¡¯d still only exist in the mere blink of the universe. It¡¯s absurd. It really is.¡± His tone fell. ¡°There are creatures that live beyond imagination, that experience eternity. And us? We merely spectate the moving image of infinity. And it will pass us by. And we will be left alone. Victims of cosmic horror. A sideshow for God and Satan and their army of idiots.¡±


    ¡°Young master¡­¡± Horace looked at the floor and put his feet close together, his hands in clasp in front of him.


    ¡°I¡¯m sick of it. I just wanted to say that, I¡¯m sick of it. I hate being small, feeling weak.¡±


    ¡°Young master.¡± Horace tugged at him. ¡°Will you win?¡±


    Astyanax looked down. His face shrunk to an offensive dullness as if staring into the sad existence of a dumb animal. He looked at Horace, looked at his stupidity. He was shriveled and Astyanax sighed, speaking with tamed patience.


    Astyanax shook his head, smiled. He extended himself with gentle hands for the inferior creature and touched his cheek.


    Horace felt the smooth palm. It was cold.


    ¡°Of course I¡¯ll win,¡± Astyanax turned away. He straightened himself in front of the fixture of light in the sky, that red ring. With his haughty voice, again, he said. ¡°It¡¯s my fate to beat Dion, isn¡¯t it? And you can¡¯t beat fate.¡±


    And his confidence grew into that sinister grin. Insanity and sadness strobing in and out of him so fast and strong that it was hard to even tell them apart. He laughed, earnestly, from the gut, an innocent sound laughter that made Horace reel. Astyanax faced the front of the dome, far away from them, he was looking at a little blip on the wall of that giant dome. Horace couldn¡¯t tell, he was still off-put by the laughter but figured the king was staring at the doors of this Trojan wall. Two massive, metal doors that began to scratch and screech with an obscene salacity. A want to open. It sucked in and out. And whatever it was keeping out, whatever armies and legions waited for Astyanax outside of this door, desperately wanted to come in.


    ¡°I won¡¯t fight for God. I won¡¯t fight for the Satan, I won¡¯t give either the pleasure of my glory! No, I will fight for my people. The serfs and the soldiers, the sick and the disturbed. Do you understand? I need no God or Devil, I need only my people.¡± He put his hand on Horace¡¯s shoulder. ¡°An execution without an audience is just masturbation. I need the crowd, I need them to hear the message, to feel it with. We need no heroes, we need no one!¡±


    The king started twirling to the imaginary shouts and praise.


    ¡°Yes, yes. Go ring the bells, dear Horace. Ring them now or I¡¯ll kill you.¡±


    His spine curled.


    Horace left running, holding his gray coat above his knees and running across the fields, cutting his feet on the swords and armor plates of soldiers lost, running desperately to that cathedral once more.


    He opened the doors and let the echo rise through the building. He ran to the back of the place, towards a small wooden door just his size. He crawled through, took a torch from the wall and hit a flint in his pocket against the wall. The sparks went wild. The fire rose. He tripped and ran and tripped and ran all the steps up that tower, up to a chamber, out the window through the pointed arches. He followed the maze-like structure, wrapped his arms around the spires as if to not fall. The long way up, the only way up. Platform after platform he went through until he touched the thin-ice glass acting as the ceiling to the main room of the church. It cracked beneath his feet and he spread out his body along the material. The stains of his hands and feet littered the picture of the three wise kings. He apologized, mentally, and went past them near the top of the cathedral. Past the ribbed vaults and the clustered columns. Like bones compressed into a cage. A collection of skeletons, a macabre tall building this was.


    The wind at the top of the building blew harsh, he could see the villa miles away. It was all here, the history of insanity. He looked behind himself now, to the giant bell. A large, patina covered green bell. Cracked a bit at its ends, hungry to ring. He heard the whistle it made as the wind blew through its little cracks.


    His eyes felt swollen, his arms did not want to move. He crawled to the tall bell and the chain mechanism near it.


    Let him kill me, he thought, I won¡¯t summon them.


    He began to sweat, thinking, better to let his passions die.


    But he crawled forward anyways. His right hand found the lever, his other hand pulled the chain.


    I shouldn¡¯t, he thought. I¡¯m feeding his desires.


    He pulled it a bit, tugged it only and already he could hear the mechanisms at the top of the bell, creaking with the aged gears. They scratched against each other.


    He stopped. But then thought, coward that he was, he thought of the question he had asked Astyanax.


    Are you afraid of oblivion?


    Yes, yes he was. Afraid of the death of the soul. And afraid of the man he loved like a son. Afraid of them both, at the same time.


    He pulled the lever. He heard the wretched sound. It was booming, it pushed his body back. He barely hung by the handle of the lever and lifted himself back slowly. His hairs rose off his arms and chest and made his skin sensitive. As if lightning had begun to allocate itself around him, into a kind of shield that contained and encompassed all thrill and fear.


    The sound of the bell was killing his brain. It haunted him, all the way down as he made his way back. A cry. The sound bled in and out of him until his brain was filled with it like a hemorrhage. Until he ran out of space to even think. He made it down, touched the floor and ran to away as fast as possible. His hands clasped to his ears, he ran away from the summons of Astyanax.


    The call of the Colosseum. The call for war.


    And he wondered, only briefly in the small interval of one bell ring from another, he wondered if God could hear the sound from far up high.

 Chapter 79

    Apollo


    Bartholomew tripped on a small rock and hurt himself on the chest when he fell. They all knew then and there, as he lay rubbing his chest, that it was time to stop. He lifted himself with his small hands. He looked down, noticed his knees were cut and bleeding and blew on the wound. He rubbed the blood out, but there was no sense of pain on his face, there was nothing to read of anything on the boy.


    ¡°Alright, we¡¯ll take a break. We¡¯ve been at this for hours.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°It¡¯s been days.¡± The Hyena added.


    Apollo didn¡¯t answer, he blew out air and wiped the grime off his face. The dried trees were dense in this area, they looked like little stakes coming off the floor and were ubiquitous across the uneven horizon like small hairs on an old scalp. The little, black forks in the dirt.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you hungry?¡± Apollo asked the boy. ¡°I¡¯m starving here.¡±


    ¡°You can eat the child.¡± The Hyena bemused. ¡°I wonder what he¡¯d taste like.¡±


    The boy turned away from the beast and walked back towards a log.


    ¡°Stop making jokes like that.¡± Apollo walked over to Bartholomew. ¡°Don¡¯t mind him. He¡¯s a prick.¡±


    The boy said nothing and sat with his hands on his lap. Apollo sighed and went past him, towards the trees.


    He took out his blade and started working on them. He could feel his weakness, his hunger, he felt it in his weak swings and his gait and how shallow his cuts were on the trunks of those thin, dead trees.


    ¡°Is there a reason why I keep confusing days for hours and weeks for days?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re losing your corporeal form, is all.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°Physical beings are something of an oddity down here, in the land of spirits. I¡¯m surprised you¡¯re even material, still.¡±


    ¡°Is that why I can¡¯t tell time anymore? Why I can¡¯t sleep, or why I feel so hungry? I¡¯m slowly dying?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not hungry.¡± The boy cut in.


    ¡°No, you¡¯re not, are you?¡± The Hyena curled into a ball next to the boy. ¡°However, Apollo isn¡¯t a boy. Or a human, for that matters. Vicars starve much faster down here than any normal person.¡±


    ¡°What does that mean?¡± Bartholomew asked. He rubbed his legs, still.


    ¡°Are you allowed to tell him, is that part of your church¡¯s creed or would it be forbidden?¡± The Hyena asked.


    ¡°No, I can¡¯t say much.¡± Apollo felt his hands tremble against the wood. ¡°They¡¯d imprison me for years.¡±


    ¡°Then I¡¯¡¯ tell him,¡± He closed his eyes and burrowed his snout in his fur. ¡°A Vicar is a name, one of many, for the biggest transgression a mortal could commit. This young man before you,¡± Bartholomew turned to Apollo, Apollo kept swinging his sword. ¡°This man has bedded a devil.¡±


    ¡°Bedded? Is he a monster or something?¡± The boy inched away from his little log bench, further from Apollo and now towards the Hyena.


    ¡°I¡¯ll let him answer that.¡± The Hyena scoffed ¡°Are you, Apollo? And how did it happen?¡±


    Apollo stopped swinging. He pushed his shoulder towards the tree.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you know? I thought you knew everything.¡± The tree fell and shattered on the floor. Branches and twigs scattered.


    ¡°I do know, but I want you to say it. There¡¯s a unique kind of peace you can only get by admitting your secrets. I think you¡¯re owed to it.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°And we both know how many secrets you have. Why not let some out?¡±


    Apollo looked to the sky and let his sweat fall. He took off his armor, it hit the floor like the tree, dead and stiff. He took out his coat from the little gap it had hung on his plate armor. He was still wearing his suit underneath, the pants, the shoes, the shirt, the tie. Though rugged looking as it was, it was more comfortable. The torn holes in his clothes made him comfortable, the small holes that allowed air to enter like ventilation.


    ¡°Well, are you a monster?¡± The boy asked. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be surprised.¡±


    ¡°I guess I am. Though what turned me into one isn¡¯t anything, necessarily special. It¡¯s rather tame, actually, for my line of work at least.¡± Apollo said. ¡°It started when I was a kid, a little younger than you, a little more depressed than you. I was an orphan always getting into trouble, too much of a mischief for anyone to adopt or care for. So much so that one day I left the orphanage and never came back. I used to roam around the streets of LA, like the little rat I was. God, I hated it.¡±


    Apollo looked out towards the sky, reminiscing.


    ¡°Maybe it was okay. I don¡¯t know, I met some people then, other kids like me without a place to go. But I guess I couldn¡¯t really hang onto them, not with my luck at least.¡± He said. ¡°It didn¡¯t take a long time after I ran away to be adopted by the church, all it took were a couple free meals and a shower every now and then for me to buy into the whole thing. Scrounging trash cans loses its appeal quick and starvation isn¡¯t any fun.¡±


    He took a deep breath and hacked at the second tree.


    ¡°I had no future, not until they gave me one.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°The church?¡± The boy asked.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Apollo said. ¡°A kind of church. One that sent me to strange places to get strange testing. Weird diagnostic checks, weird stuff with wires and groups of people who analyzed every little thing I did, from the way I breathed, to the way I ate, to the way I walked. Though I didn¡¯t know what they were at first, I realized it a little too late. I just thought they were losers in white trench coats, weirdos with too much time on their hands. Then one day, one night, they knocked me out and operated on me. They cut my chest open. At least they were considerate, they made sure to comatose my ass for two weeks. Dreamt through the whole thing. I still feel like I¡¯m dreaming, to be honest.¡±


    ¡°That sounds horrible. You were abducted and tortured.¡± The boy said, his voice showing a bit of life. Some pity, which was a strange thing to be optimistic about, though Apollo was.


    ¡°It sounds worse than it was. But how bad was it, really? Who did I have to listen to my protest? No one. What would I have done had I known ahead of time? Nothing. And if I died? The world would spin, without losing even a bit of momentum.¡± He looked sullen at the fallen tree. There were red bugs crawling out of it, long and slimy. They stared up before going back into one of the eaten holes of the tree trunk. ¡°They said, after I awoke, that it was plain luck that I was alive. Luck! That the operation shouldn¡¯t have worked. They said, those church surgeons, that I now had a devil¡¯s heart in me. That¡¯s not figurative either. It is, quite literal.¡±


    The boy left his mouth open. He looked just about to ask a question, but held back, confused, afraid.


    ¡°H-how does that even work?¡±


    ¡°Do I look like a doctor? If I had that kind of ambition, I wouldn¡¯t be swinging swords at giant bugs and tin cans.¡± Apollo scoffed.


    ¡°Believe me when I say, it used to be worse. Transformations of those types usually aren¡¯t as cut and clean.¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°Let¡¯s not talk about those times and those operations.¡± Apollo nodded his head. ¡°How do you even kn- Never mind, of course. Right.¡±


    Bartholomew rubbed his head.


    ¡°Devil¡¯s hearts.¡± The boy repeated. ¡°How? Where? What?¡±


    ¡°You know these monsters down here?¡± Apollo smirked. ¡°What if I told you they exist up there, on our little green and blue satellite too? Though rare. Much rarer than down here. And often times, scarier too. If you could believe that.¡±


    ¡°So. You kill ''em? And steal their hearts?¡±


    ¡°Or eat them! Aha.¡± The Hyena added with roaring joy.


    ¡°Sometimes, yes. There are particular methods and other Vicars who specialize in that kind of business. There are too many factors for me to ever consider that kind of work, I¡¯d rather just kill them, quickly and easily.¡±


    ¡°So you eat hearts?¡± The boy stuck his tongue out in disgust. ¡°Do you eat people too?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I¡¯m still, somewhat, of a human being so that¡¯d be cannibalism.¡±


    ¡°How does your body handle that thing. That demon heart thing?¡±


    ¡°How does anybody handle an organ transplant?¡± Apollo said. ¡°With difficulty, of course. The procedure is so dangerous because of how many people reject the damn thing. That¡¯s why the doctors said I was lucky. I wasn¡¯t supposed to live. I was too frail, too much of a failure to live. But I got lucky. I¡¯m just a lucky man.¡±


    The boy dangled his legs up and down.


    ¡°So you¡¯re a monster, huh.¡± He said, whimsical. ¡°Is that why you¡¯re strong and fast? And tall and ugly?¡±


    Apollo stopped.


    ¡°Ugly?¡± He laughed, he felt it down to his stomach. ¡°Yeah, I guess I am ugly. Would you believe me if there are worse people than me? I¡¯m actually considered one of the weaker Vicars. There are much, much, stronger men than me. Some can even use arcana. Or I guess you¡¯d call it magic.¡±


    ¡°Do they make rabbits disappear?¡± The voice rose on the boy. He was invigorated. The Hyena rolled tighter into a ball until his face was comfortably inside the fat, furry stomach of his.


    ¡°There are legends of men who move mountains and rivers and who rain fire for weeks on end. I¡¯m not good with that kind of stuff, never liked it. It seems much easier to me to just chop someone''s head off. But I know some magic. Basic stuff.¡±


    ¡°Show me!¡± The boy shouted. Apollo looked back at him and smirked. He reached down and found foot long stick. He pointed it towards the boy and let him watch it carefully. He removed his coat and held it in one hand, the stick in the other. He moved the stick towards the coat, moved it inside and revealed his hand. The stick was gone, Apollo demonstrated, as he showed both sides of his coat and let the boy feel the pockets for any foul play.


    ¡°Where¡¯d it go?¡± Bartholomew asked.


    ¡°Nowhere,¡± Apollo said. He put on his coat, reached his hands deep into the flaps and stuck his hands deep inside one of the little sigils inside, with the red string stitching. A stick came out. ¡°It never went away.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯d you do that?¡± The boy asked.


    ¡°Believe me, it¡¯s more the coat than it is me.¡± Apollo said. ¡°It took me months to learn that trick, it takes most people weeks. Some mystic hermits from the church told me, in their haughty tone, that I had damaged Empyrean reservoirs. Whatever the fuck that means. It¡¯s like a vein or something. The heavenly gift, they say.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not a gift from heaven.¡± The Hyena protested. ¡°Trust me.¡±


    ¡°As if it matters to me,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Power is only as good as what you make of it or what it makes of you. And abuse seems rampant, in the church and outside. For every holy, pious mage there are five times as many corrupt fucks. The number is worse for half-devils like myself.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s necessary.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°Demons are savage, and savagery must be met with savagery. It stands to reason, then, that you¡¯d need a whole army of psychopaths to fight.


    ¡°I¡¯m not getting into politics with you.¡± Apollo said. ¡°This is just a small summary of my business, is all.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± The boy sat attentive, absorbing everything.


    ¡°You¡¯re forgetting one part.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°You forgot to explain what made you, you. And it was no surgery, was it?¡±


    ¡°Goddamnit, and I was having a pleasant time.¡± Apollo sighed.


    ¡°Look, he won¡¯t admit it.¡± The Hyena looked at Bartholomew. ¡°Tell him, Apollo. Tell him about your tragedy. Unholy science might have designed your heart, but the cruel universe forged it.¡±


    ¡°Why would I? I barely know the kid.¡± Apollo walked in and out of Bartholomew¡¯s vision. He was arguing, the child noticed. And he was carrying the bundles of sticks, he noticed too.


    Bartholomew stayed silent. His brain seemed exhausted from the talk. He tipped from one side to the other, teetering between falling forward or backward. His eyes drifted, his lids were heavy. He was just about to fall, only inches off the floor when Apollo caught him. He raised him up. Bartholomew rubbed his eyes and looked in front of him. A den was made, a small collection of twigs and dried leaves and the soft bark upon the sand forming a kind of bed. The boy looked at Apollo who was dirty on his dark face, whose eyes too, seemed tired.


    ¡°Go on, you¡¯ll hold us back if you pass out. Sleep for now.¡± He said before sitting on a log, opposite the den, near the Hyena.


    Bartholomew nodded and though experience told him not to trust the hole or the place, that he could be attacked at any moment, his body disagreed. He could not protest and wandered into the small bed. After a few minutes, he drifted. And Apollo waited outside, closing his owns eyes though trying to hard suppress the feeling.


    ¡°You two have more in common than you¡¯d admit.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°And he¡¯ll end up just as bitter as you too if you don¡¯t talk to him.¡±


    ¡°Why would I care what happens to him after the fact? My job is to get him out, that¡¯s it.¡± Apollo kept his eyes closed. ¡°Besides, what do you know about me?¡±


    ¡°Everything.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I figured.¡±


    Nothing was left to say. Apollo¡¯s eyes too, were exhausted. He folded his arms on his chest and fell asleep, sitting on that log, pretending to keep watch. It was stupid, dangerous, and comfortable all around.

 Chapter 80

    Apollo


    They awoke to the sound of church bells. The loud timbre that shook the trees and that caused Apollo to jump from his seat.


    ¡°What the fuck,¡± He slapped his face awake. ¡°It¡¯s not Sunday.¡±


    The Hyena pointed his sharp face up.


    ¡°We¡¯re out of time, but we¡¯re close.¡± He said. ¡°Whether or not you¡¯re ready is of little relevance now. You¡¯re going to face him soon.¡±


    He felt the words down to his bones, the oscillation of the church sound up to his brain, both like a fearful rattling of his body. But it was much, much worse than fear. It was existential dread. An impending doom that made his brain scatter in thoughts, that made him feel ill in his gut from anxiety.


    ¡°How can you tell? It¡¯s just a noise.¡± Apollo shook his hair. The boy came out from his den with his hands shutting his ears.


    ¡°No, that noise is special, extremely so. After all, how many churches have you seen in Hell thus so far?¡± The Hyena¡¯s body stretched out. His back was straightened flat, his tail hung and wagged like a hypnotists watch. The boy looked at them both wondering what to do.


    ¡°I d-don''t know man. Who says its bells? It can be anything here and from anyone.¡± Apollo could feel his heart palpitating. It sounded like the chug of a train, starting, only getting faster.


    ¡°This is his call. That¡¯s a fact. We¡¯re leaving. Now.¡± The Hyena jogged down the trail. The child and Apollo looked at each other, both afraid, both children in a way. They ended up following the Hyena.


    ¡°I thought you were already used to fighting demons.¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t fought many,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And even with the few I fought, they weren¡¯t anything like...this man you¡¯ve described. Astyanax, or whatever.¡±


    ¡°Well it¡¯s time for your graduation then, isn¡¯t it?¡± Their breaths were hasty as they traveled the land. The boy struggled to follow. There was an incline, all of them felt their knees burn as they went up. And finally, on top of the hill, they saw it. The blight and tumor of this earth. The giant dome. With the chipped, collapsing edges.


    ¡°What the fuck is this?¡± Apollo leaned away.


    ¡°His home.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°He built this, probably, two thousand years ago. Maybe further back.¡±


    ¡°We can make the travel in half a day.¡± The Hyena put his paws forward onto the hill. ¡°It was good that you two slept, you¡¯ll need the energy.¡±


    He slid down. Apollo took a deep breath, the sense of vertigo hit him. Anxiety hit him, all of it compiling on one another, weights upon weights. This was the feeling of being at the bottom of the ocean, the feeling he felt back at the river Styx. The feeling he felt when he saw Sophie¡¯s dead corpse. The boy looked at him, his lips were quivering. Apollo grabbed him, held him on his chest and they both slid down the hill. There were entanglements of shrubs and little rocks that cut them lightly and scratched them everywhere.


    They landed with a loud thump. Apollo felt the pain jolt up the heel of his foot, up his spin, all the way to his shoulder.


    ¡°Don¡¯t run.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°We have to be careful from here on out.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the problem? I¡¯ve got some strength back.¡±


    ¡°And yet you¡¯re not strong at all, not really. Not strong enough to fight an army, at least.¡± The creature pointed out, into the bustling oaks in front of them. There were leaves now, yellow and orange and wide. Cactus too. And the long reaching hands of thorny bushes. The tendrils moved, not by their own will, but by some other. There were people (in a very loose sense of the word) walking through the woods.


    There were things, things that moved and stirred life into this lifeless desert. Apollo felt his feet shake. A tremor from a crowd. His arm felt hot, the string of life igniting heat into his forearm.


    ¡°What the fuck did you lead me into, demon?¡± He reached for his sword. The boy froze.


    ¡°Do you think that call, those bells, were just for you? That you were anything special? I doubt the king even knows you¡¯re here.¡± The Hyena lowered its body. ¡°No, it was for someone else. Some other people.¡± He walked with a slow gait through the woods. ¡°It was a summons, summons for every foul thing that lives on this island.¡±


    The words were acrid to Apollo. His mouth fell into a grimace.


    ¡°It¡¯s going to get more crowded as we go up. We¡¯ll have to wait it out and go in late.¡± The Hyena said.


    ¡°Why late?¡±


    ¡°Would you rather go early, in the bottleneck of a horde of demons?¡±


    ¡°Alright then, why go at all? Can¡¯t we wait?¡±


    ¡°You wanted to know whether your friend was alive, didn¡¯t you? I have good reason to believe he is.¡±


    ¡°And how do you know that?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Because I know Astyanax.¡±


    ¡°Then please enlighten me, genius. When I do get there, when I do meet this prick, how in the fuck will I even be able to fight him with all the damn demons in a fifty-mile radius there to back him up?¡±


    ¡°That won¡¯t be a problem.¡± The Hyena said.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°It seems to me a huge fucking problem. A colossal fucking problem.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯ll grant you an audience and you¡¯ll accept. And you¡¯ll fight and you¡¯ll win.¡±


    ¡°And how do you know that?¡±


    ¡°Because he is my child.¡± The Hyena said. ¡°Was, at least.¡±


    Apollo¡¯s head felt empty as if his brains had been siphoned out. He wobbled, he put his arms on an oak tree and stabilized himself.


    ¡°Your child. Your pupil you mean?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re having me kill your protege? The fact that you even have one is alarming enough.¡±


    ¡°I am the father of many. Like you and many others. The difference in him, however, is his sanity or rather, lack of one. He lost his direction. He went off trajectory, got too full of himself, wanted too much, wanted too little. Astyanax is someone who suffered from bouts of ambition too deadly for his own good and bouts of depression to twisted for anyone else''s good. And it was more than any psychological or physical disease could ever hope to be. It was a disease of a soul that broke his intellect; loneliness. You¡¯re here to alleviate that now. Astyanax is someone who needs to be killed. Needs.¡±


    Apollo held his ground. His eyes flared up. His fist tightened.


    ¡°I need to know who you are and what you¡¯ve done.¡±


    ¡°What I¡¯ve done?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not smart. I¡¯m stupid, which is probably why I ask so many questions. And I¡¯ve got one that¡¯s been burning me up. Call it intuition or a nasty knack,¡± Apollo breathed deeply. ¡°But when I see desire, I start to get ideas of what kind of extremes those desires might cause. So here you are, with the desire of having trained me, with the desire of wanting to kill Astyanax. And I¡¯m wondering, what must you have done to make this all possible.¡±


    ¡°Hmm.¡± The Hyena walked a bit away from Apollo.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got a feeling,¡± Apollo got closer to the Hyena. ¡°That you had something to do with all of this. With the cup, with this island. With Hell, with Havenbrook.¡±


    ¡°Oh, my.¡± The Hyena looked up, he contained a smile behind his dagger teeth. ¡°Will knowing change your goal? Will knowing stop you from killing him? You still need his heart don¡¯t you, to get you all out.¡±


    ¡°It might.¡± Apollo barked back. ¡°What did he try to do that angered you? What did you do to get me here? Who are you?¡±


    ¡°If you survive you might be worthy of those answers.¡± The Hyena looked back to his original direction and wandered into the woods. ¡°But that¡¯s a big if.¡±


    ¡°Hey, hold on.¡± Apollo chased after him as he turned behind a tree, he reached it, went around and saw nothing. The Hyena disappeared.


    Apollo looked back to the child and flinched, there were noises afar, loud footsteps and the grumblings of a populace angry and hungry. Apollo stood dumbfounded, with his meek sword to his side.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± Bartholomew asked. There was no answer.


    They spent their time in the forest, low to the ground. The feeling of worry building up with each successive sweep of footsteps, the menaces that harbored themselves behind the leaves and thin tall trees. They saw shadows amongst them, all of them heading to the singular direction: the loud, metal doors at the side of the mountain dome. The giant ringed handles, the giant wooden doors that swept swathes of dirt and dust. He could hear the chains, hear the dozens of soldiers at the front keeping everything orderly and proper.


    Maybe I should just kill them, Apollo thought. It wouldn¡¯t be too hard.


    It wouldn¡¯t have been, not the dozen soldiers at least. But the other three dozen demons? The looming creatures, odd shaped and fantastical looking, the very embodiments of bizarre homunculean creation? Those would be harder to kill, take longer, and supposing Apollo could even survive it would not guarantee the child would.


    He bit the edge of his thumb and spat out the chunk of flesh and blood and nail.


    ¡°Wait here,¡± Apollo told the boy. He climbed a tree to his rear and sat on the branch, perched like a crow. He kept himself still on those arms and surveyed the lands. There were more creatures, not anywhere near him but coming closer still. He watched the gates and how they opened on groups of what he supposed were of twenty or perhaps twenty-five people (calling them people was a stretch).


    ¡°I have an idea,¡± Apollo told the boy from up high. ¡°But I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll like it.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡± The boy said back.


    ¡°Ever heard of a Trojan horse?¡±


    They stalked the side of a road where the creatures came in droves of threes and fours. It was a little stretch wedged in an area before the doors and little after the woods, a slope down where the trees weren¡¯t as dense and the crowds not as big. They waited behind small boulders and a dip in the land.


    ¡°Are you sure it¡¯ll work?¡± The boy¡¯s teeth rattled.


    ¡°No, but it¡¯s our best chance,¡± Apollo said.


    The loud footsteps approached.


    ¡°Be quiet, alright?¡±


    Bartholomew nodded. He could feel the vibrations up to his knees and feet.


    The creatures were approaching. The first view that came was the image of the mammoth-like thing with a wide body and even wider sheet of fur that curtained down its humped back to its rough hooves. They extended up to its small head and shielded everything save for the smirk on its dumb face. The slobbering thing left drool like a string-trail that dragged along the floor. Next to it, a lanky serpent whose elongated neck spasmed and jerked about, this creature was smaller, though still stall if compared to a grown man. A little behind the two, a smaller thing with a swollen head who turned in full rotation and whose bulbous white head frightened the boy. Like a sickly owl, plumed, wrinkled and fully-pale.


    There must have been a hierarchy to this world, an explanation as to why these monstrous creatures were not as dignified as they looked and acted and why they wandered like exiles as they did. Apollo didn¡¯t care to find out though, he was too keen on killing them now as they approached his side of the road.


    He waited, prone on the floor, his shoes digging deep.


    He revealed his blade, broken and bleeding a red hue amongst the cracks. He cocked one hand back to throw and with the other, started working out a trajectory with his fingers. A bit like a game. In one move, he flung his arm forward and let it break wind.


    The creatures heard it too late.


    The snake was the first to go. His head squirming as it lay on the floor, decapitated. The body wandered confused for a bit, spurting blood out and venom before it fell, some yards away from the head.


    The blade landed on the floor near the corpse, Apollo jumped towards it. The small, white creature jumped back. Too slow. Apollo kicked his sword up and flung it, watching it spiral in the air. It stabbed through the chest of the creature, suffocated the lungs with blood presumably.


    He ran to that body now too, putting his foot down on the corpse to remove the weight.


    The tall behemoth was the last to die and the last to run. What a strange thing, for such a monstrous creature to run from Apollo. But it did, well, tried to at least.


    Starting its gallop was hard and slow, and it gave too much time for Apollo to run towards it. It didn¡¯t take much after that. He got under the creature, past the hair-curtains, and punctured his sword into the side of the beast. It ran a bit, under the influence of pain, (the stupid thing). And its running extended the width of the wound until all his underside was burst open.


    It must have gone a dozen yards before it realized it was dragging its guts. But by then it had lost too much blood and simply laid on the floor on its side with all its innards on display. It breathed, quick, painful breaths. Apollo walked over to the dying thing. Squinting his face at the scene, with all the large organs displaced about.


    It was hard to tell what compelled Apollo, pity or efficiency, but he stabbed it nevertheless, right through its exposed heart.


    He ate it, that heart, digging his hands through the carcass like some starved animal. His arms came out of the creature, blood covering them with a black coating. The child looked at him, shivering. And it made it that much harder to convince him to join. And even harder than that? Convincing him to climb into the corpse.


    He was wedged inside the body, Bartholomew, and he moved around to try and fit himself somewhere in between intestines and lungs.

 Chapter 81

    Apollo


    It was jarring to see the corpse of a creature, animated as it was. With Apollo underneath like an amateur puppeteer, with his hands firmly injected into the open chest of the beast and Bartholomew directly above him laying still in the corpse. Apollo dragged the heavy thing towards the crowd of demons and monsters. All of whom stared, all of whom laughed and joked and prodded the stiff mammoth. Smelling it, eying it.


    Apollo put a hand up towards the jugular of the creature, his whole body hidden underneath the hair of the monstrosity. He tried moving the head of the creature. It was surprisingly light, even with the long drooping snout, and thick tusks and bobbing eyes (three exact). There must have been no brain, or at least too little brain in the head of the demon corpse.


    Now controlling the neck of the creature, Apollo had the advantage of nodding, of manipulating ticks and gestures. And the advantage of smacking the small impish creatures that tried to play with the dead creature by hopping on its back or tugging on its body. Apollo flexed his muscle. The snout came out in a sweeping motion, drawing a line in the sand. The other demons stared at it, some intimidated and moving back, others coming closer to taunt the creature (though, actually just Apollo).


    A guard wandered up. He saw the commotion and walked up, somewhat hesitant.


    Apollo looked down, underneath the body everything was shadowed. He was looking underneath and behind him, to see if he had left a trail of blood. No, good, check. It had all been drained. He looked behind, to see if there were any entrails he hadn¡¯t trimmed, check. He looked the part, now he had to act it. So, what would a stupid, giant, animal do here?


    ¡°Are you causing grievances in the capitol? Do you come here to trouble, the king of kings, Astyanax?¡± The guard asked.


    Apollo jerked his arms, they felt like giving way to the body. They almost did, as the body dropped an inch. He immediately responded, moving his thighs to balance himself. His heart beat quickly as he shouldered the weight of the corpse. The sweat came off his hair like shoots of black, mildewed grass, dead and wet. He moved his hands again, though his arms were beginning to wobble from the weight. He hoped he had made the corpse nod.


    The guard scratched his chin, looked back to the other eleven guards and furrowed his brow. Flakes of skin came off his dead skin. Apollo could notice, between the small gaps on the curtains of hair. Was he suspicious? He thought.


    He gulped the spit in his throat.


    ¡°Is there something wrong, plebeian?¡± The guard poked the head, the corpse''s eyes rolled around like those cartoonish googly eyes, loose in the head.


    Apollo moved the head again, nodding no. The boy, still in the stomach of the corpse, shook. The dead beast seemed upset now, or sick. The child stretched his hands, they poked out the side of the creature like undigested, live food. Apollo smacked the body from below, the vibrations scared the child who remained quiet. The guard came closer, his breath stinking of rotten sweet death. The scent came through the thin layers like a smoke screen of malaise just pouring in. His helmet rattled with his bobbing head as he inspected every corner of the creature.


    His neck was now feeling that strange sensation of anxiety, the prickly feeling, the cold feeling, the shocking feeling. Apollo felt the urge, at once. He stuck his arm into his coat. He held his breath and thought, I¡¯ll kill him. I¡¯ll leave the kid inside, and kill the rest. That¡¯d be the best chance. He felt for the handle. Holding his breath lowered his heart beat, a lower heartbeat eased his shaking hands, calming him from the presence of the prodding guard.


    He saw fingers peeling back the hair, going inside towards Apollo. His blade felt light, his knees ready to pounce.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    But there was a noise elsewhere. A loud banging. Smacking. Slapping. Chaos, somewhere in the crowd of demons. Two demons were fighting.


    ¡°My shiny.¡± One said, rather stupid and slow, with a dragging lisp as if his tongue had been cut down the middle. It spat everywhere as it spoke. This creature, poor and lame, was fighting another for what looked like a small gem. A rock, a kind of treasure. It must have been something of importance at least because they dragged their fight through the crowd and rowdied everyone. The more brutish demons huffed and cowered. The human-sized ones, with language and desire and the kind of fetishized desire for violence, cheered them on.


    The guard looked away from Apollo and the mammoth corpse. He removed his hand from the body and left in a jog towards the fight. Three guards went as well. They dragged the two out of the crowd.


    ¡°Alright, that¡¯s enough. I know you¡¯re angsty.¡± One of the guards said. ¡°But that¡¯s no reason to sully the place.¡±


    They pulled the two apart, faced them towards a guard and in one quick move, stabbed them clean through the neck.


    Smiling even at the corpses now wiggling and dragging themselves through the dusty floor. Their hands to their necks as they wheezed out.


    The nosy guard from before went up to them, stabbed their hearts and looked back as he cleaned his blade.


    ¡°All of you, in. I don¡¯t want any more trouble.¡±


    The doors opened. The air sucked itself inside as if the dome lived in its own vacuum, its own Hell within Hell. And the sensation of the pull made them all sluggish. Trepidation grew hold of the fleet of demons before they heard the scream from behind, the guards who egged them on. And they all walked, all towards Astyanax.


    The road was dark and there seemed to be no end. Apollo couldn¡¯t see much of anything and only followed the sound of footsteps. His legs long since losing their feeling, he walked on numb trunks and showed as much when every other step had him flinching and kneeling.


    ¡°Are we almost there? It smells in here.¡± The boy stuck his head out to breath.


    ¡°No,¡± Apollo whispered.


    ¡°We¡¯ve been going for a while.¡±


    ¡°And we¡¯ll go a while lon-¡± Apollo felt air push down from underneath, a warm breeze. ¡°Almost there.¡±


    They came to a stop and no longer felt the brushing shoulders of demons large and small. They ran now, gasping and laughing like jovial children. He didn¡¯t notice it, didn¡¯t see what had all the others gasping and ruffling through what sounded like grass. He moved to the side, away from the entrance and simply laid there. When there were no more demons (or at at least the sounds of them), the boy crawled out.


    ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± Apollo said. ¡°No ones around.¡±


    ¡°Mhm.¡± Bartholomew hummed.


    His small body came out of the corpse, his clothes sticky with a mucus-like substance. His hair and face, dyed orange. He crawled underneath the hair and was the first to step outside of the two. He gasped. His body was still. He stuck his head inside again and smiled at Apollo. He went out again and began running.


    ¡°Hey!¡± Apollo let go of the corpse. ¡°Don¡¯t wander.¡±


    The heavy body landed with a thud, almost crushing Apollo as squeezed himself out.


    The color of the sky nearly blinded him as he stuck his hands to find the boy. When the blurred image reappeared, he understood the clamor and surprise and awe. All across, in front of him, were the green fields. The patches of flowers, bright and yellow and the roof, a gaudy thing brilliant from gems and riches. They looked like stars, the floor looked like heaven. The green trees were sparse, but their noise was loud and wholesome. The light shaking of full-leafed trees.


    And further beyond the garden, further from Eden itself was the little black mark. A smidgen on the horizon. A fantastic blemish that began to drain the feeling of joy like a slit wrist.


    Apollo touched the sharp grass, each blade rubbing his fingers. The wind encompassed him, coming through the small cracks on the dome wall. The capillaries made a whistling noise that got quieter as they moved towards the center. Then, then there were just the bells. The loud bells, coming down from their rapid metronome to that lower, more paced beat.


    It was no less oppressive, maybe even worse with hard the noise shook the ground and the air.


    He was in enemy territory, he felt it now. Apollo¡¯s head turned restlessly side to side. His body hunched down, below the grass line. All that showered the small blotches of black where the tops of their heads were.


    ¡°We¡¯re not dead yet, which is good,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Mhm.¡± Bartholomew covered his ears as a breaking sound of a ring came towards them. Apollo felt his skin vibrate from the noise.


    ¡°It¡¯s not as good as you think, is it?¡± Apollo asked. His ears were ringing. ¡°We¡¯re still in Hell, after all.¡±


    The boy frowned again.


    ¡°Our guide is gone, there goes any plans or answers.¡± He looked up with his hand shielding him from the bright ceiling. ¡°All we can do is walk forward. Amongst the enemy.¡±


    Bartholomew looked up towards Apollo.


    And I¡¯m scared out of my fucking mind, Apollo thought.

 Chapter 82

    Dion


    Alestor shuffled back and forth in front of Dion¡¯s cell.


    ¡°You idiot.¡± He said.


    ¡°Why are you here?¡± Dion stood amongst the pile of thrown hay, the rags of his slave life thrown to the side. He was fitting clothes. A suit. ¡°Child killing bastard, don¡¯t you have somewhere else to be, somewhere else to be ordered to?¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t about me anymore,¡± Alestor said. ¡°This is about you choosing the worst way to handle the situation.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fighting him. Everyone¡¯s wanted it for a while now.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re fighting him on his terms. Do you understand what that means?¡±


    ¡°It means nothing,¡± Dion said. ¡°So long that I win, and I will win.¡±


    ¡°And how do you know that? The man is a liar, he¡¯ll do everything in his power to win. He¡¯s already done it once.¡±


    ¡°You would know, wouldn¡¯t you?¡± Dion tied his shoes. He lifted them, the shiny black and scraped his heels off a bench.


    ¡°I do know what it means to be fooled.¡± Alestor hit the bars. ¡°And that¡¯s why I¡¯m warning you.¡±


    Dion laughed.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been awfully helpful, haven¡¯t you?¡± Dion asked. ¡°Do you know? Somewhere deep down inside, I want to kill you. Are you aware of that?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I am,¡± Alestor said. ¡°And I hate you too. But I hate Astyanax more. Much, much more.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± Dion looked down. He flexed himself in his clothes and let them wrap tightly around him. His coat covered him snug and for a moment, he felt relief. There was silence as Alestor watched the Vicar. The man who had hunted him down, and for a moment, it seemed like he admired him. There was an intensity to Dion, a hunger for the fight. He could see it in the edges of his half-smiling mouth, in his tall pose. It was venerable, that kind of hunger. Not as degenerate as Astyanax¡¯s was. A naive, honorable, fighting spirit.


    ¡°What do you think he¡¯ll do?¡± Dion wiped his sleeves.


    ¡°He has a legion of demons waiting for you. My guess is you won¡¯t even fight fairly. They¡¯ll all group up on you and kill you, whether you win or lose. They love their king, after all. Zealots, all of were. Are. I don¡¯t know.¡± Alestor looked down at his naked feet.


    ¡°Do you still love him?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°No. Maybe I never did, maybe I just confused being afraid with being in love.¡±


    ¡°Stockholm syndrome,¡± Dion said. ¡°That¡¯s what my partner would say.¡±


    ¡°Maybe.¡± Alestor tapped the bars with his toes. ¡°I¡¯m telling you, this is a trap.¡±


    ¡°Someone like you would never understand him,¡± Dion said. ¡°Astyanax is many things, but he¡¯s no coward. He¡¯ll fight me.¡±


    ¡°How can you be sure?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s just a feeling, from one warrior to another,¡± Dion said. ¡°You can¡¯t see how we see the world. You, who have lived your whole life running and chasing and taking and stealing. You, who have betrayed your own family.¡±


    ¡°I just thought.¡± Alestor¡¯s voice fizzled, he mumbled something incoherent.


    ¡°Stop projecting,¡± Dion said. ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be the psychologist, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    Footsteps approached them, loud bodies and deep voices.


    ¡°Fine then,¡± Alestor hissed. ¡°Don¡¯t say I didn¡¯t warn you.¡±


    Be backed away, down towards the end of the hall as two brutes opened the cell. They did not touch Dion, did not so much as even look at him. They looked past them, with their shields to their sides and their spears pointing towards the hall, and the direction of the king.


    ¡°I¡¯ll see you later,¡± Dion said. ¡°And then we¡¯ll settle everything. Retribution is coming for you too, buddy.¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    He made his tie around his neck like a noose and walked down the hall, up the building, through the small halls until he was outside. There were guards still, though fewer in numbers, leading him out the villa and towards a bustling roar of voices.


    They came to a stop in front of the loud source of noise, in front of a cathedral and in front of that, a pillar. A guardian, atop the roman pillar, eyed him. Dion said nothing, rather shared a solemn respect before making his way through the fields of grass and into a different kind of field. This new, stranger field, had swords laid all about, stabbed through the floor with the grime collecting on their handles. They surrounded the cathedral and made an awful tune as the wind blew past them.


    He didn¡¯t touch one, didn¡¯t even think about grabbing any of them.


    He walked past the grave sites and the swords and towards the giant cathedral whose dark walls and shadows hid the myriad yellow and white eyes, whose eyes themselves hid the myriad intentions of the demons. The loud, frightened and angry and sad and excited demons. The guests, the crowd, gawked at him and howled as they opened a line for him to enter. He felt spit hit his face, insults thrown at his ears, mockery after mockery as he came up the steps. The animals, the monstrosities, all cajoled into bedlam.


    At the top of the steps waited Horace. His glare was worst of all as he pointed something towards Dion. He had in his hands a bag. Dion felt inside of it, something comfortable touched his fingers. He found his two pistols and nearly sighed relief, amongst the rowdy crowd booing at him.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised you managed to get them out of my coat,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Amateur arcana,¡± Horace mumbled. Dion grimaced, he stuck his hands into the bag again and took bullet after bullet, by the handful, back into his coat. He saved twelve bullets, six for each of his pistols (he didn¡¯t need the safety of an empty chamber, he wasn¡¯t planning on having any kind of trigger discipline).


    He opened the unholy doors. The whole building felt more of a mockery than a blessed house and it made him shiver. The very air seemed to make his lungs hollow and his body empty. It was a terrible place to be in, as a Catholic as he was.


    Near him, a dry font. Around him, the broken statues and painted glass of some of his favorite holy figures. All defiled. All aborted.


    He scanned the room, the crowd held their breath for him. His steps left no echo, there were too many people. The monsters piled up on the sides of the walls, some of them hung from the roof with claws and with other appendages. The demons, the men who acted like demons, all hand in hand. Soldier and monster, all vying for the title of most wicked and most loud.


    But someone had won it, long ago, through many fights and many years. And he waited for Dion now, at the very front of the large Cathedral. He approached him. Dion only now figured the large scale of the building. The columns were plentiful, he counted twenty between four sides, making a square, with a little gap for the preacher podium on the upper center. There, Astyanax waited, on the seat of God; a simple wooden chair. The light came off his rusted armor. It must have been silver and brilliant once. It must have been forged by a sensible hand with a sensible heart. Maybe once.


    Now it¡¯s wear and its wearer, both, laid rusting. Astyanax stood. His gauntlets, his knee paddings, his leather skirt and his rusted-silver breast-plate. His helmet, plumed and imposing, the gap for his eyes and mouth, sharp to contour shadows around his face.


    Two braided tails of white hair fell down his right face. It seemed like an inherited fashion. Was he dressing up as his uncle, as his father?


    It didn¡¯t matter.


    He pulled at something at the top of his helmet. A silver mask came over him.


    Dion felt his left leg shake. There were markings on this mask and helmet. Smiles and scars chiseled into the flesh of steel, streaks of painted red leading down from his eyes to give the appearance of streaked tears. This smiling, crying devil. He came forth, grey, like a diseased dove who had long since lost his wings.


    His muscles were pronounced, Dion could tell they could barely fit under all the gear.


    ¡°I thought this would be appropriate,¡± His hands were wide and his chest exposed. A spear on one hand, a large leather-bound shield on the other. ¡°To die upon your God, to bleed for him on these holy steps. This will be your greatest honor, a proper libation to your lord and savior Jesus Christ.¡±


    I¡¯ll kill him, Dion thought. I won¡¯t give him a chance, I¡¯ll kill him.


    His leg shook worse.


    ¡°You wanted this.¡± Astyanax circled and spoke to the audience now.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t he?¡± He shouted.


    The crowd rioted.


    ¡°Trying to kill the king,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°A travesty worthy of a hard death.¡±


    The crowd clapped and screamed.


    ¡°A heart-eater, a demon hunter. What better man to rip apart and share amongst these love patrons!¡±


    The clamor shook the building. The walls seemed to breathe from the ecstasy and joy of the crowd. Dion felt sick in the stomach. His leg could not stop tapping on the floor. Rapid still, harsher, louder. Fear and impatience ticking away.


    ¡°Hurry it up,¡± Dion screamed back. The crowd silenced. ¡°I don¡¯t need your theatrics, I need your head.¡±


    There were sneers coming out from the demons now, low laughter and hushing blurbs and laughter again. Astyanax shouted back.


    "Silence!" Astyanax screamed. His voice was dry and hoarse.


    ¡°Are you a thespian or a soldier?¡± Dion put his left leg forward, fingers now on the trigger. ¡°Let them cry or clap, they won¡¯t decide a thing. That right belongs to God. God, and no other.¡±


    Astyanax blew out wind from the small gap in the mouth of his mask. He sounded like a machine, breathing out and in, fueling the engine of rage in him. The crowd stayed silent.


    ¡°Then let it be so,¡± The mask screeched. ¡°Here lived and died Dion, in the house of God.¡±


    And he disappeared under that shield. Only a streak of red and the sandals of his feet showed as he inched closer to Dion, spear overhead.


    Dion reached into his coat. He put his mask on, his head slanted down from the weight. He looked down to his guns and wondered, did they always feel this light? Was I always this excited?

 Chapter 83

    Apollo


    They stalked the lands and watched as the crowd thinned out. There were a few stray demons, wandering the fields in mindless bliss, grazing almost, on the heavenly nature of it all. Small critters. So stupefied by the opiate of the view were they, that none noticed or cared about Apollo or the boy traveling. They played and Apollo pulled the boy from the image of the husks, the monsters, in ecstatic pleasure at something as simple as a bit of grass and flower.


    They came to the center of the dome, where the crowd who either wandered into or wandered away from and looked about the aqueducts lining the city.


    ¡°Water slides.¡± The boy commented.


    ¡°Not exactly.¡±


    There was a spillage of which they both traveled underneath. The water hit the tops of their heads, it felt cold and oily like something had lived in this water and subsequently died. Bartholomew tried sticking his tongue out, but Apollo tapped his head. He shut it.


    ¡°Don¡¯t trust anything here,¡± Apollo said. ¡°It¡¯s all an act.¡±


    There were small houses near the aqueducts in what seemed to be the outer layer of the place. Circular rings separated every class of building (and citizen). As they approached the center the huts grew into larger, crumpled buildings whose two-story floors now laid collapsed on and about the fields. These were atriums. Buildings of aristocrats, buildings with large broken marbled pools, spilling wild grass from their cracks. Large trees lined the lost gardens of the atriums, the trees overgrown and warping the land with its roots. The further up they went, the worse the land seemed to get and the dirtier it got, which was strange. You¡¯d expect this of the poor.


    Apollo looked up, a giant hole was in the ceiling the dome. Dust came in and out, as did light from there. Maybe the ceiling had fallen? Sounded ridiculous, looked ridiculous. But maybe it was true.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you give up on me now,¡± Apollo said. The boy nodded and picked himself up from a high step onto the flat land.


    The giant villa of Astyanax was in front of him with all the frivolity of the architecture. The chaotic mess of culture and history that made it seem more theme park than home. Within the walls, the rooms, there were loud noises like a small crowd. Then, shuffling of steps.


    ¡°Shh.¡± He told the boy. Apollo wandered into the building from a side door. There was a moment of silence, then the shaking of metal armor, a yelp. Then two heavy sounds, the sounds of armor falling to the floor. Silence now.


    Apollo came out with blood on his face.


    ¡°Let¡¯s hurry up,¡± Apollo said. Bartholomew shook, then straightened out.


    ¡°Alright.¡± He said in a voice low and uneasy.


    Alright.


    They traveled quickly through the villa, stopping every now and then to assassinate guards who wandered. And it was a strange sense for Bartholomew, to feel revenge and regret both at once as each guard fell. To want to get away and to want to see it through at the same time.


    Apollo saw it in his eyes, black, tired rings of eyes and yet a face looking forward, hair split down the middle. He was like this all the way through the villa, towards the back courtyard and into the fields where the crowd gathered. Where giant pillars laid slanted.


    ¡°I don¡¯t like this, the air smells like iron. I can taste it in the tip of my tongue,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Wait here.¡±


    The fields and the swords planted for each grave lay in front of him, a rounded stretch that ended at the cathedral. Before that, before even the stretch of swords began, there was a slanted pillar.


    He rubbed his arms and saw that the band, the string of life, that little sensor of demonic presence was burning him. His hairs on his arm smoked from the intensity and it was a heat that seemed obvious, right in front of him.


    ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± The boy screamed from the little spot of dirt he was told to wait in.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, keep it down.¡± Apollo walked forward.


    He stopped at once at a pillar where his arm burned hottest. The marbled was cracked, the surface was rough and porous. He looked up. His eyes narrowed. His breathing started its hyperventilated gasps. Adrenaline, making his face and arms cold. Tingles, everywhere.


    ¡°Are you going to come down?¡± Apollo looked up to the top of the pillar. ¡°Or am I coming up?¡±


    Up above, the gaudy centurion rested on his pillar. A flamboyant looking thing whose wasted and dark rotting skin conflicted with the bright armor. He had a javelin, pila as it was, to his side. He looked down at Apollo with those two dark gaps for eyes and said not a word, did not so much as blink or move his face. He simply turned and Apollo, who upon seeing this reaction, knew what would come. He looked back at the boy. He stepped away, into the field of swords, where he tripped over a skull. On his knees, he crawled away, behind a round rusted shield. He watched, with one curious eye popping out of the corner of that shield.


    Apollo drew his blade. He has three meters of reach over me, he thought.


    His feet moved minutely, only centimeters forward as he pushed himself to his right with his toes. The centurion put his hand on his spear. The warm wind blew over them.


    Nice weather, at least. Apollo thought.


    A single drop of sweat fell from his cheek.


    The sound of wind breaking stirred him.


    The hellspawn was the first to strike. Throwing his spear. Picking up another. Jumping down the pillar. Breathing loud and screaming even louder. Apollo moved, the spear hit the floor to his side. The earth collapsed into gravel beneath him and he felt the large cut on his face, like a crescent moon that bled down to his neck. His face would not heal.


    With the smoke still filtering him and blurring his vision, Apollo pushed through. He charged his blade behind him, his arms stiffened. From the blade and its veins, the little crevices began to fill themselves with that intense fire. He struck the column immediately, once the fire reached the jagged tip of his blade. Immediately, the fire began to flood that bastard sword of his, wrapping around the pillar like a snake to a tree.


    It exploded. The base of the column shattered and the rest began to fall into collapse. The wreckage left a cloud of smoke, Apollo sat at the center, coughing and wheezing from the explosion.


    Silence. Wind. Rocks tottering and skipping across the floor.


    Where is he? Where is he?! My right! Apollo thought.


    He felt the wind push in that direction and felt his hair move long before he saw the spear. The smoke collected, like a vortex, around that quick jab. He moved his head aside and felt the other side of his cheek cut now, horizontal this time, right below the eye.


    The centurion retracted, returned back to the smoke and turned himself into a shadowy presence.


    Apollo raised his blade again. He felt the blood and sweat co-mingle on his chin into large globs. His head felt light headed. It was death, this sensation.


    Again a thrust, again a shallow dodge. Bobbing and weaving, punctured and prodded, the smoke clearing with every thrust of the spear. The figure came into full view in his metal armor, behind his shield. Apollo, too, appeared amongst the smoke. Wounded, maimed all over with cuts that would not heal, with an arm that burned and warned him and feared for him.


    He was exhausted.


    The legionnaire tested Apollo, almost arrogant in the way he jabbed meekly at Apollo. It gave him confidence, the demon. And Apollo could feel his morale slipping, down his bloody chin and onto the floor, each time his sword bounced off the shield and each time he missed with his own shots. There was no back and forth. Apollo was losing.


    Looking to his side, Apollo saw a passage. It was a small curved hall that held the broken aqueduct above. He ran away, immediately, into that enclosed space. The Centurion was hot behind him, his feet like jackhammers as they pushed and stabbed the earth.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    They approached the hall. And he (Apollo) felt, again the flurry of the spear strikes. Inside that tight space. The Centurion fired off, screaming, with confidence into that small enclosure.


    The soldier, striking. Apollo, blocking. The soldier moving deeper and deeper in the enclose, pushing Apollo further and further back.


    And yet, with momentum on his side, and yet, with Apollo pressed back, the Centurion worried. A small anxiety that was only really an afterthought.


    The Centurion kicked Apollo¡¯s sword. Apollo¡¯s feet ripped the floor as he was pushed back. It gave the Centurion an opportunity to look behind him, to see how far inside he was in this small canal. He looked up, the aqueduct tunnel trickled with impotence. He felt, from a loose brick above, a water drop touched his face and looked back down to Apollo who was meters away from him, who seemed to be smirking in the shadow of the alley.


    Too late, Apollo thought.


    The Centurion grit his rotten teeth, he thought to run back, out into the open space.


    But it was too late. That blade of Apollo¡¯s, that thought-to-be-neutered-thing sputtered a sign of life. As the veins and cracks of its widebody began to glow, and as it began to heat and flame up and for a moment so brief, the centurion cowered. He put his shield. Apollo pointed his blade forward.


    Out the explosion shot. Contained, for a moment. Contained, until every brick began to spill with the hellfire. Contained, until it all shattered and broke down.


    A cloud of smoke jet out the alley. Following it, a streak of fire like a jet engine. The aqueduct above collapsed and water came down onto the explosion. Steam and smog both coming out from the exploded base of the aqueduct. A figure appeared. Bartholomew rubbed his eyes.


    It was Apollo. Who moved, tired. He looked for the corpse of the centurion, not noticing his damaged and bruised body, not noticing the burn marks on his left face and neck that now replaced his cuts. The fires screeched as the water hit it until it died into a crackle. Apollo wandered the smoke, looking for the corpse, for a heart to eat. But nothing remained of the centurion save for his calcified ashes and the outline of where he stood and died. It was just a shadow on the floor of a man holding his shield.


    Apollo sighed. He walked away from the explosion, towards the boy. He fell halfway.


    The boy ran up, staring at him. There was no joy in victory, not for either of them.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± He put Apollo¡¯s arm around his neck and tried to pull him up. Apollo laid, prostrate on the floor. His sword (what remained) in his hands. It was reduced, no longer a large hunk of metal, no longer a bastard sword. It had been used and abused and now, in his hands, Apollo¡¯s sword was nothing more than a stick, a rod of hot steel. A thin and sickly thing. It must have been a tenth of its original size. But Havenbrook and Hell had both done their job at filing it down and now, it was nothing.


    Just a burning stick in Apollo¡¯s hand that glowed and fumed.


    Apollo dropped the sword. The grass underneath it began to smoke. Apollo scrambled to pick it up again. Bartholomew squirmed at the sight of the weapon.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    ¡°I overused it is what happened.¡± Apollo pushed himself.


    ¡°How are you going to kill him with that?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s got some energy left in it. I might be able to burn through his armor,¡± Apollo grunted. It sounded more like sarcasm than truth. He limped forward, the boy helped. ¡°I can¡¯t blow anyone up anymore though, that''s for damn sure.¡±


    His voice was tired, hoarse. He wheezed in between his words and his eyes kept falling to the floor.


    ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll poke him to death.¡± Apollo laughed. He left his blade on a concrete step of the cathedral, the stone began to warm into a black and red surface. Apollo sat next to his warmer, arms clutching his sides.


    ¡°I can¡¯t stand.¡± Apollo rested his head on the steps. The crowd behind him was loud, booming, and expanded the walls of the cathedral it seemed.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to have to.¡± Bartholomew pulled on Apollo¡¯s arm.


    ¡°God, I¡¯m so tired,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And so hungry,¡± He sighed. ¡°And so stupid.¡±


    ¡°Start moving,¡± Bartholomew yanked harder until he himself tripped.


    ¡°I want to sleep, kid. Won¡¯t you let me? Just for a moment, enough to let my eyes rest.¡± He shut them and lay there, breathing deeply.


    ¡°Are you going to die on me too?¡± Bartholomew felt his nose dribble.


    ¡°I wish,¡± Apollo laughed. ¡°Dying is a lot easier than living.¡±


    ¡°Am I going to kill you too, like I killed the others then?¡± Bartholomew put his hands in front of him. He cradled himself, shaking back and forth. His nose blew out snot, his eyes teared up.


    ¡°No, kid. If I die it¡¯s because I deserved it.¡± Apollo said.


    Bartholomew hiccuped. His throat was full of mucus.


    ¡°Are you worried you won¡¯t make it out?¡± Apollo asked. He reached into his coat and looked for that cup, angrily throwing it towards the boy. ¡°There¡¯s your ticket. Make sure you take it with you when you go.¡±


    The boy stared, confused.


    ¡°But what about you?¡± He began to cry.


    ¡°What about me?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you want to get out too?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t even know me, kid,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Save your tears for the people who are worth them. Me? I¡¯m trash.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re not.¡± He yanked at Apollo.


    ¡°You know, before this. At the campsite, you were right. When you called me a monster? You were right about that.¡± He looked up at the sparkling ceiling.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t mean it.¡± Bartholomew pulled until he slipped away and fell behind Apollo. He hit the back of his head but didn¡¯t feel it much. ¡°I¡¯m really sorry, so stand up. Don¡¯t die like the rest.¡±


    Apollo¡¯s eyes returned to normalcy. They came around, black, like thrown coal as he stared up at the boy.


    ¡°Do you really think you killed them?¡± Apollo asked.


    The boy dug his head into his knees.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get angry with me, but tour friends died because they were weak.¡± Apollo groaned. The boy suffocated his weeping. It sounded like choking. ¡°And I¡¯m going to die because I¡¯m weak too. It¡¯s a hard lesson to live through, not many do. And it¡¯s an even harder lesson to learn from. But you will.¡±


    ¡°Why,¡± The boy let out. ¡°Why do you make it so hard to be a friend? Why are you so mean? I don¡¯t understand you. You say one thing but act out another, I don¡¯t understand you.¡±


    The boy rubbed his arms against his face.


    Apollo felt his fingers move. His flaming sword still burning into the concrete, reducing it to something molten.


    ¡°What don¡¯t you understand? The weak die, that¡¯s it.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I¡¯m talking about.¡± The boy screamed. ¡°Why do you say mean things.¡± He hiccuped. ¡°When you¡¯re a good person.¡±


    And something stronger than any punch or stab or gunshot wound punctured Apollo. He looked away from the boy, from that crying, smart gaze of his as if afraid of the light of observation he had. He scrambled, shook his head and fell silent. The boy sobbed behind him, the crowd of demons in the cathedral drowned them both out.


    Apollo opened his mouth. He held it open as he thought of something to say. At first, to figure out a way to sugar coat his message and then, realizing he couldn¡¯t, tried to figure out a way to admit it.


    His hand twitched. He felt some life in him still.


    ¡°I killed my friend when I was your age.¡± He said.


    The boy looked up, the tears dragging across his face like a windshield.


    ¡°I¡¯m not lying,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I killed my friend when I was young, just as I joined this stupid business of demon hunting, not by choice mind you. We went to the docks in San Diego, I remember it. The smell, the sound of the ocean slamming against the warehouses and wooden planks and boats. The whole block was closed down, the church in accordance with the government had isolated the incident. The public would go mad otherwise. I remember it clearly, nothing since has been able to rub the memory off my eyes. Age won''t, death probably won''t. It happened when I was thirteen.¡±


    His arm shook. He clenched his fist.


    ¡°It was me, my friend, and my teacher all in the heat of the fight and chase, I made a mistake. I overestimated myself and I tried to kill three demons, awful things. Long slender, snake-like things that still haunt me with their waxy scales and terrible hiss. I was stupid to think I could kill them by myself. And I felt dumber when my friend decided to save me. He didn¡¯t die with any pride or dignity, not like the Vatican says we would or could. He was bitten, ripped apart and eaten right in front of me. That¡¯s when I realized a man wasn¡¯t special, just a meaty body and some glue that keeps it together. I guess you¡¯d call that the soul.¡±


    The boy shook.


    ¡°I know what powerlessness feels like. It¡¯s paralyzing, isn¡¯t it? Like a snake bite. I know what it is to feel like a useless victim, to be saved and to hate yourself for being saved. To live every day of your life, to spend each living moment knowing that your time was borrowed from someone else. That someone else paid the bill that had your name on it.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll ask; why me, why me, why men and no one will answer you. You¡¯ll wake up late and angry every fucking day. You¡¯ll want to kill yourself, then feel ashamed for having the thought and then you¡¯ll drag yourself through knowing that this life does not belong to you. It belongs to people who died for you.¡±


    ¡°And you won¡¯t make friends! Because they all die on you anyways. And you won¡¯t get along with anybody! Because you won¡¯t need friends. And you won¡¯t change! Because routine is easier, even if it kills you.¡± Apollo screamed. ¡°Why care, why put your heart out? So it can get stabbed again? So you can hurt again? I don¡¯t need a reminder.¡±


    Apollo dragged his arm to his face, he tried to stop his tears.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m mean, kid.¡± Apollo shook his head. ¡°Because I¡¯m too bitter to live and too afraid to die.¡±


    He sniffled.


    ¡°Don¡¯t end up like me, Bartholomew. You¡¯ll hate yourself for it.¡±


    The boy walked up to him. He grabbed his arm and pulled, stronger, almost to cause injury.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to end up like you.¡± He said. ¡°I¡¯m still walking and trying. I¡¯m already better than you.¡±


    ¡°Why even try?¡±


    ¡°Because I¡¯d disappoint the people who helped me if I didn¡¯t.¡± The boy said, innocent, firmly, as he pulled and yanked at Apollo.


    ¡°Who am I disappointing? My friend is dead.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re disappointing yourself. That¡¯s who.¡± Bartholomew fell. He stood immediately, rubbed his knees and tried again at pulling Apollo. ¡°It would be unfair of you to die right now. You haven¡¯t earned it, so stand up.¡±


    He stopped pulling and ran to the cup and laid it on Apollo¡¯s stomach. Apollo looked at, the black liquid inside and saw his reflection. He felt a smile creeping on him. His body moved a bit, his legs began to stretch out. His fingers wandered, just a bit, searching for where his blade lay.


    ¡°You¡¯re much stronger than me.¡± Apollo stood.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have to be. You can change if you want to, you just need to want to.¡±


    Apollo took three steps. He tossed the cup at the child who fumbled it and who held it close to his chest. Apollo hunched over, the child grabbed him. He helped him up three more steps.


    ¡°If you had asked me a few weeks ago of what I wanted to do, I would have punched you in the face, grabbed that cup and gotten the fuck out of here.¡± He laughed. ¡°I guess I can¡¯t do that anymore, can I?¡±


    ¡°No, you can¡¯t.¡± The boy nodded.


    ¡°And if I told you, you should drink it and get the fuck out of here, what would you say?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not leaving without you.¡± The boy said. He nodded in affirmation, his face stern and his eyes focused.


    Apollo stood in front of the doors now, his arm pushed against the metal. His sword in his other hand, his lungs pained and aching. He smirked.


    ¡°Then give me a second,¡± He said. ¡°I¡¯ll be quick, I promise.¡±


    The boy walked up to him. He tucked the cup under his shirt and put both arms against the cathedral doors. Both of them pushed, slowly and the doors began to creak and scream as they did so. Inside the cathedral? The roaring sounds of clamor and ecstasy, an embassy house for every evil in every corner of this island. And at the center: The king, Astyanax.

 Chapter 84

    Astyanax


    Dion kicked Astyanax¡¯s shield and pushed it aside, revealing the king behind the guard. They locked eyes in that instant, an intense stare in a space and time that seemed to span both blink and eon in their adrenaline stupor. Their breaths, their heart beats, the warping slow sound of the crowd, all blending and crushing and connecting together between the two. It was the first time Astyanax had felt a bond with another. Kinship.


    And he believed it to be his last.


    Dion put his finger on the trigger, he aimed down at Astyanax¡¯s face. He could see the barrel pointing at him, still smoking from a previous shot, still lingering with the acrid smell of gunpowder. Astyanax held his breath. And for that brief instant, with his head empty of all thoughts and perversions and scorn, he accepted death.


    Dion pulled the trigger. The hammer drew. The chamber loaded.


    Nothing fired.


    Dion¡¯s eyes widened and Astyanax, hearing the click and nothing but the click, readjusted his spear. His mouth screaming behind his silver mask, the spear screeching as it broke air currents. Dion tried to jump away but looked down, he saw the spear in his stomach long before he felt the pain up through his nerves. He fell on the floor clutching his wound and Astyanax looked around, almost cautious of the victory. His breath was still held, his body still bound together tight by cautious muscles. But the crowd cheered, shouted and he laxed at the reaction.


    He looked at Dion, wounded and coughing on the floor with the pistols thrown meters away from him. His feet readjusted their stance, his arms extended out on both sides and his chest was left exposed. He shouted, he smacked his armor in arrogant showboating and with his chest open, absorbed the glory of the crowd like oxygen itself, like sunlight. Sucking it in, screaming it back, letting the chaos and bedlam of the cathedral fill his heart with joy.


    ¡°He tried, certainly,¡± Astyanax walked in circles to face every angle of the crowd. ¡°And what a foolish thing it was to fight God¡¯s chosen. Wasn¡¯t it?¡±


    The crowd stood, the noises bizarre and plentiful. Shrieks, claps, roars, hisses.


    Astyanax walked a bit past them all, towards the topmost portion of the cathedral, up to where the cross had once been now laid chains and hooks like curtains. They had been placed here only moments before the fight and now they were drawn down.


    ¡°And those that defy the will of God should get their apt abuse,¡± He walked back, the rattle of metal filling the crowd with his promise for death. ¡°For there is no greater crime,¡± Astyanax mocked. ¡°Than to go against God.¡±


    The demons laughed.


    Dion lay gasping, holding his wound. Astyanax grabbed hold of his legs and stuck the hooks through his heels.


    Dion shouted, tried to fight it with wild wriggling, but found himself too weak.


    ¡°Ready the chariots!¡± Astyanax screamed. ¡°Send him to every corner of Purgatory, let him be flag-bearer and testimony to my strength and prowess. The mighty Dion, heart-eater, demon-killer; dead. A warrior of God, killed by my hands.¡±


    They cheered and the chains shook and their noises morphed together into metallic shrieks, loud horrific inhumane noises, that boomed and quivered the glass panes and high ceilings. Astyanax once again grabbed the chains. He pulled Dion through the center of the cathedral. Dion¡¯s voice switching between grunt and scream; all of it, noises of pain. He clutched the spear so that it would not wiggle within his abdomen but it only seemed to make the pain worse.


    He stirred, he spat. But he did not cry. He groaned, shouted, lashed out in violence and in spite, but he did not cry.


    He would not give them his dignity away, even in death.


    They went around three loops across the stage like a dog show display, an auction house where the item at the sale was the very pride of God himself. And there were bids, many of them, many calls of rape and terrible agony. Too many in fact that they began to lose their identity, becoming only more wild shouts in the ocean of noise.


    And on the third loop, when he stopped at center mass, when the throes and roars reached their apex, the doors opened.


    A quick flash, a lightning bolt in the sky. Pluto''s¡¯ fire and revenge, Jove¡¯s thunderbolt, flung forward.


    The chains were cut and burned and the metal links lay busted and red-hot on the floor. Dion¡¯s feet struck the floor with a thump. They twitched. Astyanax looked back, towards the flaming sword, towards the open door and the small pillars of light that broke through. The demons turned as well, scurrying from the entrance.


    And what a strange scene and strange hero it was that came through. A starved boy, Astyanax thought, and a crippled youth.


    Apollo inched forward, his left leg dragging along the floor on its side. The bags under his eyes were pronounced, a deep purple color. His brown skin, now pale. His long hair, growing every which way and thick and sweaty. Like a mildewed untrained orchard, begging for the cut, begging for the knife. Somewhere too, on his chin, behind the ragged hairs, was a pout.


    The meek boy led Apollo like a blind man¡¯s dog, getting him far and away from the edges of the room where the demon¡¯s looked with curiosity and hunger.


    Branded men, they whispered, they¡¯re not dead yet. Living people. Like the heart-eater on the floor.


    They should not be here.


    The crowd grew rowdier. The gossiping, more annoying. Astyanax walked some paces off, to a spear rack sitting near a column. He removed a spear and struck the floor with the blunt end. Everyone quieted. Astyanax looked around.


    Everyone was quiet, everyone but Horace. Horace who bit his nails and stretched out his skin and who scratched himself bleeding. Every nervous tick going off all at once.


    Astyanax slammed again.


    ¡°Be quiet!¡± He looked back to the two. Apollo leaning onto the boy for stability. ¡°I hope that even a common intruder like you would have a bit of self-respect. Who are you? Oblige me your name, plebeian.¡±


    The boy began to shrink in front of the king, those bleeding eyes of his. The tall white figure whose red arms and legs and silver-masked face brewed feelings of disgust into the child. He shook. And Apollo, tired and bitter, put his hand on his shoulder.


    ¡°If things get out of hand, save yourself, alright? Don¡¯t even think about it.¡± He said, kindly.


    He turned his face the monstrosity, Astyanax as it was.


    ¡°Self-respect? I never had any.¡± Apollo mumbled. He pushed his hair back. ¡°The only thing I can oblige you is my sword through your skull.¡±


    Astyanax observed him, his face changing from a confused state to an almost nostalgic wry. It struck him. He laughed. A singular, long-drawn ha.


    ¡°You¡¯re the other one, aren¡¯t you. Apillo, was it? Apullo? Apollo. Apollo!¡± He shook his head in affirmation. ¡°Yes, yes. Of course, not related to the actual Apollo though, are you? You¡¯re much more haggard. You don¡¯t have that glow to you, that beauty. No, no. You certainly don''t have the makings of a God. Or even a warrior, for that matter.¡±


    ¡°Jesus Christ, you¡¯re insufferable.¡± Apollo wobbled. The demon¡¯s hissed.


    ¡°Now that''s a scary name,¡± Astyanax laughed.


    Horace began to shiver. He rose from his side of the wall and ran towards Astyanax.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°Kill him now, while he¡¯s weak, master.¡± He begged, tugging his leg.


    ¡°Not now, Horace.¡± He nudged his leg. Apollo watched, breathing heavily.


    ¡°I can¡¯t save you from him,¡± Horace pleaded.


    ¡°Can¡¯t save me from him?¡± Astyanax laughed. Everyone laughed with him, except for the three. The housekeeper and the two invaders. ¡°You can¡¯t save me from anything,¡± Astyanax added.


    He thought about it again, save me from him. It seemed stuck, an itch perhaps. A humor of the brain.


    Then it began to disturb Astyanax, the echo of the phrase that would not escape his head. Save me from him. He looked down at Horace, who looked up. His face sad, with gloomy eyes determined at staring down Astyanax. Astyanax returned to a dull face, he thought again. Save me from him. He tilted his head back and forth and looked at Dion who laid on the floor. He was holding his wound still. His guns were on both sides, the closest being only feet away from him. One of them was in his hands, he must have crawled to it in the middle of the conversation. It should have given a reason for Astyanax to kill him, but he looked more closely at Dion, specifically his unconscious state and the fact that he was still pushing down at the trigger, awake or not. Over and over, like routine.


    But he wasn¡¯t impressed that Dion could shoot (or try to shoot) in his sleep. Nor was he offended. He was surprised.


    Astyanax walked to him. He picked up the gun and looked at it. Inspecting the bullets and the chambers and the lever. He pointed it at Dion¡¯s head. Apollo shrieked, No and tripped forward as he tried to stop him.


    Astyanax hit the trigger.


    Nothing. They were all confused. He checked the chambers. There were three bullets left still there.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± Astyanax asked. ¡°What did you do?¡±


    Apollo stood up. He got the boy and ran towards Dion.


    Horace fell to his knees


    ¡°I only wanted to protect you.¡±


    ¡°What. Did. You. Do?¡±


    Horace pulled his rags down below his knees and bit his lips and begged, his head falling so fast as to bash himself against the floor.


    ¡°I did everything I could to help you. I always have, young master.¡±


    Astyanax dropped his spear and shield. Everyone stood in thralldom, the scene left no room to breathe or even move.


    ¡°What did you do, scoundrel?¡± He slapped Horace across the face, his blood splattered on the floor.


    ¡°I saved you.¡±


    ¡°Tell me now, cretin!¡± He shouted. ¡°What did you do!¡±


    ¡°I took away his strength,¡± The words spilled out quickly. ¡°I ruined some of his bullets, that¡¯s it. Only a few! That¡¯s all it took and see? See?! Look at what victory it guaranteed.¡±


    The gossiping began again. Foul play? Foul play, common amongst demons, were they regular demons. But foul play amongst New Troy, and her citizens? From the king, venerable king? Of course, they wouldn''t resist to gossip.


    Astyanax looked around.


    ¡°You¡­¡± His voice broke. ¡°You shamed me?¡±


    His eyes fell, his feet fell limp and he loomed over Horace. Horace put his arms around Astyanax to hold him, to apologize.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know sir, I didn¡¯t know.¡± Horace cried. ¡°But to throw your life on the line like that, I couldn¡¯t tolerate the anxieties sir. I had to do something.¡±


    Astyanax put an arm around Horace, it felt weak.


    ¡°Oh, please master. I¡¯m sorry. But you must understand.¡± Horace rubbed his head deep into the armor of Astyanax.


    Astyanax dropped his spear. He put his other hand around Horace.


    ¡°You only wanted to help?¡± Astyanax asked.


    ¡°Yes, I did nothing but help.¡±


    The demon¡¯s kept speaking in their foreign tongues, some laughing, some mocking, others afraid.


    ¡°Then you should be rewarded, my dear Horace,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°Help is what you give, help is what you¡¯ll receive. Help from this pitiful existence. The only help you need.¡±


    Astyanax wrapped himself around Horace.


    He held him close. And he pulled, closer and closer. Squeezing.


    ¡°L-L-let go.¡± Horace managed to let out. His chest was squished against the armor and body of Astyanax.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± It sounded more like the hurt plea of a dog than a man.


    Astyanax stood holding the servant, squeezing him, feeling the bones and tendons and muscles break and compress. Slowly, methodically. His arms were the first to give out, the bones popped out of his elbows.


    ¡°Ah,¡± What a painful thing it was to want to scream, but being unable to. The air exhausted from his chest, Horace could only let out squeaks.


    His legs dangled and flailed about. His eyes began to bleed, his mouth began to flood with all the fluids trying desperately to escape from his mouth. From his chest up, he was bleeding and going purple and dying that painful death as his heart and lungs and bones were crushed together into an amalgamation of flesh and ivory. He looked up, eyes blurred and covered with a layer of blood, he looked up to Astyanax who held him in his death grip.


    Bartholomew turned away. Astyanax narrowed his eyes. Everyone else, the demons, shivered as Horace let out those dying sounds. The bone breaking, lung-popping, pitiful death.


    And when he was done and the blood came pouring out of the lesions of his choked flesh and out of his nose and ears and eyes, he let him drop on the floor. The body made a wet plop as it hit the pool of blood and ejected fluids.


    There was awe in everyone, awe to the violence save for one.


    Apollo, crafty as he was, adjusted to violence as he was, ran for his blade (as fast a run he could do on tired legs). He picked it up and ran close up behind Astyanax.


    He didn¡¯t make it two feet before Astyanax turned. He picked up his spear with a quick kick of his feet. He aimed the spear then flung it out, towards Apollo.


    Apollo stopped, caught in fear.


    The wind brushed his hair aside. The spear went past him, to his rear. He turned his head slowly to watch where it landed. A tendriled demon (the awful, nauseous and many-limbed thing it was) lay behind him, pinned to a pillar. He had a weapon drawn, seemingly aimed at Apollo¡¯s back just as Apollo had his own weapon drawn to Astyanax¡¯s back.


    Apollo stood still. Blade fidgeting, his breaths loud and quick as he watched the king venture back to the spear rack.


    ¡°I won¡¯t thank you,¡± Apollo said. His voice had a frailty to it.


    Astyanax compared spears.


    ¡°H-Honor really means that much to you, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°It must be terrible knowing you have a faulty win, then.¡±


    ¡°Be quiet,¡± Astyanax¡¯s voice was low, stern. Like a quick, blunt punch. ¡°Foul play made his death quicker. That¡¯s it. Within minutes, mere blinks, he would have died inevitably.¡±


    ¡°If you were that confident in your victory, if things were really going to play out that way and no other, then why even bother killing your friend. Why make a scene at all? Shouldn''t you have been confident, forgiving?¡± Apollo pointed to the corpse. ¡°It seems to me like you weren¡¯t just angry, it seems to me like you were trying to kill a doubt in your head. A doubt that maybe, just maybe, you would have lost if things played out normally.¡±


    ¡°I know I would have won.¡± Astyanax yanked a spear out. The loud jerk caused everyone to jump.


    ¡°You can¡¯t guarantee that.¡±


    ¡°I foresaw it.¡±


    ¡°You foresaw shit.¡± Apollo spat. ¡°Don¡¯t convince yourself otherwise.¡±


    Boos. Loud shouts of anger responded back. Astyanax moved his spear across in a sweep like a conductor, and they all silenced themselves.


    ¡°What compels me is honor, that¡¯s it. Don¡¯t confuse yourself, I am not delusional in my ego. What I foresaw, what I felt, what I know is that I would have won.¡± Astyanax said. ¡°But you¡¯re right. Foul play does disturb me. It deflates my authority, it hurts my spirit.¡±


    Apollo slapped his hand like a disobedient pet, trying to straighten it. Trying to make it go still.


    ¡°So leave us be then, go on. I¡¯ll give you that right. Take the boy and yourself and leave, let me finish things with this heart-eater.¡±


    Dion groaned.


    ¡°That¡¯s a kind offer.¡± Apollo looked back, Dion and the boy stood behind him. ¡°But we¡¯ll all be leaving, together.¡±


    ¡°And how do you expect to do that?¡±


    ¡°With your head on my lap.¡±


    There were murmurs amongst the crowd. The sparks of a new excitement.


    ¡°Will you fight in his place?¡± Astyanax looked at Apollo¡¯s blade and how it shook. ¡°Can you?¡±


    Apollo quaked in place. Astyanax nodded his head, he closed his eyes (cocky thing, isn¡¯t he?). He walked towards Apollo, then past him, towards the pinned demon on the column. Astyanax touched the entry room with his red hands and to everyone¡¯s surprise, cocked his hand back.


    He dug it deep into the corpse''s chest. And out came the heart. He threw it, the glowing, heart with the mineral growth about it. Apollo looked at it for a second, then back at Astyanax who settled himself back to his original place. He switched his vision back and forth between the two before, cautious and hungry like a feral, starved animal. He settled for the heart. Apollo pounced on it, stuck his teeth deep into it, tasting and eating it off the floor. A messy meal.


    When he was done (quickly at that), he looked up. Astyanax stared, sad and disgusted.


    ¡°Can I even call you a man?¡± He said. ¡°What depraved ilk you must have come from. Undignified fool.¡±


    ¡°Dignity? Like him?¡± Apollo pointed to Dion who groaned. ¡°If it leaves you on the floor bleeding, was it ever useful? I prefer more practical philosophies.¡±


    Apollo could feel his wounds healing, closing, his bruises clearing up. He could feel his legs and arms and the nimble steel of his blade.


    ¡°Honor is what makes the fight worth enjoying, honor and life, the only things worth putting on the scale. Nothing else matters but those two. Nothing.¡± Astyanax said.


    ¡°How you¡¯ve lived this long, this conceited and this stupid is beyond me.¡± Apollo stretched his body.


    ¡°Most things are beyond a wretch such as yourself.¡± Astyanax scoffed.


    ¡°A wretch, huh.¡± Apollo jumped up and down in rhythm. ¡°I guess dying to me will be that much more embarrassing, then?¡±


    Silence amongst the crowd. Astyanax twirled his spear.


    ¡°Tell me, heart eater. Had I been as injured as you, as rude as you, as crooked as you; would you have given me the same respect I¡¯ve given you?¡± Astyanax asked.


    ¡°No, the golden rule is for fools,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I would have slit your throat a long time ago.¡±


    Astyanax laughed to himself again.


    ¡°Well, the weak fear the strong.¡± They walked in circles opposite of each other. ¡°And I do not fear you. For what difference will you make of fate, with that simple renewed strength? None. ¡±


    ¡°Well then. You¡¯re strong and stupid.¡± Apollo could feel a bit of confidence returning. His blade stopped shaking, his eyes were focused. He only hoped it was an authentic article, something that would survive him through the fight.


    ¡°I¡¯ve fed you, I¡¯ve allowed you your fangs,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°So don¡¯t disappoint me, put up a fight. Do me that favor."


    Apollo was silent. His blade ready, his heart starting that momentous engine roar. Badum, badum, badum.


    Astyanax stomped on the floor. Both now ready.


    ¡°You¡¯re amongst rare and good company, Vicar.¡± His silver-mask faced away from the light, gaunt shadows across the pale face. ¡°Die comfortably with this knowledge: you are part of the few to face me in open combat. And you will be one of the many to die beneath me.¡±

 Chapter 85

    Apollo


    They were close enough that Apollo could hear the chinking metal sounds. The loud scrapes were audible, even amongst the crowd that berated and that applauded. The heat of Apollo¡¯s sword warmed him, its glowing edge pointed directly in front of him.


    Astyanax hid behind his shield, only an eye remained of what was him. His spear was high above his head, pointing down towards Apollo. And Apollo began counting the meters of distance and range between the two. His lips quivering as he did so. His feet inched towards Astyanax, his clothes were wet with blood.


    His courage had not survived even mere minutes. And for all his gloating, here he was now, afraid.


    All of him was fidgeting and buckling and all he could find comfort in was that blade of his and its dying glow.


    ¡°Aye, what¡¯s wrong heart-eater?¡± Astyanax took a step forward. The corner of his slight smile appearing past the shield.


    ¡°At a loss of enthusiasm, already?¡± Astyanax took a step forward. Apollo a step back.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you aware of what I¡¯ve done? Doesn¡¯t it make you angry?¡± He thrust his spear forward, into empty air. Apollo moved instinctively. There was no fight, not yet. Just tests.


    Apollo moved his head and scanned the room, he lost track of all the demons around the two. He inspected the size of the building instead, every tower and its shadow, every corner and its set of curious eyes. The surrounding perimeter of the building was hidden, almost completely dark and what few torches were there could not illuminate past five feet. The center, where they fought, was the most illuminated and up above, Apollo saw the painted glass pane.


    Jesus Christ, quite literally, stared down at him.


    The demons hid in that darkness, cheering.


    He returned back to the fight, surprised he hadn¡¯t be stabbed in his absentmindedness.


    Five meters of range, ten meters apart. Apollo thought.


    He stopped moving. Astyanax took steps forward.


    ¡°The scum and the men,¡± Astyanax tapped his wide shield against the floor. It rang. ¡°The women and the children, all dead by my command. All to deliver you and Dion unto me. All it took was a promise, words. A few simple words directed at a few simple creatures. Clever, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    Apollo twitched at the word ¡®children¡¯.


    ¡°Words lead men. Words destroy empires, delete religions, reduce cultures. So are you surprised then, that words could kill children? It¡¯s not like they were that tough, to begin with.¡±


    Apollo¡¯s eye flinched, his stance changed. His face winced.


    ¡°Oh? Already hurt? It¡¯s your choice to be offended or not, you know. And I don¡¯t think someone who was so hurtful only moments ago should be this offended now. Don¡¯t take it so hard, would you?¡± He paused two meters from striking distance. ¡°She was just a child, a dumb child. I don¡¯t even think she was aware of death as it happened. I was there, you know, as a simple rat. The albino.¡±


    Apollo¡¯s grip clenched. He felt something crawl down his spin, anger.


    ¡°What was her name again? Opie? Souve? Mmm. Sophie?¡±


    And of all things to go wrong, this was the worst.


    Apollo rushed first. Blade forward. The spear zoomed towards him. He dodged. The wind pushed his hair to its side. He heard his blade whistle, then bang.


    Astyanax had his shield high in front of him, absorbing the blow. The leather began to burn behind the blade. The smell traveled up Apollo¡¯s nose. He kept banging down at the shield, beginning to melt the metal. On the fifth, he was pushed away.


    Astyanax riposted Apollo.


    He exposed his body and kicked him. Apollo flew, his face dragging across the floor. He could taste the granite in his teeth, he could feel the specks of dirt stuck to the roof of his mouth. Blood was coming out from a cut brow, his temples rattled.


    His left ear rung as Astyanax approached. The heavy footsteps were dulled to him, only a reverberation.


    Stand up. He thought. He stabbed his blade into the ground, the stone softened underneath the heat.


    The spear shot out again. He rolled to the side. It struck the floor where he was, rope and wood and the metal tip all shattering. The splinters shot out like a compressed shrapnel grenade, hitting Apollo¡¯s sides.


    It wasn¡¯t good enough for Astyanax. No, not him.


    Astyanax screamed, both hands out high above him. He grabbed his shield with both hands and slammed it towards Apollo. Apollo who put his elbows up to block. He was tackled. Thrown. Tossed. Pushed out, towards the edge of the cathedral where the demons laughed and taunted him. Apollo stood, only to feel another push from behind. The audience was pushing him forward, to Astyanax.


    His chest ached, he could feel his broken bones stabbing his skin and muscles. He could feel his body trying desperately to repair itself, like a warm sting all across his body. A wave of heat and pain. The red steam rose from his inconsistent healing. Cuts and gashes were disappearing and reappearing all the same.


    Astyanax struck him again, over and over, with the face of his shield, with the edge of it. Apollo dashed away after the tenth blow.


    His legs were heavy. His grip was weak. He dropped his blade twice before he picked it up.


    All the while Astyanax watched, spitting, screaming.


    ¡°Dion had spirit!¡± He walked towards the spear holder, a collection of barrels on top of a cart. He grabbed the handle and pushed it towards the center of the cathedral. ¡°He stood and fought. He! He had in him the strength of will to suffer through agony. Do you?¡±


    Apollo¡¯s head rose. His lips were burst, his tongue rolled around to feel the wound. And he shook his head, trying to fix the triplets of blurry images that plagued his vision.


    He could see the hordes of demons and their long tendrils or hands and bizarre shapes cheering who in his tossed-head looked like three times the people. He shook his head.


    The three images aligned at once. Just in time. A spear was screeching, coming for him. Hungry.


    He dodged to the right. The demons behind him were struck by the blow. The cathedral wall behind him broke, the head of a feline-creature was stabbed through the cracked surface. Apollo could hear the dying moan and further around the body, the frightened shock of the audience. It was an infection that grew and grew and all around the demons were beginning to fear.


    Apollo caught it, eventually. A little later than most.


    His heart beat fast, his eyes focused. He ran laps around the arena, the spears were shooting out. Like machine gun fire, whizzing and shattering air and concrete. The pops and sharp sounds of bone and stone breaking near him. The columns were collapsed, perforated and weak. The demons were killed for every spear Apollo dodged, their bodies hung and spasmed on the walls they were pinned to. The torches collapsed. The glass and ceiling broke. A new darkness overtook the arena, one filled with the sporadic caustic sounds of death and collapse.


    He ran twelve laps, Apollo counted, twelve laps around the cathedral before the javelin''s stopped flying.


    Bartholomew and Dion were both low to the ground, Dion now silent in his deep state of unconscious, Bartholomew with his hands to his head as his body laid prone on the floor.


    Some demons had decided to leave. They rushed through the door, trampling smaller creatures who could not manage. Some still stood, out of paralyzed fear or obligation. Some were forced to stay, half-dead on the broken Gothic walls.


    Glass and wood and stone littered the floor. The once sharp and precise architecture was reduced to broken gaps and shattered cement. The building looked sieged, it was in a way, by a single man who stood, breathing heavily, at the center of the cathedral.


    Apollo reared his head out of the trunk of a half-standing column. Most of it was lying on the floor, only the stem remained. He pulled his coat away from him, it was sticking.


    All his clothes were sticky. Why?


    He looked down. Blood. So much of it, trickling down his pants and filling his feet. He was still alive, barely. He wasn¡¯t punctured, yet. Rather, he had been cut up by rosy-tinted church glass and other such gaudy shrapnel. His body had tried to heal but now, in his tired state. He couldn¡¯t. His blade still in his hands, its bright glow now dimming, its radiant heat now cooling.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised you didn¡¯t run with the rest.¡± Astyanax said. He reached inside the barrel, only one spear left. He raised it above him, eyed it against the unfiltered light of the broken glass ceiling and spun it like a propeller.


    He slammed it three times on the floor, it had a good weight to it.


    ¡°Out of conversation, jester?¡± He painted towards Apollo.


    Apollo put his blade forward, he ran.


    ¡°I guess you are.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    They went at it, the steel and leather and armor all clanking into a harmonious symphony of violence. The way blood rained and sprayed on the floor, the way their sweat trickled down, the intimacy of their bodies interlocked into holds and bouts of strength, all of it seemed like passionate theater. A dance, perhaps. Or lovemaking, to some perverted extent.


    And like a dance, like the loss of the self in the moment, they stopped thinking after a while. Both of them.


    Apollo just rushed. And rushed. And rushed. His blade banging down on the shield, the heat of his very sword beginning to melt and sawing through the bronze and leather. The sparks flew. The fire spread across the face of the shield. Astyanax pushed Apollo away. He looked at his flaming bulwark. The metal was melted through, it was branding his arm. He threw it to the side.


    He looked at his spear. It was half its size, a portion of the wooden handle having been burned out. The ash came down from the ruined end like a used cigarette.


    Apollo lowered himself. He galloped forward. An opening, he hoped.


    A mistake.


    Astyanax saw the man leap. He moved quickly and launched his spear through Apollo¡¯s shoulder. His body would not heal that. It would not even reject the stake in his shoulder blades.


    Apollo dropped. He rolled on the floor, away from Astyanax and faced him. He pulled out the wood. His wound suckled pursed and suckled air as the stake came out. Apollo felt the jolt of pain, then the burn, and eventually, the weak wetness of his blood escaping his body.


    And Astyanax, weary and angry, annoyed and confidant, reached down to the side of his metal skirt. He took out his gladius and walked forward. His pace was slow. His head hung forward.


    Apollo saw the shadow approaching. He could feel his stomach turning, his cowardice returning. As if all confidence had bled out of that wound as well and all that remained was the frightened fidgeting of a boy. He looked at his sword, then to Astyanax, then back. One of his arms was useless.


    Of course it was. It was stabbed through.


    It didn¡¯t matter now. He had to try anyway, he had to fight. He stood and steadied his blade as best he could with his only good hand.


    ¡°This is the land of warriors,¡± Astyanax said. ¡°And your existence here is a mockery. Coward and Clown, whichever you be, know that this charade ends here.¡±


    Apollo looked around. Desperation guided him. The collapsed walls, the broken ceiling. The dark ring around the cathedral now growing and covering the corpses and stray observers. The torches unlit. A veil of complete blackness was nearly enveloping them both, and they remained just in the center, just in the last circle of light. Them and Dion and Bartholomew.


    And he looked down at his shaking arm.


    ¡°Keep your blade up, die with decency,¡± Astyanax said.


    Apollo could feel the king approaching, his long shadow covering Apollo completely.


    And he looked down at his broken arm. It was warm now.


    Was it warm? Why warm? It ought to be numb.


    He looked at his useless arm, below the black coat, below the cufflink and even further below the white undershirt.


    He looked around himself, towards the ring of darkness. Complete darkness. He looked at his sword. It wasn¡¯t glowing anymore, still a bit hot. But not glowing.


    His heart almost stopped. His breathing hastened.


    His arm was losing blood, that¡¯s why he hadn¡¯t felt it at first. That terribly tight, terribly hot string of fate. That lasso, that bondage wrapped around his arm, bright and hot at the presence of demons and monstrosities. Though not to Astyanax, not that immortal monstrous soul of a man. But to the audience? To the very crowd Astyanax had invited? Oh, yes, it burned for them bright.


    And it was hidden. Underneath the rags of his coat, underneath his shirt. Hidden well.


    ¡°How will you die?¡± Astyanax threw his helmet off. His white hair fell down. ¡°Standing or begging. What suits you best?¡±


    Apollo smiled. He ran away.


    Far from Dion and Bartholomew. Towards the edge of the cathedral, into the absolute darkness where only the moans of the dying demons remained.


    ¡°With a sword through your back, then, is it!¡± Astyanax ran after him, thinking to throw his gladius. But Apollo had run too far deep into the darkness by then.


    Astyanax stopped inches from the tapered end of the deep shadows, near a pillar. He tried to look inside the darkness and saw nothing.


    ¡°Shadows and trickery, do you think it¡¯ll keep you safe?¡± Astyanax screamed.


    He heard a scoff repudiate him. His face scowled.


    ¡°Die in the bowels of darkness then, snake. I offered you a quick death, but now you will writhe.¡± Astyanax put his blade forward as he came in.


    Apollo saw nothing in the darkness of the edge of the cathedral. Not even with his crimson eyes. He was coming in and out of doors, passing walls and columns and disappearing further into the false night.


    He touched something.


    He jerked his foot away.


    He stepped down on it, the soft flesh. Oh, just a corpse on the floor. His foot made a light noise.


    Astyanax heard him. And he jumped away. He felt his hair move from the wind of a passing blade. Again, and again. He was fighting in that darkness, fighting invisible knives and noises. He danced. He dodged. He ran.


    And once again bid his time in darkness. His heart raced. And he thought, only for a brief moment, of what he stood to lose. The thoughts flooded him, images of death and misery. The deaths of himself, of Dion, of Bartholomew.


    Then, as if stabbed again, he saw the terrible image. Of the girl, Sophie, on that rooftop, split open.


    He wanted to groan. He held his mouth shut.


    He focused, holding his breath. The footsteps were coming closer, judgment was coming closer.


    He hid his blade in his coat and almost as if in surprise, found something else underneath. Whatever it was, he held it in his mouth and bit down hard on it to stop himself from screaming.


    Whatever he did was hot and painful and almost made him wail, had he not held the strange object in his mouth. He heard the footsteps approaching. His blade was still down, beneath his clothes, hiding its light glow.


    Closer. The light, nimble steps. Closer to Apollo. Near him, next to him.


    He heard the breath of Astyanax, he felt the hot air hit him.


    And Apollo threw something forward.


    Something that made a plopping noise as it hit cement. Something that sounded like flesh. Something that glowed in the dark.


    Astyanax, near, and quick stabbed at it. His gladius struck flesh and bone and the floor, the sound was loud. Clear. Obvious in the darkness.


    And they both knew at that moment what would happen next, with Astyanax in that darkness, having stabbed the floor and cement and having made that noise. With Apollo, behind him, with the steady hot blade.


    He aimed at the noise, put all his strength into it. Astyanax moved, tried to.


    Apollo felt his blade hit armor, then as the heat began to reduce the metal, felt it hit flesh. Blood boiled in the wound and escaped. His blade cooled within the human sheath. And with one final burst of will, Apollo reached for Astyanax in that darkness, his crimson eyes only appearing as a flash, and threw Astyanax back, into the light at the center of the church.


    Astyanax rolled on the floor, each bump sinking the blade deeper into his chest. He laid there for a moment, above a bed of broken glass. Surprised by pain, of his injury. Surprised by the black leather wrapped handle of a sword sticking out of his chest.


    So very confused, his eyes wandered around to Bartholomew and to Dion and to Horace. Bartholomew who screamed, not jovial or triumphantly, but in shocked horror.


    Astyanax stood there in the center. He dragged the wreckage of the church, nails and wood and glass, below his trembling feet. He took his helmet off to see properly. His two braided bangs of hair falling down his face. Ruined. They looked like worn ends of a disciplinary whip.


    Why am I so weak? He wondered. There are no lungs, no organs like the other three, living people have. I¡¯m just a spirit, just a mighty soul.


    Then why can¡¯t I stand still? Astyanax thought again. He wobbled left and right.


    Why can¡¯t I fight? He thought. He tried looking for the gladius to his rear. He found it at last and widened as he looked at it.


    There was an arm hanging from the tip of the blade. There was string wrapped around it, and it glowed gold.


    He laughed. Then tried to pick it up like a broken crane, he took an inch off the floor only to drop it.


    He couldn¡¯t bend his knees. His poise was shaky, at best.


    ¡°Where are you?¡± Astyanax wheezed out.


    There was a noise. Something in front of him, a scream, a scuffle that kept going and growing.


    Oh, that¡¯s why. Astyanax thought.


    He looked into that darkness from where he had been shot out of. Towards the staccato. He smiled. He understood.


    Apollo¡¯s eyes shined through the absolute black of the cathedral. Those crimson eyes. Then a new face appeared, one Astyanax could only imagine, one that would haunt him to oblivion. Apollo came out, red-eyed, with his mask. That which hid in his jacket, that which possessed Astyanax with fear. The white mask, engraved with black lines. A rorschach that revealed something in Astyanax that he did not want to accept: he was to die, sad and alone in these remote lands.


    The rest of Apollo appeared, slowly materialized. One armless half, the other tightly clenched into a fist. The knob of his arm was cauterized. The skin was burned black.


    He walked close up to Astyanax who could barely stand. Astyanax fell to his knees.


    Apollo pulled his amputated limb close to his chest.


    Astyanax, as a final attack, grabbed onto Apollo''s severed hand. He gripped the amputated arm, dug his fingers into the burned flesh and began some foreign enchantment. Apollo screamed, felt a bolt of pain stride his arm nerves, straight to his chest and his neck. He put his foot down at Astyanax and pressed him down on the floor.


    ¡°A gift.¡± Astyanax¡¯s eyes rolled to the corners of his skull. ¡°So you never forget me, heart-eater.¡±


    Apollo looked at his wound. It felt strange now, weak and cold. He didn¡¯t understand it, couldn¡¯t, not in his ravaged state.


    Whatever, Apollo thought. I''ll deal with this later. He comes first.


    He looked back at Astyanax who spewed blood from his mouth.


    ¡°Was it worth it?¡± Apollo said. ¡°Everything you did. Did you get the good fight you wanted?¡±


    Astyanax focused his dying eyes back at Apollo. Yellow, hardened.


    ¡°Don¡¯t patronize me, Apollo.¡± He said.


    ¡°I¡¯m not. I¡¯m trying to understand you.¡±


    ¡°But can you? Can you understand my loneliness, could you ever?¡± Astyanax said. ¡°A loneliness so strong it makes you wish for love. For hate. For anything, just to feel. Can you understand that?¡±


    Apollo kneeled down at Astyanax, whose blood sprawled out of his mouth and onto the floor.


    Apollo put his hand on the handle of his blade. ¡°Yes, yes I can.¡± He pulled out his blade. Blood poured out. It covered his armor, then overwhelmed.


    The ceiling broke off a chunk and the cement fell behind him. The sound signaled a reaction amongst the crowd.


    Behind them, frightened voices whispered in the dark. Some faces appeared through the doors.


    Astyanax rolled his head around. He was trying to find someone. He looked at Dion first. Then to Bartholomew.


    He spat, a long string of blood came out and to his rear.


    He stopped at Horace. Horace, broken on the floor, both sad and happy that he would join him soon.


    At last, he faced Apollo who still had his foot down his abdomen. With his blade ready.


    ¡°Curious about me, aren¡¯t you?¡± Astyanax asked. ¡°Of who I was and who I am then?¡±


    His head jerked forward, a last rebellious move.


    ¡°I was not born in Troy. I died there. I was raised, nurtured in Hell. Understand that.¡± He said. ¡°Understand a man who did not get to experience his own history, but was forced to hear of it. Who was of noble line but stranger to it. A man who wanted more of life, but wished to die.¡±


    He shouted now, his face shaking left and right. Tears coming down his face.


    ¡°I killed thousands and I would have killed thousands more.¡± Astyanax coughed. ¡°And am I wrong for that, to kill for pleasure? As what was done to me? Only the naive say aye. Because only the naive make judicious claims of what a life, any life, is worth. For the wise know, nothing matters. And that every act of wills is nothing more than the chance game of the universe, of God. I lived. I desired. I took and killed. And you do the same, don''t you, Vicar?"


    Apollo cocked his arm back. Astyanax felt the blood collect in his throat. He swallowed.


    ¡°You have no right to judge me, Apollo.¡± He shouted. ¡°You who live behind that mask, fearing God. You who live, shamelessly in sin. You tainted soul. You mutt of man-!¡±


    He looked at Apollo, solemn and tall. Past him, in the growing darkness of the room, somewhere where his vision could barely make out figures, he saw a form. A figure, coming together seemingly through the dissipative light and darkness of the outer edge of the room.


    Not a pinned man, not a corpse on the floor. A four-legged creature. Walking with a passive gait, grin in full view. Spotted skin, he noticed.


    His eyes widened. His muscles tensed.


    ¡°Trickster,¡± He whispered. His last words.


    Apollo¡¯s hand came down, through the hole in his armor, into his chest. He dug his hand deep into the cavity of the body. Astyanax stifled a scream, grabbed the bloody arm and held it tight. At first out of protest and instinct, then, as he felt his innards searched, out of merciful touch. He wanted to hold someone, for some reason.


    And after a while, he wanted nothing. Had nothing to want, for there was no one there anymore. Just false-flesh, a puppet where a man once was. An empty vessel.


    Astyanax let go. His red limbs receding to pearly white. The yellow in his eyes, turning white. All of him, going white and dead.


    Apollo drew his hand back, the blood dripped from his gripping palm.


    In his hand; the beating heart of King Astyanax, sultan of the desert, throne to degenerates, emperor of none.

 Chapter 86

    Bartholomew


    He retracted his arm from the corpse. The drops of blood made a light trickling sound as they hit the cracked tiles of floor. Everyone stood in silence, the air felt heavy in their lungs, their eyes could not blink. Apollo stood. Above the corpse, his leg poking the body for a sign of life. The eyes of Astyanax slowly fading. It was a gruesome death, this slow degradation. The blood spilled out from every cavity of Astyanax. The muscles ripped open, bleeding. The chest cavity, open, bleeding.


    Apollo looked back to the two on the floor that had waited for him, Dion and Bartholomew. There was a murmur, some wheezing that was so pained and frightened that he could no figure who it came from, the boy or Dion. Apollo, heart in hand, moved towards them. The boy flinched at the sight of the bloody man. Most of the remaining demons did. They could not believe it, though they saw it. But Apollo, in the languor of victory, extended his hand out to the boy and the cup. He swiped it from the awestruck boy and squeezed the heart above it. The crystalline, cloudy heart. It looked like a ruby more than an organ, and it produced no more than a few inches worth of blood inside the cup.


    ¡°Now you can go home,¡± Apollo said. He was just about to hand it when he heard a pained groan from Dion. It was something loud and furious and he knelt next to him to hear it.


    His eyes blinked, one lid seemed shut and the other was only half-open. As if he was in a stupor of pain.


    ¡°I lost,¡± Dion mumbled.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, he¡¯s dead.¡±


    ¡°I lost.¡± He repeated. His face dropped, his eyes seemed to look away from any human contact, staring off into emptiness. ¡°How¡¯d I lose? Wasn¡¯t God on my side?¡±


    Apollo said nothing. He rubbed his arm and stood up.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with him?¡± The boy asked.


    ¡°Too much, but he¡¯ll live.¡± Apollo looked back to the boy. His shoulders relaxed. "Don¡¯t worry about him. It¡¯s time for you to go home."


    The boy looked up, confused as to whether to smile or not.


    And again, the arbiter of the locale, the disruptor, and guardian angel. The Hyena appeared, crawling slowly with long nails that tapped on the floor. Everyone was forced to turn save for Dion who had fallen unconscious again, mumbling his grievances like lullabies.


    Everyone else, demon, man, boy, all turned. The Hyena stomped on the floor like an oracle upon the amphitheater. His eyes sharp and thin like daggers.


    "But how do you expect to get out?" The Hyena asked. "There''s only enough blood for two."


    "Then the boy and Dion go," Apollo said. His voice filtered through them mask gave him a bit of reverb. It was a haunting sound, low and brutish.


    "Hmm." The Hyena mused with a kind of reserved playfulness. He¡¯s hiding something, Bartholomew thought.


    But what?


    It was a secret, something very close to them. Something that waited further from Horace¡¯s crushed corpse, something that hung by the side of the wall like a disgusting fly. Something drawing near with gentle footsteps.


    A face appeared from that dark veil. A face that made Apollo run for the sword lying near Astyanax. The lone demon face amongst the hoard of demons. Or perhaps, he was just another kind of demon? Of a smaller make, but definitely of the same species.


    Apollo bent down to pick it up, the heart still taking space in his only good hand. His eyes flashed red again, widened, and his knees bent towards the direction of the oncoming figure. No, he wouldn¡¯t need a sword. Not that dark steel, warped and cool and laying a pool of blood like a kind of lubricant.


    He stood, heart in hand, now nearly crushing it completely.


    "Do you know this man?" The Hyena asked.


    "Do I know him?" Apollo screamed. The other demons were seized, they froze. There must have been only just twenty, twenty from a large crowd of hundreds. "How could I forget? That beard can¡¯t hide you, that darkness can¡¯t hide you. Nothing can with that reputation of yours. Am I right, Doctor Alestor?¡±


    Alestor did not speak. He walked forward with his bruised bare feet. He entered the jury, he met with the executioner, and now waited for judgment. It seemed like he didn¡¯t even care anymore, with his arms lying to their sides and his figure a wreckage of the hostile, frightening thing he was once before.


    "So you killed him." Alestor finally let out. ¡°You were the most dogged after all.¡±


    "Yeah, funny thing, huh. Madmen are dying left and right." Apollo said.


    Alestor swallowed his spit. He seemed of a strong conviction, there was no tension in his face. It was all dullness. Dullness and acceptance.


    The Hyena, smiling with his devil''s teeth took turns glancing between the two, observing them both.


    "What is there left to do, Apollo?" He asked.¡±Kill him, like he¡¯s done to many."


    Apollo stood straight. His eyes a strong crimson color.


    "What¡¯s one mortal man to you? It would be a merciful thing to do, wouldn¡¯t it be? To kill him, to eat that tainted heart of his. I heard that warlocks have a nice tanginess to them." The Hyena laughed.


    One death is all it would take. One death to ruin a man, one death to send him into that Fibonacci spiral of ecstatic self-destruction. One death, just one human death to earn his place in that dark abyss whether it be in this life or the other. And who would care, here in Hell?


    Demons, men, all the same. Why bother distinguishing between the two? Why worry at all?


    "Have you killed a man before?" The Hyena asked. "It''s easy, they¡¯re so fragile. You just thrust and twist, like this."


    He made the motion with his head, turning it like a key in a lock until the bones of his neck cracked. The sound made Bartholomew cringe.


    Apollo shook, he felt the hostility up his neck like a hot flare.


    "You know what he''s done, don''t you?"


    "I lived it. Of course I do." He said in a raw tone.


    And he walked towards Alestor. His tight grip still on the heart. He¡¯d just need to punch a hole in him, that¡¯s it.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Bartholomew stood and watched, the intent in Apollo''s eyes striking him with a terrible feeling of numbness. The Hyena sneering, rolling, wagging his tail to the pace of Apollo¡¯s walk.


    He felt powerless, like before, the many times before. He had lost count of it, those moments of powerlessness. Powerlessness reduced him and made him shiver. Powerlessness had made him a coward.


    And he thought of the story of Apollo, second-hand killer of his friend. And he thought of Apollo, the lonely child. And he thought of Apollo, soon-to-be murderer.


    He ran towards Apollo and lunged at his foot with a far stretched dive.


    Apollo stopped, he looked down at the child and tried wagging him off. The boy clung on with his nails on Apollo¡¯s black pants.


    "What are you doing? This isn''t any of your business." Apollo said. He pulled the child by the back of his shirt and raised him to head level. The boy squirmed.


    "Don''t do this." He said, arms dangling.


    "Do you know who this man is?" Apollo asked.


    "I-I''ve seen him before," Bartholomew said.


    ¡°But do you know?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°No. Who cares?¡±


    "This man killed your father. This man killed innocent men and women. This man killed children, kids your very age. Plenty of them, I''m sure." Apollo said. "This man is the reason your friend is dead. All of them, dead. This man, above all other men, deserves to go."


    Bartholomew looked at the stranger, Alestor. An odd feeling came to him. Anger, pity. it''s not that he did not believe Apollo, it''s not that he didn''t care. It¡¯s that he couldn¡¯t care for death anymore. With Astyanax¡¯s body still cold on the floor, with all the other demons still cold. With all his friends, still dead. He could not stand it. He could not stand the numbness, the feeling of life escaping, the emptiness of rooms where people once were, the emptiness of hearts where humanity once was. And it was not that he did not hate Alestor, it was that he hated the idea of what he was much more. And hated, further, the idea that Apollo would become just that.


    For sin, like any other energy in the universe, like any other system, can be inherited and usually is, destroying the old vessel in favor of the new one. On and on like a curse. The curse of sin.


    "So what?" Bartholomew asked.


    They all gasped a bit. The Hyena shook his head.


    "Just kill him." He said. "What better judge is there besides you? Who else here is fit to represent God? And believe me, God would have struck him dead."


    "You''re not God," Bartholomew said. "You''re not anything but Apollo. And I think that if you kill him, you¡¯ll stop being Apollo."


    He sat the boy on the floor and kept walking.


    "I''m just trash kid, It¡¯s all I¡¯ve ever been and all I ever will be," Apollo said. "So what''s there to lose?"


    Bartholomew ran at him again.


    "And then what?" Bartholomew asked. "And what changes when he dies? The people go on, the world turns. Nothing changes. Nothing but you."


    He pulled him back from walking.


    ¡°You''re not doing this for me. You''re doing this for you." Bartholomew tugged his pants. "And I''m telling you, I know, that killing him would hurt you in a way...in a terrible, permanent way. I feel it."


    "How do you know?"


    "I just feel it. I just know.¡±


    ¡°Then what¡¯s the right thing to do?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°I can¡¯t tell you that. That¡¯s too hard for me to think about.¡± He said. ¡°I just know that when the world is so mean and cruel, that it doesn¡¯t take much to be mean yourself. It''s easy work. Killing him is easy work, wouldn''t it be? And if that''s easy it can''t be that good, right? It just can¡¯t be. Being good is hard. It should be hard. I just know it."


    "That''s a stupid argument. Nonsensicle." Apollo said. "There are plenty of people I''ve already killed. What''s one more?¡±


    "Isn''t that the problem?¡± He looked up. Apollo looked down ¡°The fact that you''re asking what''s one more?"


    He was silenced. The whole room was. Nothing but a lonely wind passed over them, a whistle that passed itself through every broken cornice and every broken window and every broken brick. Alestor came forward, only feet away from Apollo.


    ¡°Just do me in. Or leave me here.¡± He said.


    ¡°Either way you¡¯ll rot.¡± He said. ¡°Spending eternity in Hell, pretending your suffering can pay for your crimes. ¡±


    Bartholomew looked up at Apollo whose face shook with silent rage. Whose eyes, glowed a vibrant red.


    ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be enough, would it, kid?¡± Apollo let go, not of anger, but of something much worse that had taken hold of him. Something the Hyena had tried passing onto him.


    ¡°If I killed you, if I left you, you¡¯d waste away. That would be God¡¯s justice.¡± Apollo said. Bartholomew shook, afraid.


    ¡°But that would not be man¡¯s judgment.¡± He said. ¡°And you owe Havenbrook much more than you owe God.¡±


    ¡°Just kill him.¡± The Hyena blurted. His fangs showed.


    ¡°The Priest, The Old Officer, The Little Girl.¡± He counted with his fingers. ¡°Mothers and fathers, lovers and patients. There are too many people you owe and that you might not pay back. But you¡¯re going to try, whether you like it or not. I¡¯m bringing you back with me.¡±


    ¡°No, no, no.¡± Alestor took a few steps back. Apollo kicked his left leg inwards, so that he fell, clutching his knee. He screamed, in pain. And to the boy, that was a better sound.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to bring back every corpse too. You and I, together. So that dead will be buried. I¡¯m sure you can do that, you know a bit of magic, don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t take me back, please.¡± Alestor pleaded. ¡°Leave me here.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t die just yet, not like your son or wife. No, you¡¯ll live on, regretting them. Repenting, as the Catholics say.¡±


    Alestor turned over. He rolled around, holding the broken bones sticking out of his knee.


    ¡°To fall victim to an ideal. Oh, pity.¡± The Hyena nodded left and right.


    ¡°I listen to no man. I answer to no God, and I don¡¯t play well with filthy dogs.¡± Apollo shouted back at the Hyena. It almost made the creature smile.


    ¡°And how do you expect to get out now?¡± He asked. ¡°Or to take those bodies back as you seem so obsessed about.¡±


    ¡°With this.¡±


    He pointed to the cup on the floor somewhere near Dion.


    ¡°That cup worked half as effectively only because of the nature of its victims. Human souls produce better results, we¡¯re not on earth anymore, boy.¡±


    ¡°How much blood?¡± Apollo quickly added. ¡°How many demons would I have to kill to even make up for the equivalent of one, human soul?¡±


    ¡°Hmm, that¡¯s hard to quantify. It¡¯d be a great number and an even greater effort though.¡±


    ¡°How many demons did you see outside, those that showed up to this carnival freak show?¡±


    The Hyena smiled.


    ¡°Enough.¡±


    ¡°And I wonder,¡± Apollo looked down at the moaning Alestor. ¡°How much would I need to hurt you for you to do what I want?¡±


    Alestor looked up at the large red eyes. His face losing color.


    He tried to stand and found himself limping away from Apollo.


    Apollo sighed, picked up Astyanax¡¯s helmet and threw it Alestor. He fell. Flat to the floor, and slept there, unconscious.


    ¡°Deja vu, fucker,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Are you sure you want to do this? You could just make things easier by killing him.¡± His tongue stuck out. He faced Bartholomew. ¡°Or the boy.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve already decided on it. I¡¯m not changing my mind.¡± Apollo said. ¡°And after we¡¯re done, we¡¯re going to have a long talk, you and I.¡±


    The Hyena landed flat on the floor.


    ¡°Well, most things didn¡¯t go as I wanted them to. But there¡¯s some fun in that too. At least you did kill the poor mad boy.¡± He looked at the corpse still bleeding on the floor. The hole in his chest, budding and sprawling out like a spring rose. ¡°And what a good kill it was. A tiring one, I''m sure. And if that''s the case, how do you expect to live, let alone fight-¡±


    The Hyena stopped. Even he seemed disgusted, or perhaps impressed, when Apollo took the heart of Astyanax to his mouth and raised his mask and ate it sloppily, every sound and mastication more pronounced in the echo chamber of the church. The demons (the few who stuck around) watching, ran in full and wide strides outside. They looked shepherded, that large motley crew reduced to frightened instinct.


    The boy waited a bit until Apollo was done and watched him put down his mask on his red, covered chin.


    He picked up the cup and handed it to Apollo. Apollo put his open palm to him.


    ¡°Take a drink and let go of it. That¡¯s all you need to do.¡±


    ¡°And you?¡±


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you paying attention,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I still need to fight.¡±


    Bartholomew looked down at his feet. He put them close together and tried to straighten himself out.


    ¡°Do you promise to stay alive?¡± He asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s not a good quality to be too worried about other people. It¡¯ll turn you into a very nervous adult. Worry about yourself.¡± Apollo said. ¡°But yes, I will be alright.¡±


    The demons, still running out the front door, blocked and stepped over each other.


    ¡°Promise me.¡± He stuck a pinky out.


    Apollo laughed.


    ¡°Alright.¡± He closed with his own finger.


    Apollo lifted the cup then. He put it to the boy¡¯s lips and tipped it over and waited. Bartholomew swallowed, whatever it was that tasted bitter. He cringed as it went down to his stomach, and felt it swash around inside of him. A gross feeling, this feeling of nausea.


    Trepidation made him worry for a moment. He looked at Apollo, who grinned behind his mask. It was an unpracticed, unsociable, ugly smile. But it was authentic.


    And after a while his worry went away, when the darkness came to take him, when the last thing he saw was himself falling down, down to a black abyss, from a red ring of fire.


    And it felt good, in a way.

 Heathens - End

    August 23rd, 2017


    The smaller corpses were the first to rise. They came in pairs, thirty-five in total, all mutilated and wrecked; gashes, bites, bludgeoned skin and torn muscle upon them.


    Bartholomew saw them as he came up from that darkness, each passing body a blur in his peripheral. The water burned his eyes. His limbs were weary. His lungs painfully exhaling as he staved off a collapsing consciousness. He felt a fog come over his eyes and brain. It made everything blurry. His body felt light, weightless even and for a moment he felt the pull, a pullback down to a Hell that waited for him.


    And at last, with the last of his air escaping, at last, he broke the top.


    He shivered along the waters and drifted through the corpses, each one passing him by or rubbing on his skin.


    It made him scream out loud, to a boat off at the distance and the Fisherman standing on it, spitting water out of his mouth.


    ¡°Help.¡± The boy screamed. ¡°Help me, please.¡±


    The Fisherman raised his head up to the edge of the walls and looked down at the child who swam towards him. He was afraid, for a moment, that the boy was just another body. But a constant flailing and desperation made him reassess. Just a boy, the fisherman thought.


    He looked for throw-ring in his boat, the hope shaped like a white circle, and tossed it at the boy. The boy, who grabbed it with his small, scarred hands.


    He came onto the boat, struggling. The cold shaking off of him. A fresh blanket came over him, it stuck to his skin. He looked away from the bodies, down to the pink water spilling through the boat boards. His body closed off, shoulders coming inward, face coming down to his knees.


    And in his ball, with the Fisherman standing shocked and worried at sharp end of his boat, he cried. Alone.


    The Fisherman gave him room to. He turned the boat around and away from the gruesome scene of corpses and drove. The engine sputtered two giant walls of pink, before they zoomed off into a roar.


    The boy cried as loud as he could, as loud as he wanted, for the engine overwhelmed everything.


    It was thirty minutes before the police arrived, who believed the call (and for a very brief moment, the scene itself) a prank.


    A volcano of dead people. The Fisherman had yelled into the telephone.


    Two police officers arrived, green and young. They vomited at the sight of the corpses circling around the water surface and left a trail of their green and brown particles back, as they retreated to the cop car. Ten minutes later, three boats arrived and a legion of cop cars. A few moments after, the water surface became cracked and shook by the intense spinning of helicopter blades hovering over. News stations, mostly.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    They littered the lake with sounds so heavy they shook the boy.


    Bartholomew was left inside a small shabby shack next to the lake, his face plain looking as the police officers went over him. Asking him questions such as; When did it happen? Where did it happen? What happened?


    Too long ago. In a place with too much evil. Things that should not be spoken.


    He stayed catatonic, not out of the trauma of the whole event, but out of a stubbornness towards the strangers.


    And they begun to rub their faces when they realized the boy would not talk. And one by one they left the small shack, disappointed and annoyed and growing more nervous as the bodies continued to rise above.


    An officer came around after some time, offering coffee and a call from his mother. He put the phone up to her, her pleading ¡°It¡¯s been weeks, oh my god. Bart, is that you?¡± (Really, just two weeks? It seemed longer). Him saying nothing, just a solemn ¡°Hello¡±. Her saying, ¡°she thought he was dead¡±. Him thinking, a part of him was.


    The voice said, at last, in between joyous tears, ¡°Is that really you Bart? It doesn¡¯t sound like you? Oh, please tell me, it¡¯s you.¡±


    He looked at the phone receiver and his arms and the small cuts and bruises decorating him like military accolades.


    ¡°Yeah, mom. It¡¯s me.¡± His voice, calm and collected and worn and tired.


    He put the phone away after his mother suggested her to pick him up. Then he looked outside to the police officers who circled the building, suspiciously, muttering the words, ¡°It¡¯s that dead cop¡¯s kid.¡±


    They annoyed him more than the beeping of buttons and the dead static noise from the radios amongst the shack.


    He stood up and away from all the officers and all the sound around him. They didn¡¯t seem to mind, some even preferred it.


    He went out, observing the newest fleet of cop cars, they must have gone through four different groups of police officers. A whole rotation. Most of them couldn¡¯t tolerate the image or the smell and most of them ran away crying or vomiting.


    Bartholomew came to the dark waters, standing on a boarded walkway. The creaks and whining loud below him. His mother would be here soon, the day was coming to an end and his reflection was molded behind the color of the dying sun; a hazy red.


    He took a deep breath. It was over, he knew it. And he exhaled easy.


    Behind him, an officer approached, in the midst of his meditative state. A seasoned man whose white beard hid a sympathetic frown.


    He walked up gently, waited a bit for the boy to pay attention and knelt down to him when did.


    ¡°Did anyone else survive?¡± The officer asked.


    Bartholomew looked down at the water, his hair still wet and weighty. He looked onto that bleak surface, at the center of the heart of darkness where the red sun glared its reflection across the waterfront.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Bartholomew said. ¡°Yeah, I think so.¡±


    ¡°Can you tell me who?¡±


    ¡°No, not really.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± The officer pulled down his hat to nod. ¡°We¡¯ll keep searching then.¡±


    Of course, they wouldn¡¯t find them. But he was confident, as he stared into that dark abyss, with a long-lasting grin stuck on his face. Confident of what? An idea, a small feeling, one that would help him through the days and weeks and months and years to come, an idea, somewhere in the crevices and annals of his mind that would sate his tears and sighs and silent trauma, an idea that in this giant dark lake there lived a light.


    And maybe, just maybe, it wasn¡¯t so dark after all.

 Off the Record: Blog Post #1

    Well then! It looks like I finished the first arc. Now, what¡¯s next? Let¡¯s see¡­


    TL;DR


    I took a week off (if you didn¡¯t notice) and I¡¯ll be returning this week. The first thing on the menu are the interlude chapters to bridge Book 1 and Book 2. I¡¯m thinking I¡¯ll have 4 interlude chapters before we get to the next story arc (though there may be more or less depending on the plotting). These chapters, as well as all subsequent chapters, will be bigger and posted on Saturday¡¯s. I haven¡¯t decided on the exact hour though, probably late.


    This will be the new format, at least, for the next book: big chapter releases on a single day.


    Why interlude chapters? Why not get straight into the second arc? For chronological reasons and to buy me time to actually plot out the second story and to edit my older chapters.


    That¡¯s the quick summary, if you want to learn more about how I feel about Heathens (Book 1), you can read below.


    Mirror mirror on the wall...


    I have a love-hate relationship with the first Book (Heathens). And between the two, I¡¯d say I lean more towards hating it. But before I criticise myself, let''s get through some positive things.


    At least I finished it. Which is a huge achievement honestly, considering my shitty work ethic. I don¡¯t know how many times I¡¯ve started novels in my life without actually finishing them. And now I¡¯ve actually finished a story. Even if I¡¯m not satisfied with it, I¡¯m glad I finished it. There¡¯s a small victory in that.


    Another good thing, I know what the identity of my book is now. I needed to sacrifice the tone midway (notice how it went from mystery/suspense action horror to dramatic odyssey?), but at least I know what the genre of the franchise is. Gothic Epic.


    Gothic, not goth. Epic, not like the meme epic4thewindude. End me, please.


    Gothic Epic, tales about great people doing bad things all slathered with a thick coating of dread and horror. Picture the image, Homer and Lovecraft tucked under the black blanket of a cold night, fucking each other senselessly in the proper Greek way, oily and groan-y (good luck getting that image out of your head) and out, out! A scream. Silence. The candles flicker and die and from underneath the sheets comes the creature. A tentacled, cosmic horror wielding spear and shield. A mess of a thing.


    That''s like, basically, my story. There¡¯s a little Berserk in there too, some Ligotti and a lot of Faulkner and McCarthy (I hope). These influences give me some direction, though I may followed them too closely. But now, now I have an idea of what I want my books to be like, what I want for the lore to be like. And I hope the tone of future novels aren¡¯t as inconsistent as the first book, Heathens.


    Shit, now I¡¯m talking about inconsistencies. It¡¯s almost as if this was a poor transition into my critique list - Oh. Look at what I found.


    Oooo, boy.


    Where do I begin? The micro or the macro? The abstract or the fine technique? How often and how bad were my mistakes? Yikes.


    This week has allowed me to reflect and reflect I have.


    Let¡¯s go through it.


    Grammar and Syntax. I won¡¯t say my grammar is necessarily god awful, but I tend to get the same annoying problems. Problems where words aren¡¯t misspelled but rather misused, often because of errors in my own vocalization and my fingers not being able to keep up. I tend to get syntax errors more often than simple misspellings or miss-grammarings. That¡¯s not even a word. See?


    So I¡¯ll write sentences that don¡¯t have errors in the letters themselves but in the way they are shaped in a way that they get confusing to read and weird and start to look like messes and and


    You get the point. I like long sentences. And some brief ones too. Which is a no-no in with modern audiences. I like the labyrinth that sentences can make. That¡¯s why I like Faulkner and McCarthy and Joyce. But part of the fear of making a labyrinth is getting caught in it too. And I did, which is bad.


    It goes to show that I''m not at the master level yet, not even close. This doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m going to stop trying to write long abstractions into the real, or stop creating mazes like an obsessed carpenter. I just need to get better. There¡¯s no easy way. I just need to practice, hone my metaphors, be more precise, more rhythmic. I should probably take poetry up. I might, even, as a side hobby.


    The Lore. There are things I wanted to keep secret that I didn¡¯t. There are things that should have made sense, but that I didn¡¯t explain. Namely, the cup. And the structure of Hell. And Vicar culture.


    But this one''s strange, because I still have an opportunity to expand on my lore. And I will. Expect ¡®The Corrux¡¯ out soon. That little book mentioned by Apollo.


    Tone. I foreshadowed this before. But I fucked up the tone. Or miss blended them, I suppose. And it shows, especially when I look at the ¡®Pages Read¡¯ stat. There¡¯s a sharp decline when Apollo and Dion descend to purgatory. Why? Because the tone changes. From supernatural detective psychological thriller to action-adventure spiritual journey. I didn¡¯t blend them well enough. I didn¡¯t lighten the tone enough so that the transition would be harmonious. I didn¡¯t foreshadow enough. I missed the cues and fucked it up. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    This is not to say I won¡¯t try again to blend genre''s, but I need to make my transitions between them better. Some useful tips for this, practical stuff, would be to perhaps bring up similar themes or phrases constantly. To be more particular, maybe I should have alluded to the desert prior to the actual descent into the desert of Hell. Maybe I should have alluded to the Trojan tragedy before the meeting of Astyanax. The Hyena could have been shown a bit earlier, maybe as a third observer to the earthly-events (or even narrator if I was clever enough!). The word choice could have been more consistent, etc etc. These are all small and big things that annoy me now that I look back. Failed opportunities.


    Dropped or ignored or under-developed plot devices. This is the one that triggers my OCD. Moments in the story where something is mentioned or done and never bothered with again. What of Dion¡¯s lover? What about the drug kingpin missing his testicles? What of the other cultists? Of Sophie¡¯s mother? I think I got too scared and hasty, there were a lot of what if¡¯s I wanted to mention but I didn¡¯t out of a fear of boring you guys, the audience. I think for the future, I¡¯d like a more disciplined story. If I¡¯m going to bring a character out, I might as well go all the way.


    I mean, just take for example Dion¡¯s anger. It¡¯s brought up as a plot point, he¡¯s the ¡®hypocrite¡¯. Acts good, but deep down inside is a bit of a bloodthirster. This is kind of brought up later, especially before he fights Astyanax but in a strange way. Does he accept himself? Does he try to be better? Does he put his faith in God? To be fair, this still CAN be developed later. But I probably should have gone all the way. I should have had proper transitional scenes, I should have rounded off Dion¡¯s ¡®argument for being a psycho killer¡¯.


    Apollo also has growth but in the opposite direction. He goes from a hardball to a bit of a coward to a bit of a necessary noble savage. Though his metamorphosis and growth is probably explained better, I¡¯d argue. And the only reason it even is explained slightly better is because I gave him more screen time. Lesson learned. Give my characters more screen time. Which is a good segway!


    Scenes and Screen time. It sounds romantic to just write endlessly over minute details like a true man of letters. But the fact is, that bores people. Bores them to shit, really. I¡¯m a firm believer that a metaphor, a moment of abstract beauty, ought to be earned. And it¡¯s earned by grabbing the reader¡¯s attention.


    And how do you get the reader¡¯s attention? Conflict. Conflict in scenes, conflict in sentences. Conflict everywhere. And it needs to be effective conflict too. I think, personally, I had some good idea for scenes. But I didn¡¯t make total use of them. There was a lot of missed opportunity for character growth. Just re-reading my word, I can tell how many times I re-used phrases. (his face tightened, his head hung low, his limbs felt limp). Yikes. I need to make my characters more expressive and distinctive. Plain and simple, they should feel unique. Their voices should read unique.


    The Voice. This one''s simple. My POV needs to be tighter. There are a lot of moments where I confuse third person limited with third-person omniscient which makes it seem like characters know more than they should. Just straight up, I need to commit to one or the other or to a proper artistic blend of the two.


    Prose. It¡¯s a hard thing admitting your prose is terrible. But there¡¯s hope in that. For someone who understands his prose is terrible is someone with good taste. I trust my taste, not my writing. This one might be the hardest thing to master since it¡¯s the thing that requires the most amount of time sunk into it. I''m talking years. Years to master language. Years to master long sentences, better metaphors, clever language. This all requires years or at least it will if I don''t practice. And read. I definitely need to read more.


    I need to read a lot, lot more.


    The Plot and the Theme, what it¡¯s all about. Finally, at the end of my critiques and at the biggest offender. I miss-used and missed opportunities of the genre tropes and genre deconstructions. There were better ways to show the villain, better ways to set up the suspense. Better ways to make a more compelling spiritual journey. I missed foreshadowing, I missed long, thoughtful soliloquies characters could have made. I condensed characters into plot devices (Sophie and Bartholomew).


    The whole story was at both, contrived, and chaotic. And it shows. I ended up writing two different stories with two different narratives because of it.


    So what¡¯s the point of it all? I mean, shit. I guess as Astyanax would say, no point, really. To me however, this is incredibly important. By admitting my mistakes I will hopefully avoid them in the future.


    Plus, it''s made me think of solutions. Things like:


    > No more pantsing. I¡¯m plotting my next story, I want to see what writing looks like with some proper structure, even if it kills the thrill of discovery that writing without a plan gives you. Might also makeindividual chapters easy to churn out.


    > Character profiles. I wrote characters who I only knew a half about. I need to know everything. Every little detail. I¡¯m writing character profiles to go along with my plotting.


    > Theme consistency. After my first rough draft of the plot, I¡¯ll make a better effort to capture the theme or touchstone of the story. It¡¯s important, now, for me to ask the question: What does this story mean to me?


    > Proper episode structure. My vision for the next novel, coming out next month or so, is something I figured after watching television for so long. I want to release proper episodes, that is, giant chunks of writing that come around 12-15k words long. This isn¡¯t to say that the single chapters themselves will be that long (I still want to write in multiple POV¡¯s). But I think, that if I plan my next novel with proper episodes, with the same sized episodes, weekly, that I¡¯ll be able to structure scenes and therefore genres more successfully. This means writing more, but at least from now on when I do release my ¡®episodes¡¯, they¡¯ll look like proper long-form serial fiction. Big, juicy chunks of writing that have satisfying structures.


    That¡¯s it. With that, I¡¯ll end on an uplifting note. Thank you, the fans, for sticking through and for those of you who will continue to stick through. I¡¯ve got 40 follows, which is amazing. I¡¯ve got over 20k views, which is amazing. And I¡¯ve got 11 reviews (with most of them being positive!) which is amazing.


    Thank you, to all the readers. Even if you don¡¯t follow or favorite or review, even if you¡¯re just stealthily reading in the background, with my single tab amongst your other fifty filthy tabs full of hardcore doorknob porn.


    I still appreciate you reading my work. After all, what''s art if no one pays attention to it? Masturbation, that¡¯s what.


    Alright. I¡¯m done criticising myself. I need to start writing again.

 Interlude Episode: "Hospice"

    Soloman¡¯s Keep ? South of Italy ? West Coast


    Apollo felt like a donkey. A burro, he thought to himself in silent humor, as he went through the outer city of Soloman¡¯s Keep. Behind him, on his back, the slumped over body of Alestor and next to him, grabbing his arm, Dion and his wounded abdomen.


    Soloman¡¯s Keep rested south of Italy, a little ball to the countries boot as Apollo put it. And from outside any normal person, aviator or spectator, would not see a thing but mist but from within, within the magical island, Apollo saw it for what it really was. An island made for Vicars, an island covered and protected and hidden well by that white mist.


    He had made it here, lugging these two around, past the golden high castles of the elites of Soloman¡¯s Keep, passed the high-walled towers and pointy buildings of the scientists and mystics, he had passed the glory of Soloman¡¯s Keep and now wandered with these two through the Smog. The comical (nothing funny about it) name given to this lowborn caste of Vicar society, the Smog. An area that encompassed eighty percent of the island, an area that housed most of the weak and dull and stupid Vicars. Those who could not rise, those holy grunts of the church¡¯s military might against the demonic forces.


    Apollo wandered the Smog, where the mist collected at his knees, with two injured and broken men at his back and side. Villages scattered across yellow-dry grasslands, trees slumped and heavy with dew, small plazas with poor roads whose brick lined floors did little to stop impeding weeds and mushy ground. The glory, the shame of Soloman¡¯s keep: the Smog lands.


    He stopped, at a building with crooked metal bars and slumped over angel-statues, to what looked like a prison but was actually was an asylum. He dropped Alestor there, a nun came rushing out.


    ¡°What is this?¡± She leaned down. Her eyes came up, to the mess that was Apollo and Dion.  ¡°Are you two alright?¡±


    ¡°Dark priest,¡± Apollo muttered the words. Two more men came rushing after the nun, they wore black cloaks and sharp-nosed masks like birds, like crows. They lifted the man and tried at Apollo but he turned them away with a turn of his shoulder. He left. Quickly, with tired feet, knowing why everyone stared and watched him, knowing that the blood and the cuts had not healed and still maintained that greasy gloss of recent suffering. A red, wet hue all across his face. But he could not leave and could not stop and had to see to it that he and only he brought Dion to the hospital. It did not help that everything was so scattered and roundabout.


    ¡°Who are they?¡± Anonymous Vicars said underneath their breaths, weapons in hand for the two men seemed to carry about them that aura of deadly danger.


    It did not help that people gawked, with curious and anxious fear, at the two half-dead men wandering like ghosts through the knee-deep mist. Cities full with recent riots, a call of new democratic rites were silenced at the sight of the two. Large crowds of Vicars, tall and mighty, reeling away from the two.


    Whatever drama, whatever politics afflicted the city, whatever life little or big dared show itself upon the two phantoms wandering and wailing, all of them were silent. For the two came like a storm, through grey brick abodes and dilapidated grey-bricked homes, reducing all conversation and culture to quick silence.


    Apollo stopped. Dion grit his teeth and hushed himself as Apollo hoisted him down. He held his wound as he did so, sprawled out on a white stretcher. Two doctors came to see him through the buildings of the hospital with that giant red cross above its metal twin doors. The doctors urged Apollo, tried to cajole him inside with quick words and with enough patience, had decided to try and grab him and force him on a wheelchair.


    Apollo slapped their hands away, he raised his head above the doctors and flashed, only briefly, those red eyes.


    They never tried to touch him again and the man continued on, now holding the stump of his left arm, now tasting the metallic blood from the cuts and gashes across his nose bridge and cheeks. He was headed to his final destination, Holden¡¯s Den, a port town at one end of the kidney-shaped island. He could hear the boat rafts hovering over water, lightly tapping against wooden boards. He stepped foot on one such boardwalk, the creak felt oddly soothing as he went along the port. He walked, some ten minutes (time felt longer when you were in pain) and settled for a little grey building. It had no pointed top, it was rather flat and still depended on kerosene. He could tell by the smell that came off the tilting lamp above the black oak door. He knocked. He tasted salt, perhaps it was the ocean. Perhaps it was something else.


    His eyes were shutting. That heavy lump above kept them closed and narrow, He leaned against the wall and realized quickly as if all pain had finally caught up, that even standing was its own Olympian task.


    He knocked again and looked at the sign to the right of the door. EE LL II. He shook his head, the doubles cleared.


    Elijah.


    He knocked again,


    ¡°Elijah.¡± He said with his hoarse throat. ¡°Elijah!¡±


    His body wavered, he did not know which way to tilt and spun in place instead. His blood dragged down, what felt like wet claws of blood that stuck to his face and pulled down. He waited, trying to think of things to keep his attention, attention he hoped to keep to stop himself from sleeping. Sleep, which he feared, would end up in a short-winded coma. The footsteps kept at it from behind the door, he could tell the man was on the bottom floor by the depth and pop of sound.


    He leaned forward, put his hand against the wall. He looked up, the rusty door hinges crying as the door opened. And he nearly collapsed on the man.


    Elijah caught him. Apollo used him to stabilize himself.


    ¡°Jesus Christ, what happened?¡± Elijah asked.


    And Apollo, now against a wooden beam, spinning and waddling like a broken boxer. He smiled, a half-toothed grin.


    The blood dripped onto the floor and he said, with the seams of his flesh undoing themselves upon his face, ¡°Could I have a glass of water?¡±


    He sat in that little-crooked chair that creaked with each of his turns. To his rear, across the desk, were the busy sheets of a metal curtain and the low diffusion of murky twilight across the black and white colored room. A terrible color scheme, Apollo thought as he coddled his wounded face. Elijah turned to him, an empty glass was set in front of him. An empty pitcher was too the right of the glass, on the square table between the two of them. Apollo kept his eyes away from that seasoned gaze of Elijah. He was his boss, and showing weakness was a kind of embarrassment to his boss.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Elijah asked. He closed the blinds. The blue tinted color of the dark closed off.


    ¡°Where do I start?¡±


    And Apollo looked at the man in that chair who listened intently with locked hands, the one with the blonde comb-over and the thick beard with grey-tinted ends, with the tired and red eyes of a veteran who had seen too much in what little time he had been on this planet.


    His eyes widened as Apollo told his tale. Then they shriveled and his whole face was bitter. And at last, when Apollo was over, he slammed two hands against the desk.


    "Fifty years ago! Just fifty years ago, kid, and we would have cut your head off and burned your body as an apology to the Lord himself, Jesus Christ." He rubbed his nose bridge. ¡°You went to Hell? Are you aware of how much of a crime that is?¡±


    "Well, at least I''m still alive." That sarcastic tone, that half nervous tone that went high pitch. ¡°I¡¯m only telling you this because I trust you. It''s a confidence I hope you appreciate because I really need help.


    ¡°With what? What the fuck do you need, kid?¡±


    Apollo reached into his coat and unveiled the cup. He slid it across the floor.


    ¡°It¡¯s an artefact, I don¡¯t know what kind and I don¡¯t know if it works anymore. I don¡¯t think it does, I think I broke it on my last trip up, with all those corpses and with Alestor and Dion with me. But I¡¯m sure it might be useful to the Canaries.¡±


    He, of course, spoke of the Hospitallers of Elezear, the scientific branch (the second established out of the three) that acted as principal municitaries of all things arcana, holy or otherwise. Which had given them a bad reputation as devil worshippers (though to Apollo, they seemed more like selfish, ambitious scientists which might have been worse), which hade made them obtuse and dismissive of public showings, which of course gave them the name, the Canaries, like a bird trapped in a cage.


    ¡°And you don¡¯t want them to know I gave it to you,¡± Elijah took the cup and inspected its inside. It was cracked, near the base.


    ¡°That¡¯s right,¡±


    ¡°What about that Alestor guy then? Why wouldn¡¯t he squeal on you?¡±


    ¡°The Hyena changed him,¡±


    ¡°The talking dog?¡± Elijah tried to remember the details of Apollo¡¯s story. It had all been so fast, so intense after all.


    ¡°Yeah, demon or whatever he was. Well, that Hyena did something to him. Hit him upside the head or something? It¡¯s turned Alestor a bit retarded now. I mean that literally, too. He seems stupefied, been like this since I brought him up too. Stupid sometimes, catatonic others.¡±


    ¡°Convenient.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t believe me?¡±


    ¡°I do, I just wonder at what cost that convenience comes.¡± Elijah said.


    "Right."


    Apollo idled in the brown leather chair he sat on. It was ripped, he felt the hole on his right thigh, the cotton riding up his backside. Most of the room followed this trend of jankiness. The books were on uneven stacks, ripped at the spine. The crosses were held at a slant. That room, he swore was too small and terribly slanted.


    ¡°They¡¯re going to hang you two up the fucking wall for this.¡±


    ¡°If they found out.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a big if.¡± Elijah said. ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I save myself the trouble and let you take the heat instead?¡±


    ¡°Because you know I¡¯m telling you the truth. All of it. About eating Astyanax, about Alestor, about the Hyena.¡±


    ¡°Goddamnit kid,¡± Elijah looked out the window with renewed fear. He walked with a limp, his eyes looked out towards the horizon and the torches lit across. They looked like small candles, never-ending wicks.


    ¡°You chose the worst time to hand me your trouble.¡± Elijah said.


    ¡°Haven¡¯t you seen them?¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°The mobs.¡± Elijah said. ¡°They look like god damn youth rallies. It¡¯s madness.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I saw them. They threw me dagger eyes.¡± A nun came in with a bag of ice. Apollo nodded and took it and placed it against the swell above his eyes. His dried blood flaked off under the condensed water. ¡°I¡¯ve been out so long I can¡¯t afford to give a shit about the petty politics of this place. All the same to me, the very nature of power attracts the worst people. What can you do?¡±


    ¡°This is different,¡± Elijah said.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s the way we work. Us knights of the rose,¡± Apollo said sardonically. ¡°The eggheads and the aristocrats do things their own way. Nepotistic oligarchy for one and divine rite for the other, and I can¡¯t imagine either of those being any worse than democracy.¡± He leaned back. The coolness of his ice bag made him close his eyes and nearly moan in pleasure.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get sidetracked, this isn¡¯t about democracy. It¡¯s about what it¡¯s inviting.¡±


    ¡°And what¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°They call themselves sungazers because they¡¯re the only ones who can tolerate the light of truth. Their words not mine." He expected a laugh from Apollo, but he was too busy enjoying his ice. "And these people want something done. They want the old ways back.¡±


    ¡°Old ways? Like what? Like stoning gays? Burning witches?¡±


    ¡°Crusades. War. The death of heresy, they claim.¡±


    ¡°Crusades?¡± Apollo laughed. ¡°Tell them they¡¯re off by a couple hundred years.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t funny, Apollo,¡± Elijah said. ¡°And they should concern you. If they even knew half of what you told me...¡±


    ¡°And you wonder why I never like coming around, why I hate the Vatican and this shit island.¡± Apollo leaned in, he looked at the ice bag and to the redness of dried blood on it. ¡°I get out of one battle and into another,¡±


    ¡°These people are desperate. If they knew what you did, oh boy, you''d better hope the courts got to you first - Oh boy, oh fucking Hell.¡±


    "Choirboys with swords," Apollo said, calmly.


    "If they find out..." Elijah repeated.


    ¡°They won¡¯t because you¡¯re not telling anyone and this secret is not leaving this room. You''ll get the cup to the Hospitallers, Canaries, whatever the fuck they call themselves and it''ll be like nothing ever happened. We''ll all be in the clear,¡±


    ¡°I''m surprised. You''ve come back an optimist?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a changed man,¡± Apollo smiled. He raised his left stump and flashed his toothless gums.


    ¡°My prestige - My life! My life is is on the line if I cover for your ass.¡±


    ¡°It''s a thrill for all of us, whoop de do,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Just make sure you get it done, alright?¡±


    "Don''t act so calm, boy."


    "You can''t have excitement without risk," Apollo said.


    ¡°Let¡¯s see you say that with a burning stake up your ass.¡±


    Apollo giggled. Elijah didn¡¯t, for there was no joke to it. It was pure sincerity, pure worried fear.


    He tapped his pen on his table. His veins protruded from the white collar of his priest''s garbs. The fluorescent glow from above making a low humming, like a fly on the wall. Elijah spun the cup a bit with his free hand, it felt weightless.


    ¡°You¡¯re still writing that report,¡± Elijah said. There was some relief to the cadence, to the weightlessness of the words as if he had conceded to something, had signed without the print, had made a deal without the shake. Apollo straightened out.


    ¡°As long as I can do it from bed.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get smart dipshit,¡± Elijah said. ¡°You make sure Dion and you have similar accounts. Don¡¯t you mention the trip, Xanax-¡±


    ¡°Astyanax,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Astyanax, Horace, all that stuff. You leave it out or you won¡¯t have to worry about no crusaders knocking on your door, I¡¯ll be the one with the claymore down your throat.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Apollo stood.


    ¡°And please. Please, please, please. Stay out of trouble would you?¡± Elijah asked.


    ¡°I can¡¯t promise that,¡± Apollo kept the ice to his face. ¡°I¡¯ve got answers I want.¡±


    ¡°To what end? What the fuck can¡¯t you let go, you won for god''s sake. You won!¡±


    ¡°Well, there¡¯s my first question. Why¡¯d I win? How? Why¡¯d the Hyena help me? What does he want?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t think too hard, demons come and go with their fleeting feelings. They¡¯ll help you and destroy you at whims, out of entertainment. Don¡¯t you go around looking for straight answers from fickle people, that¡¯ll get you hurt.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t want that.¡± Apollo looked at his bloody stump. The scar tissue had already formed a coagulated mass of nearly purple-dark blood.


    ¡°Alright, get away. Go to the hospital and get checked out.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, Eli.¡± Apollo started out.


    Elijah pushed at him through the front door.  ¡°I wish you really were as hurt as you looked, maybe it would have humbled you. You left a silent prick and you¡¯ve come back a loud-mouthed prick.¡±


    ¡°Well, as they say, you either adapt or you die.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, fuck off.¡±


    And he slammed the door behind Apollo. The sunset over the low horizon, over the brilliant gold towers of the Bud, that lay center and upmost, sitting high above the shoreline, beyond any hope for any Vicar of this lowbrow, lowborn civilization. It was a source of contempt for him and of relief, for though he did not belong to those snooty men and women, those aristocratic Vicars, he could at least appreciate their taste. For seeing the reflected light on those bright towers made him smile, even if just for a fraction of a second, on the bit of good flesh still hanging on his busted and torn lips.


    What a sight, he thought, they look like hands trying to touch the heavens.


    And perhaps they¡¯d burn like them too.

 2

    The Smog ? South of the Bud ? Solovan''s Plaza


    Daedalus was the given name of the man who spent most of his time upon the little plaza, south of the Bud, amongst the Smog lands, in that drowsy space with the mist and the dark skies overhead. He was the man, the preacher, and the unofficial speaker of that bubbling group, the sungazers. No one knew who he was or where he came from, though there were some theories as to his origin. Originally part of a group of five Vicars, having come back the lone survivor of a terrible mission in Panama. Supposedly it had driven him insane. Another rumor, myth amongst the Vicars in the little taverns and inns was that he had fathered a child to a human woman in Mexico, and that birth had killed both child and mother. That''s the type of tragedy that leads you to melancholic hysteria. It''s what turns you to God.


    Whichever theory, whatever guilt. Daedalus was here. In the Smog.


    Daedalus. Who roamed the roofs and spoke to the hearts of that unspoken majority. Daedalus whom they mocked. Daedalus, the man of the people of the Smog.


    Daedalus who hated the Vatican, who hated the Bud, who hated Vicars. Who probably, by the sheer depth of his contempt, hated himself.


    ¡°God is disappointed in us,¡± He said from the rooftop. The thin man Daedalus with his thin and scraggly hair, who crawled and spidered around the roof of a tavern. He hung by the cornices, moving hostile and angular and patient like a stalking animal.


    Daedalus.


    He stood in this plaza with the small group of perhaps twenty spectators, Apollo saw. Apollo was coming back from his trip to Elijah, who had decided to stop here in this providence to regain composure and had hung by a low roofed tavern, loitering by the side with shade. He had heard the footsteps above, thought it rain. When he backed away to get a better view, he saw the man. His little act, his little dance.


    ¡°What¡¯d he call them?¡± Apollo mumbled. ¡°Sungazers?¡±


    Apollo looked around the building, to the Vicars gathering with their weapons strapped to their backs and their tall necks bent upwards, staring straight at Daedalus and into the downcast sky.


    ¡°Narcissist,¡± Apollo mumbled. He settled by a patch of shriveled ferns, away from the small crowd. Vicars of all shapes, some still green in the eyes (which meant they were novices to the craft) he didn¡¯t mind those. They were just stupid, impressionable kids. It was the Vicars, the experienced red-eyed ones who had begun to nod their heads to Daedalus¡¯s speech, that had him worried. Apollo looked up. Daedalus came around to his side, he stared down at him.


    They locked eyes. Apollo¡¯s bulging forehead and his bruised lids closing slowly as he stared at Daedalus. He felt warm in his chest, dry too.


    They broke off. A quick spar of glares. The madman turned again to the crowd.


    ¡°They send us to foreign lands, to work together with governments who despise, to die for people who do not believe in us. And all of you take it! You take the stones, you burn yourself alive in the annals of Hell, willingly! And they call me mad?¡±


    He felt the words expand and grow and multiply like a parasite in his skull and he turned himself away from the speaker, hoping not to hear the words for in some corner of his heart, perhaps he was right.


    He was thinking of Havenbrook. Of Purgatory too. Of his silent victory.


    ¡°Why do we persist as phantoms in this world? To hide ourselves and our war? They tell us - those white-gloved people - that we persist in silence for silence. To keep the peace amongst the normal mortals. To keep us in order, to make sure we do not stir the warmachines and industries of the modern world. To keep us in check! The aristocrats and the scientists and the Holy See himself, want of us that docile slave race.¡±


    His voice became scratchy, his prowl upon the wood and old hay roof lending to itself that low drone beating animalistic quality. His hands gestured out, making figures in the air like an insane symphony.


    "Those filthy aristocrats lie to us. Those who sleep in the golden towers of the Bud, the chosen few Vicars. Scions of God, who claim themselves right hand to heaven itself! Blasphemy. Who claimed it? It certainly wasn''t God. Were any of you there when the holy finger was pointed, when He came down to touch and prod and pick these supposed few? Was anyone?!"


    Apollo could see the golden towers from a distance, no fog could hold their shining figure. The few buildings for the even fewer Vicars who had, by lineage or by Pope, had risen to become the self-imposed ¡®greatest of Soloman''s Keep''. The chosen few.


    No, no, best not agree. Apollo shook his head.


    More Vicars came in different shades and waves of worship. Some, for example, came to mock Daedalus and slurred profanities at the man with rotten produce aimed at the spidermonkey. Daedalus took them, in stride. He was hit on the face with an egg. He licked the yolk off him. And, by empathy, pity, it seemed to only empower his stance.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "What''s your problem?"


    ¡°My problem? My problem!¡± He screamed at a particular heckler. ¡°My problem is the order, the institution we have all chosen to confine ourselves too. My problem is with the immoral and inferior men we die for. Why wouldn''t it be my problem? To find no comfort, no answers, no hope in this lawless land. To slave away, to fight, to die and be eaten by demons? What life is that? No life, that''s what. No, no, no. Don''t ask what the problem is, don''t ask why the Knights of the Rose deserve to die. Ask why they even deserved to live in the first place!¡±


    The hecklers went silent. He really wanted to be elected, just to break it all down. A democratic anarchy. It almost made Apollo laugh. But he laughed alone.


    A confliction, an audible groan of the crowd began to surface like scum. Apollo could see across their faces, quite literally in real time, the change of heart of some of the skeptics. Their cold, dry eyes, their frowns, their rigid shoulders all morphing, easing up. Some of them clapped, some of them nodded up and down in agreement. They all listened.


    Contagious. Apollo had to shake, had to focus on the pain on his face and on his arm and most of all had to remind himself, what type of revolution did this madman really want?


    "Oh, I¡¯ve spoken of the elite. But what of the men who empower them? Who bolster their death grip? The men of science and arcana. What of these blasphemous heathens? Those who abandon God, those who covet His secrets at any cost. Have you seen them? The way they speak of demons and of magic and of their dark arithmetic? They¡¯re seduced, seduced by the devil and his fruit of knowledge. I¡¯ve seen them! I¡¯ve seen the experiments. The unnaturalness of their relationship with Hellspawn." He screamed, jumped¡°And we¡¯re supposed to work with them? To fund them with bodies and with blood? To reduce ourselves to numbers for men more interested in becoming God than loving God?¡±


    He was talking about the Hospitallers, the Canaries as some called them.


    ¡°The Hospitallers of Elezear are godless. The Order of Holy See is godless. The world is godless.¡± Daedalus tiptoed to the end of the roof, his large body casting a wide shadow on the land. The mist, out of fear perhaps, going around and past him, given him that glowing ephemeral quality. Something of an angel, or perhaps a devil in disguise. ¡°Why protect a world that despises us? Why work hand in hand with aristocrats and cold mystics?¡±


    Apollo felt his neck hairs rise. The speech, the words were sweet nothings before, small utterances of a romantic fool. But now, Apollo could see upon the weighty figure of Daedalus, and more importantly, what the people were beginning to clap to. An excitement grew, a circle of sixty men around of which all clapped and screamed and hurrayed. A group that had squeezed out the skeptics like himself. The skeptics, Apollo, and few others, who now walked around the circle in worried pace, who watched the march of rebellion taking its first step.


    There was a pulse here, the rush of blood amongst the hungry people. A floodgate, breaking open. He heard a shot in the crowd, straight into the sky. People screamed in joy at it.


    "They invite the devil here, let me tell ye. Make no mistake my friends, the end times will cometh. And the Canaries are too preoccupied with the material universe to care. And the aristocrats of the Holy See are too far off with their debasement. Fucking each other senselessly! Indulging with ruthless abandon!¡±


    The crowd cheered, laughed even.


    "So what are we to do? Should we allow these blights of God to persist, should we allow them to shame His image? Should we allow the people of the world to fall to ruin?¡± He came down from the roof. Down to a statue of Cid, the first Knight of the Rose, the man who started this whole mess. ¡°I ask of you to remind yourself of those times when we could still stand before the holy light of God with a bit of pride. Oh not too much, just a bit." He breathed. "When we still had the people to our backs, championing us. Guiding us. Helping us. When there was glory! Glory for God. But now?¡±


    Apollo wanted to walk away. His legs couldn''t move though. His mind couldn''t stray.


    ¡°Now? We¡¯re just janitors to a nihilist world, here to clean up the mess, and to be mocked and spat upon as we do it. To be forgotten, to be hated.¡± He said. ¡°I ask of you to join me, brothers, to rid ourselves of this religion of cynicism. To prop ourselves back into the modern world, to remind everyone what the war really is about.¡±


    Insanity, Apollo thought. That''d cause too much chaos, he reaffirmed.


    But they screamed and shook the air, in sporadic repetitions like a tremor. Yes, yes, yes.


    Apollo walked backward slowly, with his eyes to the madman now spinning in open arms upon the statue, he had to keep watch of him, of everyone. Apollo¡¯s eyes skid across the horizon, from one direction of hysterical screaming to the other. He could not see an end.


    Weren''t there only sixty before? He thought.


    There was an energy, a pressure like you¡¯d find in the deepest ends of the sea, a suffocating thing that compelled him to stay or run. Maybe it didn''t even matter which he did.


    "Elect me for the First Order."


    Don''t ever let him near, Apollo thought.


    "Elect me to take it back, to reclaim those old and lost ideals. To enforce those standards of nobility the degenerates have forgotten. To kill the logicians, to reclaim the throne for God himself. Elect me not because I want it, but because our people need it. Elect me for the First Order.¡±


    It was a strange type of fear that took hold him. One of dismissal, one of arrogant wave-away. Apollo walked away from the crowd, nodding his head, not wanting to admit that his hand was shaking, that the ice had fallen out of his little pouch. Not wanting to admit the length and strength and energy of the crowd, the excitement.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have time for this shit,¡± Apollo said.


    He combed his neck hairs and scratched his head. He walked through a narrow street. Faces poked from outside, their eyes a scarlet red and vibrant green. He lowered his head and counted his steps to try and distract himself, it only made the voice behind him worse. As if in a tunnel. An infinite spiral stairway leading down.


    ¡°Freedom for Vicars, revolution for all.¡± The voice said. ¡°One state, under one ideal, under one God."


    And he had to shake his head and focus on the small shivers and the pangs of his injuries.


    And Daedalus kept screaming, on and on, with the stiff timbre of his voice booming and looming over this little island like the cold white mist.

 3

    The Bud ? The Bogs ? Alzabar


    In the glory of Soloman¡¯s Keep, along the high top of the Bud, where the gold towers were brightest and where the dawn of the sun had begun its warm rise, across shining buttresses and sleek balconies, somewhere in that holy place, a conversation was taking place. Something austere, and quiet, a silent cancerous conversation amongst the gold stems, the murals, the statues of the holy place.


    There, on one such tower, past two doors that St. Paul guarded with a painted, stern face. A young man came up from his satin bed, purple covers to match his purple eyes. Propped up on one side of his bed rested a little mirror. A black shard that enabled that low and shushed conversation.


    ¡°They¡¯re back, like you said.¡± The young man said. His curly blonde hair laid flat on his smooth pillow. His body resting on its side. A modern roman man.


    "Friends of the Hyena," The voice said. "Terrible, terrible. They won''t like what we do, they''ll stop what we do. Me knows, me knows."


    "What should we do, how should we get rid of them? Are they even trouble?"


    "Trouble? Trouble!¡± The voice rose, the man had to put the mirror under a sheet. Footsteps clacked from outside his bedroom. The voice was brief, high-pitched and nasally. ¡°How can anyone say? Only the soothsayers know of trouble! Hah! And there aren¡¯t any soothsayers left, no, no child. I can¡¯t tell of what trouble will happen but I can imagine it, fantasize about it. Oh, yes, yes. There are more terrible things that exist in this world than you could ever imagine, oh yes. They must die. Or be gone, any which way, however convenient. Me knows."


    "What should I do?" The Royal asked.


    "Do? Eh? Eh? What do you mean do? All you need is speak, your voice is strong. Your word is law here."


    "They¡¯re part of that queer thing, the Smog lands. Order of the Rose, stupid name for such a dull and grey breed." The royal said. ¡°No matter how lowly they are though, even my accusations will require evidence. Especially when I¡¯m accusing someone of a different sect.¡±


    "Evidence? Aha.¡± The voice said.


    ¡°Human constructs are funny, aren¡¯t they?" The Royal said. "Especially when they¡¯re made to play pretend-God.¡±


    ¡°The old days were better. Back when you were all still half-apes. Monkeys who hit each other with bones over trivial things! Trivial things, the only things to war about. Me thinks.¡± The mirror flashed a yellow eye for a second, demon-kin.


    ¡°You never needed evidence then, why not now? Me needs to know."


    ¡°It would not be politically correct for me to condemn two men to death, sorry. We''re a more civil breed for better or worse.¡± The Royal said. His voice bemused almost. ¡°And if you¡¯re going to keep suggesting terrible ideas, then I¡¯d rather speak to our master.¡±


    ¡°Oh, no, no, no. He¡¯s grumpy today. Don¡¯t do that. He¡¯d kill Patches. Oh yes, he¡¯d kill Patches.¡±


    ¡°Then Patches should suggest something else.¡± The Royal said.


    The mirror stuttered, flashes of color and of golden eyes and jagged teeth appeared in random sequence until it settled, again, to a dark screen.


    ¡°A rumor, Patches thinks.¡±


    ¡°A rumor?¡±


    ¡°A rumor about the truth of course!¡± Patches said. ¡°Master says the Vicars of the Bogs have gone insane! Master says he''s seen it in the birds. The men on the roof who scream like monkeys. Why not use him? Me thinks he''s useful.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, a rumor." The Royal rubbed his soft chin. "I could do that. I know some people, I can pay them off perhaps to tell my truth, yes. A letter..."


    He stood nude and began reciting. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Apollo and Dion have gone to Hell, test them, test them for they are marked men. Test them for they are traitors for Hell.¡± He repeated the line in his head. Each time, it became clearer, louder, more imaginative. As if he could see the pitchforks and the fires and the bladed weapons and guns of Vicars charging through to kill them. It became clear, that image, in his sleep-hazy mind.


    "What would happen if I let them live?" He paused. The cold air brushed against him.


    "Patches thinks you''ll find them, for you follow different masters." He said.


    "Mmm, I don''t like violence. It''s a tool for fools."


    "Yes, monkeys!" Patches said, jovial almost.


    "Alright, I''ll do it then." He flung the transmitter to the bed.


    The mirror went silent and in that darkness of the room with the thick blinds, it seemed to blend with the shadow, into a dark homogenous abyss.


    All for master, he thought, all for a dream.


    He waited in that hostile darkness, cigarette in hand, nicotine filling the air with a thin veil of smoke. He threw his matchstick down, it made a trivial noise against the marble tile and he began writing with his smoothest pen.


    A letter sent, by owl, to an officer. With no name to it, with nothing but some money and some tokens and a promise for more, should the letter be opened and spread, it instructed.


    This man, this officer of the third order of the Rose was a frequent customer to the Royal, who had never asked questions, who had never been curious. An unsavory, desperate type who in the tavern of a Vicar village (known only by its province name, Alzabar) looking at his slop of food, had convinced himself that perhaps taking the money and reading the damn thing was a good idea.


    The letter went like this,


    "There are forces out there that forbid me from speaking out. Forces that would destroy us all, and yet I can not remain in calm." The officer read, sweat falling from his greasy scalp in his little grey brick tavern, with the poor radio static playing in the background, with a television set being struck, with shields and arms decorating the walls like an unfashionable medieval schizophrenic nightmare. He sat reading the letter, the table wobbling and his white slop of oatmeal spilling on it.


    "There are two injured Vicars, two wanderers who have come back bloody and ill-intent, they have gone to Hell and back and with them bring forth a legion from the very the depths of all that is wrong. Their names are...their names¡­¡±


    The man stretched the letter out and flattened. His twirling spoon stood still. He looked below, the money was pinned to the letter. Some instructions, no signature and of course, only two names; the accused.


    Apollo and Dion.


    And he breathed deeply, for he remembered having heard their names and of their coming back, having heard that they (the pair) looked like wandering zombies across the lower, drab towns of the Smogs. He stuffed the letter in his pocket. He left a coin, exiting before it could even stop spinning on the table. He copied it at home, by hand, by press, whichever ways old and young, he copied his letter.


    He handed them out, to the few neighbors he had. He received a hefty sum of gold, in a little pouch. The next week, he threw the pages out of balconies and wandered the lands like a crier.


    He got another pouch. A carrot dangling on its stick.


    By the third week even he believed it.


    Then after a while, more people began to believe it. And questioned it. And asked things like, wasn¡¯t Apollo always a bit of a loner?


    Wasn¡¯t Dion a bit strange in the head, naive?


    Didn¡¯t they come back bloody and foul?


    So on and so on, it did not take long for the lower lofts to take hold of this information. It did not take long for Daedalus to hear of it. Two weeks, two weeks and the Smog lands had digested the hostile letter until it was part of the lands, like the white mist itself.


    And the Royal watched, from his balcony, buying word of news from sullen types. His lazy days spent on that tower on the Bud were comforted with the stories, of Daedalus marching with his band of new-age, old-thinking traditionalists.


    There was a knock on the door. The Royal stood up, he dressed himself with black pants and fixed some black leather shoes. He opened the door, it was the only direction of which light showed through and he pushed his face through the brightness, into the Hall where two Vicars, with purple shawls, waited for him.


    ¡°Holy Scion, the dinner is soon.¡± One of them said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t be late again, please Joseph.¡± The other finished.


    ¡°What¡¯s the topic of discussion?¡±


    ¡°The Knights want better medical treatment, the Hospitallers want more material.¡±


    ¡°Drab things.¡± Joseph yawned.


    ¡°These, too, are part of your duties, like they were to your father before you,¡±


    ¡°Yes, and my father was a boring man.¡±


    ¡°Please show up on time. Rapport is incredibly important.¡± One of the Vicars said, head shaking behind her leopard spotted black and white mask. ¡°Punctuality is good manners. And good manners is cleanliness and cleanliness is -¡±


    And Joseph smiled, extended a palm out.


    ¡°Yes, I understand. I won¡¯t keep them waiting then.¡±

 4

    The Smogs ? Hospital ? Courtyard


    ¡°There is a man by the name of Sevar, a Hospitaller, and he wants to see you two.¡± A nun said, clutching here cross with a nervous tick, dangling her beads against her short neck.


    ¡°Tell him we''re busy,¡± Apollo said.


    She left them, closed the curtains and the door with a slam and caused a crucifix on the wall adjacent to fall into a sink. Apollo walked over, looking at it.


    "How are you doing?" He adjusted the cross on its back on a seat to the rear. Dion laid on his bed on one end of the room with bandages wrapped around his abdominal wound and a steady drip of red substance going into. You could follow the glow through the anatomy of his veins. The substance itself seemed like a needle, stabbed through his right-hand wrist, a philosophers stone in the shape of a stake that drained of color slowly as it drip-fed into him. His arm was propped up, to allow for gravity to let the substance of the stone-stake drain into him. A terrifying syringe. His wrist, where it was penetrated through, looked sore and green. His muscles twitched, Apollo looked away.


    "They said I was weak." Dion adjusted himself. "That I''ll need to be here for a bit longer. I told them three weeks was enough. I feel fine after all, I''m at a point where I can actually start complaining about things hurting."


    Dion gave a brief laugh. His eyes looked down below the white sheets and the springy bed that cried with each of his movements.


    There were more noises, a rumbling outside. Apollo stepped over, he fixed the blinds to see through them and outside, below the giant red cross, with the red light superimposed on their many faces, Apollo could see a crowd. Their heads looking up, looking at him. He closed the curtains. Quickly.


    ¡°They¡¯re still out there. Been at it for a week now...¡±


    "I think they know," Dion said.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter what they think they know. We''ve been consistant with our story and proof. They can¡¯t do shit, they won¡¯t do shit. Rumors are just rumors,¡± He repeated the words in his head, rumors are just rumors as if in doing so, perhaps he could convince himself to believe them.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry too much about it.¡± Apollo glanced at the wrist. ¡°Especially when you look this bad. You look like shit crawled under a rock, god damn.¡±


    "I feel better than I look, even the doctors agree.¡±


    ¡°Of course they''ll be nice to you, that''s the point.¡±


    ¡°Enough about me. What about you?¡± Dion asked.


    "Me?" Apollo scoffed and raised his hand. Well, what was left of it. A bandaged nub.


    "It''s not growing back?" Dion asked.


    "It''s cursed apparently. A hex. It probably won''t ever grow back." Apollo said. "However, the mystics say that if I can ever find the limb again I might be able to reattach it.¡±


    "Yeah, good luck with that, I''m not going back there."


    "Neither am I, so I guess I better get used to masturbating with the other hand, huh." He laughed. Dion laughed too, before he fell into a fit of coughing. He eventually stopped, sucked something out of his throat and spat it into a bucket.


    "What about the kid?"


    "Bartholomew?" Apollo said. He looked around, there were two pale curtains loosely tied to each other, barely blocking the glass windows to the hallways of the hospital. The noises out there were suppressed, but audible. Nimble steps of nuns and doctors and Vicars. He waited a bit, a cart rolled by. Then silence.


    "He''s fine. He found his mom, I think. As for the city? Who cares, not our problem anymore."


    "And him? That thing, that you let live?"


    "It wasn¡¯t my place to kill Alestor," Apollo said.


    "I still can¡¯t believe it,¡± Dion stood up straight, his heart rate monitor got noisier. It beeped sporadically. ¡°You let him live. He deserved it most of all, most of anyone on this planet.¡±


    "Maybe, you¡¯re right. Maybe out of everyone in that city, he was the one who deserved to die most of all. But I couldn''t do it, so he didn''t die."


    Dion¡¯s eyes looked at the bed sheets, then through them. His cheeks were flushed red. Apollo coughed.


    "But we got rid of him, at least."


    "He''s alive." Dion''s eyes looked up, unfurled into wide anger, like a dog coming out of his sleep, forced to composure by a loud sound. So he was. Unfurling, growling almost, alarmed and drowsy and tired and angry all at the same time.


    "He''s alive and also very, very stupid. He can''t even speak a word of English. I think that¡¯s an apt punishment if you ask me."


    "And if he ever gets out of it? If he recovers?"


    "The only way he''s getting out of his little stupor is through death. Which you wanted anyway, so who cares?"


    Dion breathed deeply and closed his eyes, he looked up to the tiled ceiling and the single fan circling counterclockwise. He tried moving his arm, it dangled amongst the leather straps.


    "I asked about your health, but now I need to know. How are you really doing?" Apollo asked. He made a gesture with his pointer finger and put against his skull. "You look broken in more ways than one."


    "I''m fine, didn''t you hear it from the doctors? From me?"


    "What you say you are and what you look like really aren¡¯t sitting well with me. Give me the truth."


    Dion closed his eyes, his chest driving slowly up and down.


    "Why do you care?"This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    "Even I don''t know," Apollo said. "Maybe it was all the trouble we went through, you''ve grown on me."


    "Eating Astyanax did something to you, alright."


    "It''s a new thing I''m trying out. It''s called empathy. So I''ll ask again, how are you doing?"


    ¡°Not fine,¡± Dion said. "How could I ever be fine...I was abandoned by God,"


    "That''s what it''s about? You made a stupid judgment call and got punished for it. Fighting an unfair man in a one on one combat situation. Don¡¯t be surprised about what happened."


    "I thought He was on my side,"


    "Yeah," Apollo adjusted the philosopher''s stone. Dion winced. ¡°And look at where faith took you, on a near deathbed with nothing but questions and doubt.¡±


    "I thought you were supposed to be helpful, supportive. What''s the point of telling you anything if you''re just going to be a jerk?" He dragged the blanket over himself.


    "I''m here to ground your ass to reality. I don¡¯t want you to get lost in your doubt, it¡¯s not healthy. The best thing you can do right now is just accept the fact that this world has a lot questions with no answers."


    "Wow, I¡¯m glad." Dion laid flat on his pillow. ¡°I¡¯m happy to think I¡¯m going to be as miserable as you.¡±


    Dion fell to silent napping. Apollo almost laughed it.


    They paused. Apollo took a cigarette from his coat and put it against his lips. He looked at a sign above that read, no smoking, and put it back.


    Dion wiggled in his bed. The smell of dry unlit nicotine, arousing him.


    "Everyone abandons me, do you know that?"


    "What do you mean?" Apollo found a backless stool by Dion¡¯s side.


    "My father abandoned me. My mother followed suit chasing after the man who had left her with a kid and no future."


    "Well, she didn''t do a good job runnin¡¯ if you managed to find out she even left. A lot of orphans don¡¯t even get that kind of closure.¡±


    "Don¡¯t be too impressed. I only found out after she died. It didn¡¯t take long afterward for me to join the church, or maybe I always was going to join the church. Like you said, we¡¯re all stuck on a road that¡¯s already been laid out for us," Dion coughed. "Maybe I was always this stupid. I was born from stupid parents after all, a father who had no spine and the idiot mother who chased right after the bastard. He left me. She left me. And now God has left me too.¡±


    His eyes were watery, Apollo could tell even if Dion had them closed, for the moisture had accumulated on his lashes.


    ¡°Now I¡¯m scared I¡¯ll end up like my mother. Chasing after a holy ghost, a person, a thing who never wanted me to begin with. And I¡¯m too scared to live without it and I¡¯m too scared to live with it.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t figure out everything for you, and I have no idea how you¡¯re going to live life,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°God, you¡¯re terrible.¡± Dion wiped his face.


    ¡°Yeah, but I¡¯m honest. Maybe that¡¯s all you need. Honesty.¡± Apollo looked outside again, to the even bigger mass approaching the hospital. ¡°Read your bible stories, love them, but never believe them. Nothing in this world comes easy, especially answers. Maybe that¡¯s the only thing you should believe in. How uncertain everything really is.¡±


    Apollo¡¯s braided locks hovered in circles by the side of his head. He felt a drop in his stomach.


    ¡°Oh, shut it,¡± Dion said. ¡°I¡¯m just trying to be sincere here and you won¡¯t even let me talk down to my stupidity.¡±


    Apollo said nothing, his eyes maintained constant gaze at the accreting mosh of Vicars. A swell of grimy and grim people.


    ¡°They¡¯ve come to kill the king,¡± Apollo mumbled.


    ¡°What?¡± Dion asked.


    Apollo shook his bandaged head. His thoughts were taken, and for some reason, he thought of Astyanax. Of his smile, of his bloody face. A memory of his death flashed and for a moment, Apollo swore he could taste the ash and metal bitterness. Sweet bitterness. A fermented death.


    He slapped himself on the forehead. Dion looked at him, the wetness in his eyes drying off his eyelids.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡±


    ¡°The fucking crowd is what¡¯s wrong.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Everything just feels wrong.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a backdoor if you want to avoid them. I know how terrible you deal with crowds, especially these kinds.¡±


    ¡°Nah, I don¡¯t mind ¡®em. Let them say what they want, it¡¯s just -¡±


    He couldn¡¯t finish his sentence. A rock broke through the glass and knocked down a small metal table. Lunch was laid out on the floor: a loaf of bread, some peas, mashed potatoes and hash all fell over onto the floor. He picked up the rock and looked at it, mossy and dirty and white from the food. He rushed to the window again, just to see them prime another stone.


    ¡°What the fuck.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Stay level-headed, please.¡± Dion spoke with some regret in his cadence.


    Another rock broke through.


    "They''ve finally lost it."


    "Go out the back," Dion said. Apollo felt his heart race. "They won''t let them through I think."


    "I''m not leaving you." Apollo said.


    "I can''t move, you know that." Dion said. "It''s alright, trust me."


    Apollo tried to pick him up but Dion stopped him. He pushed him away. Apollo nodded his head and reached for the door. It burst open. He hadn''t even put his hand on it. A nun came through, she looked at the broken glass and the stone now in Apollo¡¯s hands.


    ¡°You need to get out.¡± She said. Her face still and cold.


    He rushed down the fleet of stairs and looked all around him, towards the dispassionate faces of doctors. As if they had seen something severe, inoperable, fatal. Like a walking disease.


    Apollo raised his coat neck and tucked in his head and tried leaving out the back. He managed to make it to the point-ended fences, near scorning gargoyle statues whose futile vigilance now seemed to fulfill a final purpose.


    The people were waiting for him.


    Apollo backed away, brown leaves blew over him like the dead scabs of the very earth. A new wound was opening, Apollo felt it. Felt it through the bandages on his face and chest, felt it on his exposed arm. Felt in his lungs, filling him.


    And it still tasted like ash.


    All around him, Vicars appeared. A giant group, holding their weapons, silently watching over him.


    He looked to run, but found no opening.


    From a far-off distance, he saw the purpled shawled Vicars, the police of Soloman¡¯s Keep. The monitors, as they were called. He tried to wave them to him, but they seemed to ignore him. No - that wasn¡¯t quite true. They did look at him. The did glare at him. And they chose to ignore him.


    "What''s this for?" Apollo asked. No one answered.


    He tried to step through but was pushed back.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you fucks?¡± He asked. ¡°I¡¯ve got nothing to hide. I did not go to Hell, I am not in any way, shape or form aligned with any prince of Hell, or any anything of anything. I¡¯m Apollo, a Knight of the Rose, four order. That¡¯s it.¡±


    He put his hand forward to cut through the large, broad shoulders of the circle of Vicars. Nothing. He looked up, they weren¡¯t even wearing their masks. They had no need to hide their faces, no need to do anything but judge him.


    A line of four stepped forward. Apollo stepped back. He hit something, another person. It was then he realized how surrounded he was, and turning every way, he could see no exit.


    ¡°Leave me the fuck alone.¡± He said.


    Another four stepped forward.


    ¡°Back.¡±


    They continued on their march like machines, all wearing the same bitter face on them. The same contempt, the same anger. It seemed like they weren''t even mad at Apollo, at points, that he was just the chosen one to bear the brunt of the force. That he, Apollo, was simply a flag bearer to some greater enemy.


    ¡°I told you to fuck off!¡± Apollo cocked his hand and shot it out. His whole hip into it, he felt a man fall down, bloody-faced. He did regret the decision. And he got his answer to that question asked earlier about; what¡¯s this for.


    ¡°Betrayer,¡± They pulled at him.


    ¡°Traitor.¡± They elbowed him across the face.


    ¡°In bed with devils.¡± They pulled at his hair. Apollo shot back out, his face suffocating in that landscape of limbs, everyone gripping at everything he had until at last that police officer came. The monitor, purple shawl wearing monitor, who broke them away from each other.


    He fixed his clothes and looked at them all and thought, in that moment, to run away.


    He tried stepping back, but his arm was caught.


    ¡°What, what are you doing?¡±


    The monitor had detained him. Had thrown him to the floor, had suppressed him with an armbar and was bent on breaking his limbs.


    ¡°What did I do? They¡¯re harassing me!¡± Apollo screamed.


    ¡°You assaulted another Vicar, is what you did. Didn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Apollo asked. He was spitting rage out from his bleeding teeth.


    ¡°Weren¡¯t you the one who punched the man?¡± The monitor said.


    He opened his mouth but no sound came out. He looked up to the monitor, to the apathetic face she wore. He understood then what trouble he was in, though did not vocalize it, did not do so much as grunt.


    He tried to jerk away, only a minor movement and felt a quick pain, a blow to his head that reduced him to a dizzy mess. Something that made the skies shake and his feet tremble and dangle as he was lifted off, off into that unconscious ruin.

 5

    The Smogs ? Prison


    He was locked in that cell, that inhospitable place where every annoying and tense sound could penetrate through. The poor plumbing, leaking into steady drips to his side. The mob growing more ravenous outside, banging against the fence, screaming out at the little metal bars that held Apollo. He had a mattress with a yellow stain on the head-side, he had to flip it the first day and on the second decided it best to just sleep on the floor. He had a desk, with no pen or pencil. They had given him a fragile piece of graphite that crumbled. Presumably, so he wouldn¡¯t use it as a weapon. And in the desk, were collections of loose bible papers, which when composed in order, became the Book of Revelations.


    A slip was left, etched into the pale wooden desk. It read, "Repent your sins and you may be saved in the world beyond." And Apollo hung by the edge of the yellow stained bed, with two hands on his bruised and bandaged face. With the dust collecting and turning his wrappings brown.


    There was but one window and it was barred, looking through it, Apollo saw the floor. His cell was underground, partly at least. There were blades of grass and an earthy smell of mildew that slipped through. Above, fluorescent lights buzzing mildly.


    He started to think, to regret immediately. Should he have told the truth?


    It was worse when he thought of Elijah and of Dion, whom he had no news of. Staying in this isolating room, where time felt unmoved, had only worsened his nightmares.


    He was told there would be a trial, and that he would probably be sentenced to death. And when he asked, the warden why it was so, the warden had replied, for show of course. The trial, all of it was theatrics. To appease the mob. To make an example of anyone else.


    That¡¯s what hurt him most, the death sentence, the fact that Dion would die too. That he had gone through the rude hands of doctors, just to come out into a factory line. A factory line leading straight through a decapitator machine.


    He stood from his bed and hit the same spot on the wall he had been hitting for two weeks, the little indentation in the shape of his knuckled dug deeper into the brick wall. The bed sprung outward as he stood. He rested his head on the table.


    "I''m fucked, I went through Hell just to get fucked. Jesus Christ," Apollo said. "Maybe it would have been better if I just died there, at least it''d save me the trouble of this bullshit."


    He imagined the execution. He had seen one before when he was a young student. His teacher had forced him to watch it, the way they decapitated Vicar''s with long guillotines and made quick of their hearts. She (the teacher) had said they had to do it that way. The brain severance came first, as it makes it harder for the body to regenerate. The heart removal is second, and that actually kills the Vicar. It used to be decapitations only, but after a few accidental survivors (and out of recycling convenience, a heart could still be used by another host after all) they changed their methods. Now it was both. The double whammy of the some of the worst ways to die.


    Now he waited on his deathbed, waiting, sitting back down and hearing the creak of springs from his low-to-the-floor mattress.


    He looked out the metal door in front of him, three bars set at even interstices gave some vision in gaps. He saw people pass by, people stop and breath heavily in front of the door, people who prayed as they took quick glances inside the cell.


    At least, thankfully, he was used to loneliness. He was trained in it, and at least for the moment, made his isolation bearable. But today felt different, today he could not be himself with his thoughts.


    There was an eerie silence, a ceremonial type of silence. He sat by the desk and rubbed his forehead and tuned his ears to the distinct echo of the hall. He could hear someone loud, emphatic, like a tap dance, like a musical act all along the floor above. And it got worse, more eccentric, as it came closer and closer.


    Then silence.


    There were two guards outside, neither spoke. Though their heavy breathing told Apollo they were still alive.


    A knock. A two tap knock. A pause. Flurry, a speedy banging on the door.


    ¡°I¡¯m a prisoner. You don¡¯t need to fucking knock.¡± Apollo screamed. A week''s worth of hostility was in his tone. He began to worry if he had scared the person away and then felt stupid that even cared in the first place.


    Three stern knocks once more and he was shaken to a stand. He looked at the door, rubbing his eyes and heard the creek of the rusty hinges prying open, like the closed eyes of people in days long sleep. He saw the full figure at once, and he was...unimpressed.


    The person was smaller, smaller than Apollo. No, smaller than an average man. Five feet three, four maybe on his tiptoes. The man made an effort to close the door gently and to fiddle with the door handle. He took his hands off the door the minute the two warden Vicars outside locked it.


    The man breathed heavily.


    Apollo eyed his back, the garbs he wore. Pure white robes, with seams and golden edges. A long cloak of white wrapped around him, it hid his feet and his arms and most of his body. The clothes outstretched to his neck, wrapping around his scalp and covering it completely.


    He wore a wide, white sunhat. It hid most of his face.


    He turned. His masked face showing, pristine and bright. It was tight against the strangers face and it carried some floral designs, etched into the white. Above, on the forehead of the mask laid the cross. All rather extravagant, all gold and white and pretty and clean.


    The light reflected off the mask, harsh. He raised his hands. Apollo rubbed his face to clear his vision.


    On the man, two purple bright eyes with a little red colored rim to contain the oddly colored irises. Apollo tried looking away from the violet eyes, but his mind couldn¡¯t help but think what strange and famous power they demanded, and what strange and powerful man this person must have been.


    Apollo tried to find a seat, his legs wobbled. He pushed himself against the wall and stabilized himself. The man (he only guessed it was a man, though he couldn''t see much behind the mask) looked up to Apollo.


    "Do you know who I am?" The man said. Apollo stayed quiet, the man shook his head.


    ¡°Oh, oh, forgive me! Where are my manners.¡± He walked over to Apollo and picked up his hand and shook the limp thing with an almost juvenile appreciation. ¡°I am Sevar.¡±


    ¡°You talk a little strange,¡± Apollo jerked his hand back.


    "I was born an Armenian but raised in Jerusalem. Excuse my accent.¡±


    ¡°Nothing to be sorry for,¡± Apollo sat on his bed, his eyes steady on the man. ¡°I have an idea of who you are.¡±


    ¡°Oh, do you?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, you wanted to talk in the hospital. Didn¡¯t you?¡±


    The man nodded.


    ¡°You¡¯re also the Leper Hospitaller, aren¡¯t you? The Leper of Elezear.¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Aha! So that¡¯s where you know me from, why yes, I am the man.¡±


    ¡°The mad mystic?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know about that,¡± The Leper laughed.


    ¡°I am just a man who wanted to talk to you and if I had, perhaps we could have avoided all this. May I sit?¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°May I sit?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, uh, sure. Make yourself at home.¡±


    The Leper looked around, clasping his knees and made small quips and bits of nervous laughter.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°I wanted to know if it¡¯s true. Did you go to Hell?¡± Apollo stayed quiet. ¡°I¡¯m no judge, you can tell me in absolute confidence. It¡¯s not like things can get any worse, I¡¯m sure you know that you¡¯re a dead man, right?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not good to lose your bargaining chip,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Oh! That¡¯s good, you¡¯re clever.¡± The Leper said. ¡°How about an exchange then? An answer, for answers? That is, news about your friends.¡±


    The Leper knocked on the walls, twice. The two guards heard it, must have, as they walked away and left the halls in silence.


    ¡°Hmm? How does that sound.¡±


    ¡°You first,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Well, Dion is safe. They locked him in his hospital room the whole week you were here. I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll be joining you tomorrow, though. The doctor¡¯s put up a good fight, keeping his treatment going. You can thank the Hospitallers for that.¡± He raised his finger. ¡°As the motto says! Rest your tired and weary so on the shoulders of a Hospitaller-¡±


    Apollo could not move. He twiddled his thumb and closed his eyes.


    ¡°Ahem,¡± The Leper said. ¡°As for your other friend, Elijah, was it? He killed himself.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± He nearly lept out. ¡°How? When?¡±


    ¡°A few days after you were imprisoned. They were coming for him next, it seems. Or maybe that motley crew, the sungazers, got to him. Who knows? They found him in his office with a knife through his heart.¡±


    He couldn¡¯t breathe. He leaned back until his head hit the wall and opened his mouth to catch air, but nothing seemed to come. The Leper stayed quiet in his seat, both legs close together as he waited for Apollo to recover. It must have been a half hour before he could speak again, with a groggy and broken voice.


    ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have involved him. I should have just admitted it. I could have taken all the blame, even Dion wouldn¡¯t have had to -¡±


    ¡°Ah, don¡¯t sulk, you''ll drown your reason in regret. It¡¯s too early for you to regret! You¡¯re a young man with a long life ahead of you.¡±


    ¡°Long life? I¡¯m going to get my head cut off tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Maybe,¡± The Leper raised both hands like the buckets of scales. ¡°Maybe not. But those options won¡¯t come to you until after you answer my question. Did you go to Hell?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡±


    ¡°M-May I?¡± The Leper said, excitedly. He pointed to Apollo¡¯s shoulder. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to impose you see, I believe in civility. Civility in an uncivil world.¡±


    Apollo, a bit saddened still, with his head low, made no protest and leaned his shoulder towards the Leper. The Leper dragged his hand across Apollo¡¯s skin in an area below the ear, his hands were glowing with that arcane energy, it looked white, a bit yellow almost. And Apollo pulled away. He felt a sharp pain, a sting. Then bleeding, a design had been cut into him.


    ¡°What the fuck.¡± He mumbled.


    ¡°That was a good reaction.¡± The Leper says. ¡°You are marked, so you did go to Hell. You must have seen Charon at some point, no? The ferryman.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°You probably weren¡¯t conscious at the time then. Well, lacking a corporeal form, to be exact. But you bear the marking of the living undead. Incredible.¡±


    ¡°Is that all you wanted? To zap me?¡±


    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t be silly. Why would I ever play with your ilk?¡± The Leper said. ¡°Knight of the Rose. And you are Apollo, of the fourth order. The most underachieving of the bunch, aren¡¯t you? Only a step above the rookies. By god. I don¡¯t know why they even keep you around.¡±


    ¡°Elitist shithead,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°I¡¯ll let that one go,¡± The Leper said. ¡°What I want from you is more important to be burdened by mild hostilities. You should think likewise, your predicament does not allow you the luxury of arrogant insults. You are going to die tomorrow. You and Dion.¡±


    ¡°What do you want from us?¡±


    ¡°From one of you, really. Either one, it just so happened Dion was unconscious at the time. So I thought I¡¯d offer you my deal.¡±


    ¡°You either help us both out or you¡¯ll get shit, you hear me?¡± He broke out of that malaise, bitter, angry, still clutching the bleeding wound below his ear that crawled down to his chest, that now smoked red from his regenerative properties.


    ¡°I figured, it makes no difference to me. I can help you both. Friendship is a noble thing after all!¡± The Leper said, hands open and in the air. ¡°This is what I admire about you downtrodden types, you always find meaning in the arbitrary.¡±


    ¡°This is why no one likes you guys, the Canaries, the Hospitallers. Whatever the fuck you call yourselves.¡±


    ¡°Canaries? Haven¡¯t heard that one.¡± The Leper said. ¡°But it makes sense. I¡¯m sure we must appear cold from the outside but I promise you, my offer is anything but cold.¡±


    ¡°Well, get on with it. Jesus Christ.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes.¡± His hands fell down again. ¡°Now as you may know you have broken a great commandment. You have committed an unadvised, unsanctioned trip to Hell. And you know what they¡¯ll accuse you of tomorrow, don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ll say that the reason we went down there was to cohort with demons.¡±


    ¡°Yes, and your only alibi is a bit too stupid to repudiate the claim.¡±


    ¡°Alestor¡­¡± He immediately regretted the Hyena. He immediately felt stupid. He closed his eyes and swallowed his spit and put his head down.¡±


    ¡°But I may save you yet.¡± The Leper said. ¡°I could sponsor you two to become Hospitallers.¡±


    Apollo looked up, his eyes with a thin sheen about them.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re mentally equipped to handle the experiments you guys do.¡±


    ¡°Of course I know that. You''re short a few IQ points, that''s fine! We have plenty other positions for you two.¡± He said.


    "There are combat fields?"


    "Some, sure. Though your skills are mediocre, even at that."


    ¡°Well fuck. Why do you want us for then?¡±


    "What do you think? What other use would I have for a man who went through Hell?¡± The Leper said, with a sly, devious tone. ¡°To go back to Hell, of course.¡±


    ¡°Absolutely not.¡±


    It didn¡¯t take him much to decline, all he had to remember was Dion¡¯s body on the bed and Astyanax on the floor.


    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be immediate, of course. We still need to get the paperwork and the planning in, but we imagine we¡¯ll be going back before the next decade ends.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know what¡¯s down there. And we only went as far as Purgatory, it gets even worse -¡±


    The Leper leaned in with renewed curiosity. His head tilted, his violet eyes peering straight through Apollo. He had to look away, they were too oppressive.


    ¡°We don¡¯t know what¡¯s down there, you¡¯re right. That¡¯s why we¡¯re going.¡± He said. ¡°So this is my offer. You can join the Hospitallers or you can die.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great, that¡¯s fucking great. I can either die right now or wait a few years later and die anyway. This time, in Hell!¡± He said, sardonically.


    ¡°I guess prison has rotted your brain. I thought you were the smart one?¡± The Leper asked. ¡°I thought you¡¯d be more self-interested. Would you prefer to be a political tool? A precedent of mockery for the years of Vicars to come? A mere footnote in history, of the fool who went to Hell and lived and died by the hands of stupid politicians and unruly revolutionaries?¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡± Apollo shook his head. ¡°I can¡¯t give you an answer yet.¡±


    ¡°However much time you¡¯d need, you will get none. Your sentence, your end, is tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡±


    ¡°As is Dion¡¯s.¡±


    ¡°I know!¡± He lashed out. The Leper stayed quiet, reading his face he presumed. Then he stood, abruptly and went to the door.


    ¡°You¡¯re an American, aren¡¯t you?¡± The Leper asked.


    Apollo nodded yes.


    ¡°It must be a surprise to be tried by God, no? I¡¯m sure mortal men would have been more forgiving.¡± The Leper laughed and reached for the door handle. ¡°Well, I¡¯ve overstayed my welcome. I won¡¯t be getting an answer before I leave, will I?¡±


    Apollo nodded no.


    ¡°Right. And here I thought you were losing your head tomorrow, but it seems like you lost it a long time ago.¡± He said. ¡°Oh well, I¡¯ve overstayed my welcome. Good day, sir.¡±


    Those were the last words. Apollo maintained his silence throughout, he had lost the ability to speak and all communication had been reduced to his meditated breaths. Deep inhalations, brief exhalations. For he had too much on his mind and his heart raced too quickly and everything seemed to want to explode out of him. Resentment, sadness most of all. He heard the Leper leave and make his way upstairs, then outside. And he heard the halls fill once against with doctors and therapists and wardens and Vicars and somehow, all the jubilee, all the mockery of the crowd behind the bars, all the noise of all life existing and continuing made him feel even lonelier.

 6

    The Smogs ? Courtroom


    ¡°Settle down.¡± The mallet came down like swift thunder. ¡°Settle down or I¡¯ll kick you all out. We¡¯re almost done here.¡±


    Apollo looked around to the stage set before him, the guillotine with its sharp sneer looking directly at him, the stairs leading up to the basket and the slot to insert himself into, the shining scalpel and contraptions of which to stretch out his chest cavity.


    He budged in his chair. He could hear the chains shaking from below. He tried moving his fingers, they were stuck. On one hand (for he only had one hand), a metal glove that held him in a perpetual open palm. In the other, a bag to seal his wound.


    Two vicars stood to his rear. They looked down, they had no masks. The wore a white cloth above their faces.


    "You couldn''t make this any more uncomfortable if you tried, could you?" He said. He felt wire around his neck tighten, some bloody beads fell from the point of pain and landed on his chest. There was someone behind him, and behind Dion who stood next to him. And he, like a slaver, tightened a noose around Apollo. A thorny, barbarous silver noose.


    The people screamed. They did nothing to hide their resentment, they booed and hiss and wet spit fell upon Apollo, dribbling down the back of his head. He tried to turn. Once again, he was strangled.


    ¡°Sit still, would you?¡± One of the judges said. There were five in total, their voices all carrying that air of unjustified superiority. They blended well, so much so that it was hard to tell them apart. It was one giant tribunal, Apollo figured. One entertaining, noisy death.


    "Order, order before God." The centermost man said. A pudgy fellow whose sideburns grew down, past the cloth mask he wore.


    Apollo looked at this figure, his eyes flashing red, his whole soul resentful towards everyone here. And in his head, he could hear a voice perhaps, or was it an image of rage? He saw Astyanax, he saw a flash of red.


    A spark. The voice was audible, even amongst the crowd.


    It was quiet like a whisper that passed his mind saying, ''Would you just die like a dog? Is this how we go?''


    ¡°We are here to process the case of the Mad Dog and his trusty fool.¡± One of the judges said.


    ¡°Very bipartisan.¡± Apollo spat. He gasped for breath, once more. The people laughed.


    Again, red upon his eyes and vision. He looked around to size the stadium, there must have been a hundred and all of them excited to see him dead, whether they supported or not. Whether they were disgusted or not, everyone was excited. Sungazers and doubters and skeptics and chroniclers, all hand in hand to watch him. He felt a burn on the scar tissue of his arm.


    The judge slammed his mallet down. The echo ran across the room.


    "We are here to pass judgment on Dion and Apollo, Vicars of the Fourth order, Knights of the Rose."


    "Traitors," He heard a voice say in the crowd.


    "I''m not surprised the pigs would break the law, you can''t control those fourthies." This one sounded rich.


    "I hear they sleep in slums, life must be hard like that. I''m not surprised honestly, that kind of resentment would have you doing...unsavory things." A second order knight, perhaps?


    The voices kept piling. The gavel kept slamming. His vision and out of that filter or red. And along the sides of his mouth, he felt the taste of bitterness. Of salt, of sweat. Aluminum, metal.


    "Silence, you''re here to spectate not to speak." The leftmost judge said (left most to Apollo at least). She had a mask on, it made her look like a bird with its giant beak sitting on the table. Like those doctors of old, when the plagues were still a fresh fear.


    Perhaps it was a thematically appropriate mask to wear. After all, there was another kind of plague here now, one of groupthink, one of mass madness. And here was Dion, with his slumped head, and Apollo with his grit teeth, both poised as the greatest evil, as the originators of this sickness.


    "You are accused, Apollo and Dion, of having become under the influence of the Devil, of a prince of Hell or perhaps Satan himself. You both bear the mark. That is evidence enough, certainly, that you made your way to Hell." The rightmost one said.


    ¡°But it¡¯s not evidence that we¡¯re possessed or...or some kind of spy or sabateur or whatever ridiculous thing you''re called us.¡±


    ¡°And you don¡¯t evidence that you¡¯re not.¡±


    ¡°Well, what the fuck-¡± His throat, again. Argh, he spat.


    ¡°No cursing.¡± The neck twister said.


    ¡°You¡¯re asking us to provide evidence for something we¡¯re not, how does that work?¡±


    ¡°Testimonies and interviews with your past partners and comrades would suffice, assuming you had any.¡±


    Apollo stayed quiet. He could feel the pressure, at last, hit him, crush him.


    ¡°Elijah is dead. The boy, whom you have described earlier, Bartholomew is incapable of giving an honest testimony. He¡¯s a child and more than that, a civilian. His word means nothing.¡± They continued down a list. ¡°And your teacher, Apollo, Freya. Where is she?¡±


    Apollo looked around the crowd. He could see no familiarity amongst the crowd, he could see nothing but uncaring vague faces.


    ¡°S-she¡¯s busy, on a mission I¡¯m guessing?¡±


    ¡°Well, she isn¡¯t here, that¡¯s for sure.¡±


    His face flushed red. His teeth ground against each other.


    ¡°So that¡¯s it? We¡¯re heretics?¡±


    ¡°You broke the rules. The sixth tenet of the Vicar order, of which all members of all sects oblige themselves to. You shall not bed yourselves with demons.¡±


    ¡°And I¡¯m telling you we didn¡¯t, we went down there to save the boy. Alestor was the one who brought us there, who did everything.¡±


    ¡°And where is he now?¡± One of the judges said sharply.


    ¡°W-well, he¡¯s damaged in the head¡­¡±


    ¡°Convenient.¡±


    ¡°Do you have anyone else that may vouch for either of you?¡±


    ¡°I just want to let you know that it was my fault, that I¡¯m the one who forced Apollo to join me.¡± Dion cut in. His voice was somber. ¡°I¡¯m the one who deserves to die.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, there¡¯s enough crime for both of you.¡± The plague doctor said. ¡°Is this all you two want to say?¡±Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    Apollo felt a hot flash across his neck.


    ¡°If this is it, then I believe it¡¯s time for the sentencing.¡±


    He breathed quickly.


    ¡°On the account of heresy and omission of truth during a mission report, on the assumed betrayal of your very existence in favor of the demonic forces below, we hereby¡­¡±


    His shoulders fell. He slammed his head on the table, his eyes were red. Red in color, red in vision.


    ¡°He¡¯s lost it.¡± The congress said in whispers.


    He forgot, he never bothered to ask how they even found out. How it happened. Where the rumor came from? Who had tipped them off? He was sure Dion and himself shared the same story, he was sure they were both accurate and right and everything aligned. So when, how were they tipped off?


    He slammed his head again.


    Did it matter now? Probably not.


    ¡°I want you to look us in the eyes,¡± The center judge said. ¡°You''re hereby sentenced to death. Take these moments to reflect upon your lives.¡±


    The crowd cheered. They nearly jumped out of their seats. A dozen vicars came out to barricade them from crossing over the wooden line.


    ¡°So that¡¯s it?¡± The chains below Apollo rose, nearly breaking off from the floor. ¡°You¡¯re giving into mob rule to save face? Is that all that matters, satiating these fucking beasts? What about justice, fairness, evidence for fuck''s sake - Ah, fuck.¡±


    He was pulled back down.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s helping,¡± Dion mumbled, his body was smaller, drained. He lost muscle tone and was pale.


    ¡°Oh, you don¡¯t say.¡± Apollo spat. He licked the blood coming off his nose.


    A gestation came out from the crowd, a birth of anger and joy.


    ¡°Death to the traitors,¡± They chanted. Some at least. Some were too disgusted by the scene and retreated back. But those were fewer, so little in numbers actually that it didn¡¯t even matter whether the skeptics existed or not. Or even if they were the silent majority. Because the loud rapt fury of the sungazers, of the drama voyeurs, was too much. Too overwhelming, that not even the high ceiling glass roof of the jury room could contain it. The walls shook, coming in and out like breaths.


    The guillotine rolled closer to Apollo and Dion, who each sat on those chained chairs in front of simple mahogany tables.


    Each rotation sounding off another crack of the death machine.


    The table full of the dissection devices was carried closer by a man holding gloves, who face and head were covered by a white garb.


    His heart raced.


    ¡°Is this all we get? A mock trial? Where''s the evidence? Tell me!¡± Apollo said, desperation growing in his high-strung inflections.


    ¡°God needs no evidence, for God knows all.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯re not God.¡± He screamed at them. ¡°You¡¯re just fuckers who want to point the finger. You¡¯re playing God is what you¡¯re doing, now that¡¯s the real heresy.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s in the nature of a demon to lie for his conceits. Why don¡¯t you have some dignity and die in peace?¡±


    ¡°You mother fuckers,¡± He tried to hold it underneath his breath but blurted it out. ¡°You mother fuckers!¡± Again, louder and louder until it became another scream indistinguishable amongst the sea of fury.


    The blade was rusty, a green patina. And he thought what color it would look like with his fresh blood on it.


    ¡°You will be made an example of,¡± The judges said, their voices low.


    ¡°Fuck, fuck, fuck.¡±


    Dion prayed silently, his face calm and complacent in his death. Maybe he accepted it weeks ago, months ago, back with Astyanax. Perhaps, Apollo thought, to Dion this was just an unpaid bill. A tax, here to gets it dues.


    A vicar came around to free the bolt and the chain from that bolt. Apollo was lifted off his seat. He was guided (dragged) up. Two men dragged him by the arms. Each step up, he twisted himself to run. It took another two vicars to contain him, and to push him to the top of the steps.


    He enjoyed the scenery at the summit only briefly and he felt that unique feeling, of curious surprise, to see so many strangers hate him, and to see their scorn so up close. He screamed. A pain hit his shins. His knees were kicked in. He was forced to his knees. Another hand came out and grabbed the back of his head and pushed him into the scaffold. It was finally here, he realized it as he stared into the basket placed below, all his life reduced to this singular moment, staring into the mismatched ribbons of a brown thatched basket.


    Fuck me, he thought.


    He was angry, as he heard the whine of the guillotine blade rising to its apex. He was mad at the man to his rear, wearing the red and white garbage bag dress. He was mad at the church, at himself, at the man who set the basket at an off-angle. He was mad at everyone and everything. And nothing at all, no one at all. For it was just too absurd. Perhaps he was just caught in the humor of it. But he laughed, a bit, a small dribble of laughter.


    The scaffold locked in place. He didn¡¯t even struggle against it.


    The wood clicked into place. A man came around to finally hold his chained and gloved arm in place.


    He closed his eyes. The blade stopped its ascent. His heart accelerated. The crowd stayed silent.


    There was a bump.


    Is this the sound of my head falling? He thought.


    A kick.


    The door burst open.


    A new influx of noise was carried from outside, one of the boos and desperate heckles and the dumb shuffling of guards holding the new spectator back. Or trying to at least. Everyone turned and whispered and some even sighed in relief, his death would be postponed a few more minutes.


    But even amongst the now calmed sungazers, there was a bubbling of resentment, of anger and frustration at the new distraction.


    ¡°You can¡¯t try these men,¡± He said. ¡°They don¡¯t belong to this sordid group anymore. They¡¯ve been sponsored. These two are Hospetilliers now.¡±


    ¡°Prove it,¡± The plague doctor said. The Leper turned his head underneath his robes, perhaps he was smiling, Apollo couldn¡¯t tell. Not because of the mask, for joy could be shown with more things than smiles, but because his head was still struggling under the scaffold and still squirming. He could barely see anything on the horizon.


    The Leper came, past the guillotine, his eyes narrowed at the contraption, perhaps he judged them. Apollo still couldn¡¯t see much.


    The Leper put the paper on the table in front of the judges and gave them time to read and share it amongst each other. Some understanding, others growing more uncomfortable, more angsty in their seat.


    They scratched their heads, pulled hair, rubbed their chins.


    ¡°They¡¯re Hospetilliers elect. They¡¯re not anything yet.¡± One of them said. ¡°They would have been.¡±


    ¡°They will be, within the year.¡±


    ¡°And do you think we¡¯re giving you a year?¡± One of them laughed. The sungazers amongst the crowd did as well. ¡°They¡¯re being tried today. Do you understand? T-o-d-a-y.¡±


    ¡°Will you kill a Hospitaller elect? Would you sully the fragile relationship we already have? Believe me when I say they will still be punished, but by our hands.¡±


    ¡°Do you think we¡¯re doing a bad job of it? That we can¡¯t uphold the values set forth by our ancestors?¡± One of the judges said.


    ¡°Filthy mystic.¡± The sneering began to brew.


    ¡°Go back to your towers.¡±


    ¡°City boy.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m saying.¡± The Leper said. ¡°You¡¯re all incompetent.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re not giving them to you, do you understand?¡±


    Apollo felt his veins pop. He was seeing red, tasting ash like coals had been stuck into his mouth.


    ¡°Will you reject our rites of passage?¡± The Leper asked.


    Apollo felt his eyes bulge, his head compress.


    ¡°Any rite or rights they had ended, months ago. When they took it upon themselves to cohort with devils.¡±


    Apollo breathed deeply. He felt something bubbling inside his chest.


    ¡°Kill the devil worshippers, kill the blasphemous.¡± The crowd repeated.


    ¡°A simple accusation! With not an ounce of evidence to it. Without interrogation, without any kind of testing to their arcana. Hogwash!¡±


    Apollo fell his eyes rolling in his head.


    ¡°You don¡¯t give a demon a second chance, that¡¯s a half-measure. You kill them quick and efficiently, that¡¯s our motto. Ready the blade.¡±


    ¡°Now don¡¯t be hasty.¡± The Leper stepped up. The guarding vicars readied their blades.


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m not trying to fight. I have violence.¡± The Leper said. They looked at him suspiciously.


    ¡°I¡¯m just asking you, perhaps, give them a week, even a couple days?¡±


    ¡°There will be no trickery here. They are condemned to death and if you keep obstructing justice, you will be too.¡±


    Apollo felt his veins pop.


    ¡°But-¡± The Leper interjected.


    ¡°No buts.¡±


    ¡°However-!¡±


    ¡°Guards, sit him down-¡±


    ¡°Let me speak!¡± Apollo screamed. Everyone looked. ¡°Let me speak!¡±


    There was silence, the loud voice overcame them all. He shimmied out of his scaffold and out into the open. The guard grabbing him fell down the steps.


    ¡°You monsters,¡± He looked side to side. ¡°You filthy animals, with your ravenous hunger, with your stupid and simple logic. You degenerates.¡±


    He took slow steps down.


    ¡°You¡¯ll go on and on and on for your petty justice, for your petty politics, for your petty ambitions.¡± He said. ¡°Well, I can¡¯t stand it. I won¡¯t stand it. If justice won¡¯t come to me under the diligence of a fair trial, then I¡¯ll take it. I¡¯ll take it from all of you.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± The center judge said.


    ¡°Listen up, I¡¯ll make my defense clear. A godly defense for godly men,¡±


    ¡°What are you suggesting?¡± The plague doctor said.


    Apollo turned around and towards all five. The Leper had his arms crossed, nodding.


    ¡°If God is your witness and your muse and your judge, then let it be so. Let Him judge me,¡± He said. ¡°Let us fight, trial by combat and let God choose his winner. And if you disagree, then renounce your faith and the claim that holiness guides you.¡±


    They all paused. Absorbing it. The Leper laughed a bit, low and with a crooked head. And all around, like a fire had been lit, the people spat and hissed and screamed. They nearly spilled from the edges of the balustrades.


    ¡°And who is your champion?¡± The judges asked.


    Apollo looked towards the Leper, who immediately went quiet as the gaze went to him. The Leper looked around, everyone stared.


    And he said, in a quiet voice: ¡°I refuse.¡±


    And now they were all quiet, even Apollo. Quiet and confused.

 7

    Soloman''s Keep ? Plaza


    They stood outside the trial house, with all the looming houses surrounding them and the people staring now from the dilapidated homes, as they walked down the steps of the courthouse (which was little more than a shack), towards a rowdy plaza, and walking further, behind a small little alleyway. The three stood there, Apollo, Dion and the Leper who looked at them with a crooked neck.


    ¡°I thought you wanted to help,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Certainly!¡± The Leper said.


    ¡°Then why won¡¯t you fight?¡±


    ¡°Because you haven¡¯t agreed to deal, of course.¡±


    ¡°What about the papers then? The sponsorship?¡±


    ¡°Forged of course!¡± He said, almost impressed. ¡°Though they could be made real, so long as you agree. And I mean, agree to everything. That when the day is necessary that both, or one of you, will come join us on our little expedition. That the deal will be honored. Those are the terms.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯ll fight for us?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll win for you, yes.¡± The Leper said.


    Apollo and Dion looked at each other.


    ¡°Do you think it¡¯s a good deal?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s better than dying.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know that.¡±


    ¡°He only needs one of us. I¡¯ll fulfill the honor when it comes.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Dion stepped forward. ¡°We both will.¡±


    The Leper walked towards them and gestured for them to hold their hands out. The metal gloves placed on them stuck out. He grabbed him, broke a latch on the side and they released with a loud thump on the floor.


    ¡°Swear on it.¡± The Leper said. He flashed his hand, the white glove and the strange arcana embroidered on his palm. He removed the glove, finger by finger and showed that putrid flesh of his. Burned and discolored and swollen and brittle. As if his flesh would flake off at any moment.


    Apollo swallowed his throat. He clutched his hand and shook and looked straight into those violet eyes.


    ¡°Ah, that¡¯s good. Most people don¡¯t shake.¡± The Leper said. ¡°They don¡¯t understand that I¡¯m not contagious, aha.¡±


    ¡°There, now I hope you¡¯ll fight. And well, too. He¡¯s a big fucker.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯d fight if we could,¡± Dion said, his thin arms held onto the wall.


    ¡°Being bigger is a liability, it¡¯s not good strategy.¡± The Leper said. He slapped his glove back on.


    ¡°That looks familiar,¡± Apollo sized him. ¡°That sign on your glove.¡±


    ¡°Why, it''s the same magic that¡¯s in your little suits.¡± The Leper said. ¡°After all, I¡¯m the man who designed it.¡±


    They stayed quiet as the Leper walked past them in confident stride. The challenger waited at the center of the plaza, a large fellow, twice the size of any normal man. And upon his shoulders, dragging on the floor, was a solid cross. A concrete, bludgeoning tool whose usage and kills were marked as tallies along the center of the crucifix. He had no suit, more so had a cloak and rags. He had a mask, though it barely fit and the long threads of hair protruded outward, messy and greasy.


    The judges stood around the circle.


    "So, in the end, you still became their champion." One of the judges said. Everyone began to whisper, to worry. Only briefly as they compared sizes and amongst the sungazers and the spectators, a new bidding took place. Fifty to two, in favor of the giant, Ambley.


    Some chose not to bet though, for the Leper had never been seen fighting and that kind of mystery was always a liability in gambling odds.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "Yes, by circumstances and coincidence, I am their champion,"


    "The Leper of Soloman''s Keep, the wandering disease," They repeated.


    "I¡¯m glad even my reputation has gone this far," He bowed. ¡°You should all be so fortunate as to enjoy my genius.¡±


    He stepped towards the middle. The idiot, Ambley, did so as well, lugging his giant cross in a little arc. And the crowd seemed, out of sheer contempt for the two, to side with the giant.


    Apollo and Dion were forced up, four vicars surrounded them with ready blades, two more were coming. They were shackle-less after all.


    "This reminds you of back then, doesn''t it?" Apollo said.


    "Yeah, except it''s easier for us."


    "Is it though?" Apollo said. "I can¡¯t help but get nervous when fate isn¡¯t in my hands."


    "You''d rather be in there, fighting?" Dion asked.


    "Wouldn''t you? I thought you were the gung-ho type."


    "I was. I''m humbled now." Dion said.


    "I can tell,"


    "And you, you want to fight, don''t you?"


    "Yeah, it''s scary. But a part of me does, yes."


    "Out of obligation or..."


    "Or pleasure."


    "Are you sure you¡¯re not the one who¡¯s sick in the head?" Dion asked.


    He smirked, perhaps out of a nervousness as they watched the two warriors ready and circle themselves like forced lions in the Colosseum.


    They went four rounds around the arena.


    Then the giant struck. He swung from up high. The floor cracked underneath the weight of the cross.


    The Leper dodged to the side.


    Apollo tried to calm his breath but couldn''t. He seemed nervous for the Leper, nervous for the little man, nervous for the crowd of vicars acting like those very demons, those joyous cretins, who he had spent so much time killing.


    The cross came down. It dug into the earth and shot rock from underneath, some of the spectators were struck with the debris. The giant kept swinging, kept making small craters out of the earth and the Leper did nothing but run. But dodge, but turn and keep his distance. He was certainly agile, extremely fast. The fastest thing Apollo had seen. He looked more of a blur of white in the haze of mist and dust. A specter.


    But he still hadn¡¯t landed a blow. Hadn¡¯t even gone for a hit.


    "It looks like he''s losing," Dion said.


    Apollo kept watching, his face growing sterner as the fight dragged on and as the crowd cheered and as the rocks kept flying and the debris scattered about.


    "Doesn¡¯t he have a weapon?" Dion asked.


    "If he has one, he doesn¡¯t need it." Apollo said. "He''s a mage, they''re shifty types."


    Apollo turned. And it seemed over, the Leper cornered by the crowd who now pushed him towards the monstrosity, and the judges who didn¡¯t care.


    The cross came down. The earth broke into a giant mushroom cloud of asphalt and concrete, an eruption.


    "He¡¯s dead.¡±


    And the Leper stood there. In place, uninjured, undisturbed. There was not a single crease on his clothes.


    "You¡¯re right, he is dead," Apollo said.


    Everyone gasped. Some accused the Leper of foul play. Ambley didn¡¯t care, he was too worried to. He raised his cross again and let the shadow of his weapon cast down on the Leper.


    ¡°Poor planning has led your life here.¡± The Leper said in a voice sobered and threatening. ¡°You have come a warrior and you will leave a spokesman for the might of the Hospitallers.¡±


    He took one hand out of his jacket. There was a brief glow coming from the arcana written on his gloves. He dragged his hand in an arc in front of him, like a symphony composer. The cross was still coming down as he did so, with too much momentum to stop.


    And everyone paused in shock.


    For the space in front of the Leper, had quite literally, been cut. A black hole, almost, in between the brute and the Leper. A void in which the crucifix fell through, deep into it. To the right side of the Leper, another similar hole had been made. Such that the cross went through one end and out the other, a complete displacement.


    Ambley tried to release himself. He dropped his cross and tried walking back. The Leper grabbed hold of his hand, sticking out to his rear. He kept him there, with one single hand and pulled on his limbs to come further into the hole. No one knew what was more impressive, the magic or the strength of his grip.


    And it came to an end. The Leper snapped his fingers. The black wormhole disappeared. And instantly, blood sprayed onto the crowd.


    Everyone stayed silent, the giant looked down, in shock with the sweat condensing on his mask from his mouth and eye holes. He looked down to his limbs, now severed, and the bone and veins jetting blood out like a high-pressure water hose.


    A quick, clean cut, that rendered all marrow and nerves exposed to cold air. That to Apollo, who now cringed, even seemed obscene. The tendons spasmed and the Ambley retracted his arms and hugged them close to his chest. The blood kept gushing out.


    It was only after minutes that he could find the strength to scream. Scream and groan and fall to the floor.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll grow back.¡± The Leper said. ¡°You are a vicar, after all. A big one, too.¡±


    The Leper walked towards the cross and with one claw grip, held it high, that giant thing that must have been twice his size, above his head.


    ¡°Or would you continue?¡± He asked.


    Ambley nodded his head. The tears were streaming down the sides now.


    ¡°That settles it then!¡± The Leper said, joyously. ¡°Now let''s not sully the steps with the blood of Christ no longer. My clients are innocent.¡±


    And it was settled. Most of the spectators now reeled away, most so surprised and impressed that they couldn¡¯t even find it in them to boo.


    Apollo looked to Dion, both of their eyes wide and their mouths struggling to close.


    ¡°Th-that¡¯s magic.¡± He said. ¡°Do you think I can learn it?¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re too stupid,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And it¡¯s much too dangerous.¡±


    He looked, eyes narrowed and red, at the Leper who looked back with violet eyes. He was standing above his work, that efficient brutality and Apollo had the suspicion that behind that mask, behind that broken and ill flesh, that there was a smile on the Leper¡¯s face. The thought made him shudder.

 8

    The Bog ? Plaza


    "They survived."


    "And?" The voice said, Patches squealed and made small noises in the background like a child. There was a smack, a punch perhaps. Then silence.


    ¡°They¡¯re innocent, allegedly.¡±


    "Again, and? Who cares if they were found innocent? What matters is whether the people think they¡¯re innocent, now that¡¯s the real test. Trust is a currency that can¡¯t be bought with a petty fight. Let them live their sad lives, they¡¯ll come around to fulfill their roles soon. I promise.¡±


    He threw the glass onto the bed. The air was sweet, there was wine, tangy sorbet amongst a cart sitting center of his room. He hated the smell.


    Joseph walked over to his balcony, looking down from the high towers, to see if he could see the rioting and cumulative aggravation of the commonwealth. Of course, he couldn¡¯t see it, but perhaps he felt it. Like static in the air.


    His purple eyes blinking innocently, his hand underneath his jaw and his shoulders slumped over into a lazy thinking man''s pose. He was just a bit sad, but only slightly. And in some way, happy too. For what¡¯s a game without the wide range of players to enjoy defeat and loss?


    ?


    Apollo and Dion took deep breaths as they walked through the crowd trying hard to enclose on them, and perhaps had it not been for the Leper in front of them, they would have been swept away in the rage of the crowd.


    "Well, we can¡¯t win everything." The Leper laughed. He was screaming, the shouts of the spectators were too loud. Apollo had one finger in his ear and the other close to the Leper.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to have to leave.¡±


    Dion read his lips. He looked surprised, ¡°No, I¡¯m not feeling sleepy.¡±


    ¡°No, no.¡± The Leper shook his head. ¡°I said, you¡¯re going to have to leave!¡±


    ¡°Where?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°How? With what?¡±


    ¡°With almost nothing. I can¡¯t get you back your weapons immediately. I can get you some money to start you off, perhaps a friend who owes me a favor.¡± He pushed away a man. ¡°As for where¡­¡±This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    They walked away from the crowd, in a quick jog across the plaza and towards the thin streets with the broken down cars and the carriages and the smell of smog in the air. A wet, humid type of smog. A mixture of toxicity and mist.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to Rothenburg.¡±


    "What the fuck is Rothenburg?¡± They could hear the crowds approaching. Apollo made small glances towards the street downhill where the noise perpetuated from.


    "Are you a fan of the German people."


    "God damn, are you serious?" Apollo said. ¡°Europeans?¡±


    ¡°I love Europe.¡± Dion said, a bit of joy coming from his voice.


    ¡°They act, well. They act like you,¡± He pointed to the Leper. ¡°Friendly and arrogant, all the same.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be racist.¡± Dion said.


    "You can¡¯t call it arrogance when it¡¯s based in truth!¡± The Leper joked. ¡°Besides, you¡¯ll love it. Rothenburg. It''s a small town, I''m sure the both of you will appreciate the niche of the quaint.¡±


    "Rothenburg.¡±


    "The modern, medieval town.¡± The Leper said joyously.


    ¡°What is this, a travel ad?¡± Apollo mumbled.


    He nodded his head and looked back to the crowd. It was approaching and all he had on his mind was the trial, the success and the running away he was forced to endure.


    ¡°Why can¡¯t we stay?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Because they¡¯d accuse you of something else if you did. And eventually, even my abilities wouldn¡¯t help you. Never underestimate the mob.¡±


    ¡°They could charge us for anything and they¡¯d get away with it. We¡¯ll have to stake it out, wait. Can¡¯t say I¡¯m surprised or even disappointed. I always hated the Vatican, the church, this shitty island.¡±


    ¡°And Elijah?¡± The Leper said. Apollo could tell he knew what the word meant, what it would evoke. He gave him nothing, a glare perhaps, but nothing concrete that would signify his deep sadness, his deep anger.


    ¡°No, I didn¡¯t hate him,¡± Apollo said, somber.


    They looked at each other, only briefly and split, the Leper to approach the crowd and Apollo and Dion to run away from it. They ran fast, ran until they could see no one and then reflected, under the shade of a skinny tree.


    Fucking Rothenburg, he kept thinking. The legion of scorn a far-off image, a silhouette of a large crowd with swords and guns and pitchforks and fires in hand.


    ¡°You think he¡¯s alright?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°The Leper? Who cares.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°He¡¯s the only way we¡¯re getting back in. We need his help for the nomination process, I mean, if we really want to stay alive that is.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve lived long enough to know how unreliable those promises are, haven¡¯t you? I don¡¯t trust the Hospitallers, I don¡¯t trust the Knights or the Holy See. Fuck ¡®em all.¡±


    "Well, I¡¯d like to come back eventually.¡±


    ¡°Then you¡¯ll have to wait,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°How long?¡±


    ¡°The Leper said it¡¯d take months, so we¡¯ll wait months.¡±


    ¡°I hope it isn¡¯t too cold over there.¡±


    ¡°Of course it¡¯ll be cold and boring and everything you hate. It sounds like that type of city because it is, I just know it.¡± Apollo said.


    And thought. And thought. And thought.


    Of Rothenburg, of the trial, of Dion¡¯s sad and displaced mind, of the Leper and his mad powers.


    He just thought, until, growing bored or annoyed or angry, he stood. And, he supposed, it was straight to Rothenburg for him.

 Interlude Episode: "One for my Baby Part 1"

    Germany ? Rothenburg ? City Edge


    Dion stood in front of the quaint, little house on the outskirts of the city where the evergreen forest began its wide stride out. The branches were heavy with snow, the pines rustled, and slumped and shoveled snow down to Dion¡¯s left foot. It stung. He wasn¡¯t annoyed though, not really. His face was dull and his eyes kept forward as Apollo followed him.


    ¡°We¡¯ll be there soon.¡± Apollo said. ¡°It doesn¡¯t look too bad, right? I just wish it wasn¡¯t in the middle of fucking nowhere.¡±


    He heard Apollo step down hard. Half his leg sunk into the floor.


    ¡°Fuckin¡¯ Rothenburg.¡± He looked down at his foot, there was a squish. It sounded wet and as he drew out his foot, Dion could see the dirty water drip off his boots, somewhat frozen and black.


    Down, past the light snow, was the broken glass of water surface.


    ¡°Hitler¡¯s revenge.¡± Apollo frowned at his foot. It must have stung, Dion guessed.


    Dion checked under his own feet, onto the floor and scraped off the snow off a tree. He had no expression of anything, unlike Apollo who cursed and smacked his foot across the trap land. On him was that simple morbid dullness, a bitter aura that sprawled out of him like sewer murk, a low moving, far-reaching disdain for everything about this city and everything about this place.


    ¡°You look like you¡¯re about to kill someone,¡± Apollo walked forward. ¡°Relax. We¡¯re almost there. It¡¯s right up this incline.¡±


    There were stones on the side, establishing the road (if there ever was one) and the stones ended suddenly, at the feet of a climb. Dion started up with his body hunched and his knees bent at a harsh angle.


    The house came into view, the pale timber framing of an orange colored house. The flowers or vines, dead and frozen in their boxes at the feet of window panes, a high hanging lantern-light above the door. It was small, smaller than a house ought to be. Dion came to the door, he didn¡¯t knock so much as stood there.


    ¡°What are you expecting?¡± Apollo said. ¡°Banners and fireworks?¡±


    Apollo banged on the door. Nothing for a moment. He slapped the door now.


    ¡°Tas-toi!¡± He heard from behind. Apollo kicked the door once in retaliation.


    The machinery began to work, the metal locks on the door twisted and turned and screeched. The door cracked open, from the slit, a little eye. Aged, the skin around the eye was spotted and cracked. Discolored.


    A wrinkled eye who, at the sight of the two, opened a final chained lock and revealed herself. She wore all white, a black garment wrapped around her head. She was less than half their size and raised her head to the two.


    ¡°Are you the two troublemakers?¡± She asked.


    The voice was grating against Dion¡¯s ears. He flinched and braced his shoulders as if in pain.


    ¡°Are you French?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Oui.¡±


    ¡°A French nun in Germany?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°You chose a shit place to retire in.¡±


    ¡°Retire? You don¡¯t retire from the Lord, you never do. In life or death.¡±


    ¡°Then what are you doing here? The Leper didn¡¯t tell us much.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m keeping watching.¡± She said humbly.


    ¡°What are our jobs? We don¡¯t have any weapons, he said they were confiscated for now. We¡¯re in the dark. I need some answers-¡±


    ¡°Be quiet,¡± she said. Apollo listened, perhaps out of respect for the age. Dion was surprised. ¡°There is no job for now. You¡¯re here to hide, for a bit. We¡¯ll see how long that lasts.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯re here?¡±


    ¡°You two barely escaped punishment, the Lord almost took your head,¡± She smiled. ¡°Now is the time to rehabilitate you two. For we all fall down from the path of righteousness. The trick is standing back up.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Apollo said in a long-drawn breath.


    ¡°Are you the only nun here?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Yes, monsieur.¡± The rosary around her neck rattled a bit. Her wrinkles tightened as she kept her smile.


    ¡°Well, fuck me.¡± Apollo bent his neck as he lowered himself under the door frame.


    ¡°Don¡¯t curse,¡± she said. Quickly. With a bit of a shout, it sounded like something was just about to break inside her, perhaps a pressure valve twisted the wrong way.


    ¡°Well, shit - ¡°


    ¡°What¡¯d I say?¡± She shouted again. Still smiling. ¡°The Lord hears everything, we ought to speak our best for him..¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know he was listening,¡± Apollo giggled. ¡°Can you tell him to get me a couple bottles of tequila? That whole water to wine shit, you know.¡±


    ¡°You - ¡° The nun began, wagging her finger. A vein appeared under her jaw. ¡°You - !¡±


    Dion broke between them, the bag on his back rustling and brushing them apart.


    ¡°Where¡¯s the room?¡± He asked. The first words he had spoken all day. Empty words too. Even hearing them back from the small, acoustic-dense room, he could notice the lack of a ring and timbre to his voice, the sleepy quality as if coming out of a deep-rooted slumber. Or returning back to one.


    ¡°What¡¯s your problem, child?¡± The woman asked. Apollo grabbed her shoulder.


    ¡°He¡¯s had a long flight. Cut him some slack. We almost got our heads cut off a week ago.¡±


    The woman grumbled. Her small hands interlocked and fidgeting like a wind-caught lattice.


    ¡°Up the steps, down the hall, first room to your right.¡± She said. ¡°Imb¨¦cile.¡±


    ¡°You cursed.¡± Apollo smiled. ¡°I thought you were a nun?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m nearly retired.¡± She said.


    ¡°I thought you couldn¡¯t retire from the Lord?¡±


    ¡°Be quiet.¡± She said. ¡°Connard.¡±


    Dion lowered his head, walked up the steps. Nimble. His body reared around the corner and disappeared. He was neither hostile nor excited, his body and emotions encompassing that space in between: apathetic. And the door closing was neither loud nor gentle, just noisy enough to remind them there was someone else, like a ghost or stalking butler.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    He disappeared, into his room. And Apollo was left there, rubbing his neck and looking down at the small nun mumbling profanities to her side.


    ?


    Dion put his head down to the bible sprawled open on the small dark lacquered table in front of him. The candles were low, the glow was rounded and short distanced. It as a little warm, but each gust of wind threatened to blow it out. Outside, he could see the dying sky. It bled red in few streaks of across the horizon, a maroon that disappeared into the white-topped pine trees. He looked down at his book.


    EXODUS 20:13 YOU SHALL NOT MURDER


    His mouth felt dry. He did not know why he read it, perhaps out of habit. As all life is just habit after habit, as was his. A habit of reading, a habit of not listening. He looked at each letter individually. It felt like a nail had been penetrated through his skull. He continued, turning pages, nodding his head.


    ROMANS 12:19 DO NOT TAKE REVENGE, MY DEAR FRIENDS, BUT LEAVE ROOM FOR GOD¡¯S WRATH, FOR IT IS WRITTEN: ¡°IT IS MINE TO AVENGE; I WILL REPAY,¡± SAYS THE LORD


    He felt his breath escape. Once again he spun his pages, stopping every so often to gleam and to reel away and to rotate his head like a newborn infant.


    He turned. The doors open. A loud creak. He dropped his chair, both his heavy eyes set on the noise.


    Apollo walked through, a cup of chocolate in his hands and a strudel in the other. He approached, slowly, cautiously.


    ¡°Well, fuck man,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Did I startle you?¡±


    He set the food and drink on Dion¡¯s table. Dion had both hands to his sides, his eyes set on the book. The book, to which, Apollo lifted and searched through. He went through each little tab written and rotated it to see the notes scrolled down the sides. He looked disgusted.


    ¡°Jesus, you¡¯ve got graffiti all over this..¡± The pages swished from one end of the cover to the other.¡°What¡¯s the matter?¡±


    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t understand,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Try me.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t. It¡¯s a waste of time.¡± He snatched the book and put it back on the table. It was heavy, the post-it notes stuck out from the ridges of the book.


    ¡°What wouldn¡¯t I understand? We both went through the same thing. Havenbrook, Astyanax, Purgatory.¡± Apollo waved away his swinging, braided bang. In a gesture almost pompous, familiar. ¡°I¡¯m sorry if I¡¯m still so crude. I¡¯m trying to be more... sympathetic. It¡¯s new to me.¡±


    He found a cushion on the bed and sat. The bed bounced up and down. The wood frame creaked.


    ¡°You remind me of what I used to be,¡± Apollo said. ¡°That same antagonizing glare, that tired look. It¡¯s the sign of someone obsessing. The question is, about what?¡±


    ¡°What are you trying to fix?I thought you¡¯d appreciate me like this.¡± Dion licked his fingertips and ran through fifty pages. All red. ¡°All broken and messed up.¡±


    ¡°Consider me a changed man, I suppose,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Quite literally.¡±


    Dion didn¡¯t press on the statement. He grumbled.


    ¡°Maybe a bit of Astyanax lives through me, I don¡¯t know. That¡¯s what The Leper thinks at least.¡±


    ¡°Well, you better kill it.¡± Dion slapped his hands on the table and stared at Apollo. ¡°If he really is in you, make sure you kill it. Suffocate it. Or I¡¯ll do it for you.¡±


    Apollo frowned.


    ¡°Now why in the hell are you so angry, fucker? I¡¯m trying to be friendly.¡± Apollo said. ¡°You just want to start a fight, don¡¯t you?¡±


    Dion went back to his bible. His head falling back to an incline, his eyes looking down at the pages.


    ¡°Back to reading, why not just talk?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°What¡¯s got you all worked up.¡±


    He breathed deeply, to condense all his thoughts, all the thoughts he felt on the plane and on the car and on the walk up here, to simple words seemed an impossibility, like looking for a pearl in a wide dark sea.


    ¡°Have you ever been disappointed and betrayed all at the same time? To hate yourself for believing in someone or something you never should have in the first place?¡± Dion asked.


    Apollo was quiet. They could all hear the tense breathing of each other.


    ¡°I thought I was safe. I thought I would win,¡± Dion said, low. ¡°I thought God was guiding my gun. And then I got a spear through my stomach.¡±


    ¡°And it¡¯s a good thing you did, let me tell you.¡± Apollo turned in his bed. ¡°You learned a good lesson on what God cares about and what he doesn¡¯t. Let me tell you, it¡¯s a small list and you and I ain¡¯t on it.¡±


    ¡°What if it¡¯s worse than him not listening, not acting, not caring.¡± Dion rubbed his face. ¡°What if He¡¯s abandoned us?¡±


    He could feel his nose swelling but squelched it, the feeling, the redness, and the rising snot.


    ¡°I played myself for a hero and when pressed, I couldn¡¯t even remember the name of the girl I was trying to avenge. I treated vengeance like a commodity and perhaps God punished me for my vanity. Maybe he always has. Maybe he was never even there. What would be the difference between being punished and being forgotten, thrown away? Same thing, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°You lost because you were tricked,¡±


    ¡°And before? With the murders, with the abhorrent evil all around us? Still, all around us. Just look at what we went through. All because you save me and a kid. Your goodwill is being punished, how ridiculous is that.¡± Dion said.


    His hand shook though he did not care to make it stop.


    ¡°You just said it yourself. Everything¡¯s corrupt. The church, the world, man himself. Everything is, everything always was just bleak and dark and with nothing to it.¡± He stared at the book. ¡°You told me, didn¡¯t you? You and Astyanax, who tried to the little difference between men and demons. And guess what, you were both right.


    ¡°And that¡¯s why it¡¯s important for us to make sure our side wins.¡± Apollo sat on the bed.


    ¡°How? Am I even fit to pretend to be good? Me, a murderer? I killed four people. Four manipulated idiots. I let a little girl die, I couldn¡¯t save anyone and God couldn¡¯t save me. You had to do it.¡± He began to shout. ¡°And now, outside the hospital, I still feel sick. Do you know how terrible that is, to be sick of something you can¡¯t even see or point to? I get scared at every noise. I get nightmares of Astyanax, of torture. I can¡¯t eat. I can¡¯t think. New people make me uncomfortable, anxious. I can¡¯t even walk straight without fidgeting. It¡¯s like living in someone else''s head. How can I help anyone? How can anyone help me?¡±


    The nun slammed on the wall. Probably from all the loud noise made. It was good, for Dion realized then, that he was standing, screaming down at Apollo. He dried his wet mouth, the spit was on the floor. His shoulders slumped and he returned back to his chair.


    ¡°Jesus, this is too much for me to unpack in one day,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And even if I gave you a proper answer, would you even want it?¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t want anyone''s answer right now,¡± Dion said. ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯d take you seriously anyway, what do you care about? Nothing.¡±


    ¡°I care about more things than I should, believe me,¡± Apollo said, his fist clenched and his throat dry.


    ¡°Right,¡± Dion scoffed.


    You know what? Fuck you, man. Unload your shit on someone else.¡±


    He left out the door. Down the stairs, his thumping loud and apparent. The nun¡¯s voice following afterward, screaming and pressing Apollo like a roaming siren.


    They argued, Dion could hear the conversation carried through the thin wood walls, something about ¡®voice levels¡¯. Though she never came up to see Dion.


    It wasn¡¯t as if he cared anymore anyways. He closed the door and shut the lights and left one single candle wick upon his desk and he scrolled through the bible again, searching for answers, only half-satisfied with the generalities of the holy book, like breadcrumbs tossed at leisure and haphazard to an ever growing maze, a dark maze that he saw no exit from.


    Why¡¯d the girl have to die? There was nothing on that, not really. Generalities didn¡¯t satisfy him after all.


    Why would any man even do the things Alestor did? Nothing.


    Why couldn¡¯t he win? Why did it feel so bad to have gotten help?


    He kept reading, hoping, to shine light on those small pebbles of truth, however, each came with its new problems, new questions. As if, by shining a light on the small stones, he had created even longer shadows. Shadows holding stranger secrets she was cut in half. So that he was always in that darkness, never feeling the warmth of any kind of closure. Deeper and deeper, the endless spiral of the universe. Each crevice, each tunnel a steeper fall down. And no light could shine through this impregnable darkness and the thought enticed Dion, and hurt him, and made him lose all sense of time and maybe, even self there¡¯s more suffering in this world than there is joy, than there ever could be joy pleasure, why why why until finally when he heard the cat shaped clock above his desk and head meowing seven in the morning, finally did he awake from that mad-state of obsession; when his eyes shut to the touch of the warm glow of morning light and he looked down, to where the rays of light had hit, to the bible cut in half and he started wondering, now that he could without trailing thoughts, had he even turned the pages once?


    ROMANS 12:19 DO NOT TAKE REVENGE, MY DEAR FRIENDS, BUT LEAVE ROOM FOR GOD¡¯S WRATH, FOR IT IS WRITTEN: ¡°IT IS MINE TO AVENGE; I WILL REPAY,¡± SAYS THE LORD


    He read it again.


    He had not done anything all night, but think of the girl her name was Sophie, her name was Sophie. Sophie. Sophie Never forget. Think of his murders Alestor did them, he cut them and bled them up like a vampire. And down the list of thoughts, he also made sure to point to his defeat.


    He pressed against his belly with a shaky hand, where the wound, to some degree, still was.


    He rubbed his eyes. His heavy lids dug deep into his skin.


    There was another knock on the wall. A quick successive number of blows.


    A nun¡¯s high voice came through, then Apollo¡¯s.


    ¡°Ah shit,¡± He yawned. ¡°She¡¯s telling me to tell you to wake up.¡±


    He still sounded rough and frustrated.


    ¡°Don¡¯t curse, Imb¨¦cile.¡± She said.


    And the funny thing was, Dion observed as he lifted his tired body up from the chair and twisted it out of the conformity of the rigid right angle wooden seat, was that he hadn¡¯t slept. Hadn¡¯t slept in two days. Not on the plane and not here.


    It was a terrible feeling. To be so tired and to know you¡¯re tired, and to think about how tired you are without having any hope for sleep. It felt like quicksand, his body did. He stretched. His body cracked.


    He opened his window. The morning light hurt.

 2

    "He''s been at it for days now," He heard the voice behind the wooden door. "I think he should get out and at least touch the god damn sun, he looks like a ghost."


    Of course, they were talking about him. Dion knew it, sitting at his desk, with his hunched back and with those dreadful eyes drying away at the thin pages of a bible.


    It was Apollo and the nun, talking in that same worried and annoyed tone.


    They came up, through the door, as if a breach and clear, and declared with haste and worry, in that once silent room, "Go get the groceries."


    He was being kicked out. He knew it, he wasn¡¯t that dumb after all. And it wasn¡¯t forever either. Not even for a day. He was being kicked out for a few hours. To be gone from this miserable shack to the lively German town below.


    Dion looked down at his Bible and then up to Apollo who stood, with the doorknob still on his hand and the little nun behind him. He was wearing a cotton green and red sweater, something loose and ugly and bright.


    "Why can''t you do it?" Dion asked. His voice was hoarse, he had to clear his throat just to get the words out.


    "I¡¯m busy," Dion said.


    "Doing what?"


    "Cutting wood." The nun interrupted.


    "What''s so hard about that? Why do we need any more wood?"


    "For the fire."


    "I saw the stack outside, you seem to have enough."


    "It¡¯s a big fire," The nun said. Dion looked back down at his Bible, at the red underlined text and the giant ribbon that hung down as the bookmark.


    ¡°Alright.¡± His voice was defeated. His body ached from the rigidity it endured before.


    He shook his head and reached for his coat. It was the first time, he thought, that he had moved. His muscles seemed unprepared for it. He looked down at his undrunk cocoa, little blocks of ice formed at the surface of the drink. They looked like the broken puzzle pieces you''d find on the frozen tundra ends of the earth, floating and jagged, except dirty. Black.


    Wearing a sweater was odd. The days of cold weather seemed to attack him all at once the minute he became aware of the cold. He saw his breath move in warm smoke. He looked outside, the glass was getting stained.


    "What do you want me to get?" Dion asked.


    The two looked at each other, the nun shifted eyes and went down with her finger out, "I''ll make - get the list."


    It''d be ten minutes before he left.


    The nun at the door waved at him as he walked away, Apollo grimacing, still angry, lurking through the woods with his ax.


    He left them, down the snow-covered hills and towards the chirping birds that flew, scared off, into the bright sun. He could see it, the glistening snow. It blinded him, caused him to veer away as he made his way down towards the city, where the chimney stacks blew white clouds and where the people congregated with their small, happy families. And where the green and red lights wrapped around the brick walls and where the pines were decorated with small ornaments.


    It was a month before Christmas and they were already preparing. It was also a Saturday. He could tell from all the happy drunks sitting on plastic chairs, with bright colored noses and cheeks. And the wives, nodding left and right in humorous disapproval towards their old, drunk husbands. And the young couples, drifting in and out of his vision with their locked arms and gentle smiles. Obscene, he thought.


    He felt like a stranger, not just of a different country or race or even physiology. He felt like a stranger to the very human condition, a stranger to humanity.


    Dion went through the little streets, brushing the walls and alleys, turning away from the happy honks of cars. The flowers set on the window sills were frozen, the few overgrown plants hung over their ledges and brushed the top of his head with their frozen vines and pedals. They reminded him to put his hood on, to shadow his face against the midday sun. He came to the market, around him the people were eating all kinds of steaming things. Meat, mostly, fresh bread. Saurkraut. Beer. Beer. Beer everywhere. Some cheese, which smelled sour from a distance. A little nutty, too.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Some children played with red planes to his right. Two young women kissed opposite the children. A rather picturesque romance for all involved. And Dion hated them. Specifically, how happy they all were.


    Happy and innocent. He shook his head.


    "I''m starting to think like Apollo," He mumbled to himself. "I¡¯m so fucked."


    He went along the market taking quick glances at his ¡®shopping list¡¯ (which made little sense and seemed to just be a collection of random foods). He stared up the lines of garlic bulbs. A man came around the counter offering apples to taste, he couldn''t tolerate his closeness and turned away. He felt the stares of people now.


    Someone offered to help him stand straight. He turned. He pivoted. He saw a woman, now coming around, offering him with a smile to help him relax, for he was ¡®scaring the children¡¯.


    He wished two things then and there, the first, he wished to understand German for they all sounded alien and angry. The second, he wished he was deaf, so he wouldn¡¯t have to hear them anyways.


    He hit a table. Potatoes rolled off the side. He walked over them, shouldn''t have. He feet slipped. His hands searched for something to land on. He was falling, knew it, though time was slow for him and though he knew he wouldn¡¯t be hurt, it still bothered him. To be embarrassed, to feel so vulnerable. He turned to his shoulder and hit a table. He heard breaking, he heard the snap of the plastic table. He heard a suppressed rage.


    Dion wiped himself off of whatever made the cracking noise. Clay? Glass? He looked at his arms and sweater, where a shard of something brittle and glassy bit into his clothes and flesh. He turned up to the voice he heard and instinctively, said ¡°Sorry.¡±


    He tried to clean up.


    ¡°Sorry, sorry, sorry.¡± The woman couldn¡¯t speak. He looked to her gaped mouth, a bandana wrapped tightly around her head. Her face young and freckled, her fingers calloused and grey looking.


    The stand was broken in half. He saw the faces of ruined gnomes below his body. He felt them digging and stabbing through his clothes. She was selling clay things, pots and pans and furniture pieces.


    And gnomes.


    For the holidays, gnomes. And they were all ruined. He put his hand on one of the only fixed objects.


    The girl slapped him away. She hissed something in German (though the tone was universal, he translated it to mean ''Fuck off''). She looked at him, her mouth twisted and her eyes narrowed at him.


    "You¡­¡± Her voice was eerily low. ¡°You¡¯re going to pay for all this.¡±


    ¡°I will. I promise!¡± He said.


    Dion put his hand in his pocket and looked for a wallet. There was nothing. He looked up, smiled, and searched his back pocket. Nothing. He went at it with both hands, now searching and pressing down against his hooded sweater and grey sweatpants. He couldn''t find anything. Not a bill, not a coin.


    "I''m sorry."


    She looked at him, her head crooked almost like a misaligned mannequin.


    "Typical Americano," She said. Her accent thick, heavier than her small frame.


    "I must have forgotten my wallet at home," Dion smiled nervously. "I don''t know what to do."


    "Stupid, too." She fixed her boxes and frames back on the table. Other customers turned away from them, away from the gravitational field of their negativity. The brooding sphere.


    "I feel terrible,"


    "You should, you ruined business today." She hissed. Though, seeing the wide stocks of trinkets, it seemed like she hadn''t sold a thing all day. Every piece was old and bruised, and the paint on the gnomes and horses was wearing off.


    "What can I do to repay you?"


    "A thousand euros." She said.


    ¡°A thousand?¡± He almost laughed and searched her face for the punchline. There was none. He went still, constructing the word in his mouth without saying it: a thousand euros.


    He put his hand up in protest or suggestion, leaned forward and bumped into the table again. A little porcelain rabbit hanging off the edge fell, from the plastic table with the cheap linen cloth wrapped around.


    "Oh, no," she said.


    ¡°Oh, no,¡± Dion said. Each leg of the table falling, crippled, dropping onto the floor. And what few trinkets remained followed suit, rolling off the declined level of the table, onto the wet and snowed floor. Dion knelt. He worked immediately, fixing what he could, propping one of the legs back up, trying to fit everything in their little wooden boxes and crates. Others stopped to watch by now, their obvious glares burning into the young girl who watched, red and embarrassed, at the scene. She knelt over too, her psychedelic color stained bandana falling and her blonde hair freeing loose onto the floor. He looked at her rough hands, impressed almost, they were scarred and blistered and dirty, Dion noticed as he brushed against her. She locked eyes with him. He turned away in shame. Shame for looking. Shame for thinking, she was pretty.


    ¡°You just make everything worse,¡± The girl spat with a contrived and mean face. ¡°American clown,¡± A strained voice. If there wasn''t a crowd he was sure she skulls have murdered him. ¡°you don¡¯t have time to do any good, but you have time to meddle. Meddle is all you do,¡±


    And Dion silently worked as his cheeks lost color, as he helped her things up onto that poor table, helped her carry the fractals of shoddy pottery and toys burning cold to the touch.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t intend to do anything bad.¡± He said, almost to himself. ¡°I just wanted to help.¡±


    And her, working, with that tired and turbulent expression, with her limp grip and her bandana hanging defeated and flimsy from her fingertips, saying, ¡°What am I supposed to a do now?¡±


    And him, simple and desperate, lying. ¡°I''ll


    Pay you back tomorrow.¡±


    She did not protest. He did not recant. Their silence was a kind of closed deal.


    And he ran, far, through the bustling streets, brushing against all the happy families and couples, sobering them with suspicion.

 3

    The small little Volkswagen screeched as it came to its stop by the side of an overly thin street. The trunk was slightly ajar, yellow thread held it (and the things inside) together. She took one look at it, the whole abomination of the tragedy earlier today, the rusty car, the putter of the engine, and sighed. She couldn¡¯t handle this right now and loosening her bandana, she headed for her apartment complex.


    A small thing it was, the building in this alley, with the black metal mesh door. It¡¯s infrastructure an absolute oddity compared to the rest of the medieval city. As if it had modernized, in the worst ways possible. The doors were loud and crooked, the windows were contained within prisons of metal twisted bars, it looked like a death trap. The iron maiden to this little medieval castle of a town.


    She rung the bell. No answer. She looked up, she could hear the sound of petting and pleasure. She sighed. She walked around her apartment, stopping by her car to pick something up. Through the fire escape, she climbed up, to the side of her apartments wall and shimmied her window open with a little crowbar and a little force. She walked into the living room, the first thing to her right was the loud dripping of water. Water that came from melted snow. Melted snow, now seeping deep into the wood above and rotting it into a white and black dissolved mess. She put a bucket below. Making sure it was the bulls-eye center of the little droplets. She felt her eyes popping out, the sounds were louder. She cleared her throat and pointed towards the end of the apartment, towards the stairs.


    "Claudia!" She screamed. "Claudia!"


    here was shuffling above, shoes being dropped and put on, clothes being slipped on, doors opening and closing and the abrupt shush of a young woman.


    "Claudia-"


    "I''m coming." They spoke in German, she sounded angry. Stefania stood there, waiting for her sister, with a still and apathetic face. The only thing she knew how to make when she was angry.


    Claudia came around the corner, passing the grandfather clock with its broken arm, the white veils on the tops of ledges, the little dolls and portraits of dead family across the room.


    Claudia walked in, her shirt barely hanging by her shoulder. Behind her, a young tall, thin man, with lipstick on him (and lipstick of his own, combined, the two made a mismatch of green and black on their mouthpieces).


    The young man had eyeliner, a piercing on his ear and a low hanging mouth that couldn''t stop from grinning.


    She wanted to punch him in the face.


    ¡°How was work, sister dearest?¡± She smiled. Her voice was amused, innocent.


    Irresponsible, Stefanie thought.


    ¡°Who is this?¡±


    ¡°A friend. Who cares?¡± She had her hands behind her back. ¡°How was your day? Did you have it rough?¡±


    ¡°Stop fooling around.¡±


    I¡¯m not,¡± Claudia said. ¡°Something bad must have happened to have you worked up.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m looking at it,¡± Stefanie said. "What''d I tell you about strangers?"


    "Strangers?" Claudia asked. "This is G¨¹nther, you do remember G¨¹nther, right?"


    "No, I don''t. and I want him out."


    "You don''t get to decide who stays here, we both live here."


    "I do when I pay all the bills and bring home all the food, and work two jobs, both of which I hate. Yes, I do get more say."


    "G¨¹nther, step outside," Claudia said.


    He looked at them both, still grinning, still holding onto that dumb glow of after sex. Still obnoxious and hurting Stefanie with his arrogant stupidity, and looking at Claudia, she wondered if it was venereal. Arrogant stupidity.


    "Why''d you bring him in her?" Stefanie asked.


    "Why not? He''s my boyfriend."


    "How long have you known him." It wasn¡¯t a question. It was a statement, one that recalled the months leading up to this moment, the many men who wandered in G¨¹nther¡¯s shoes, in that same bed and in this same house. What was he? The sixth, perhaps, in the last five months?


    "Who cares? Does love have a time frame, an age, a place? Love is where love is and you either fall for it or you don''t."


    "No, you either choose to dupe yourself into it or you don''t. You don''t love this person. This G¨¹nther guy."If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    He came back in.


    "Yes?"


    "Fuck off," Stefanie said. He still grinned, still walked with casualness through the little rooms of the house.


    "What''s wrong with G¨¹nther?"


    "It''s what''s wrong with you," She said, slipping in some English. "You have no job, no future, you go out for hours on end and when you come back you have a new boyfriend or girlfriend, or both at the same time. You tell me, what¡¯s wrong?"


    Stefanie looked instinctively, to the picture of their late grandmother behind Claudia, of which she had to look away from in shame. Though she didn¡¯t believe in the afterlife, perhaps she believed that the memory of a person was enough to feel guilty over. Maybe it was the guilt over her death. No, she couldn¡¯t think of that now. Claudia fidgeted in place.


    "Nothing¡¯s wrong with me," Claudia said quietly. "I am who I am. Are you just jealous? I know who I am, I live and have fun with it. What do you do? Nothing. Work for nothing, do nothing."


    "Jealous?" She laughed. "Of what?"


    "Of my happiness, of my love." She smiled. ¡°Of getting laid, maybe?¡±


    "Is that all you care about?" She asked. ¡°Escapism? Are you not even ashamed for nonna?¡±


    "Don¡¯t say that," Claudia said.


    ¡°Say what? That you¡¯re a disgrace?¡± Stefanie stepped forward. She dropped her things, the keys, the bandana, some changed down on the floor and pointed her finger down at Claudia. ¡°I¡¯ve spent so long sanctioning this bullshit.¡±


    Her accent became a guessing game, she slipped into too many. Her face was red, Claudia walked away from the veiny hand with reserved anger.


    ¡°Shut up, Stef.¡± She said.


    ¡°No, no,¡± Stefanie screamed. ¡°I¡¯m done with you. Three years and nothing, n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Not a bill paid, not a responsibility taken. I¡¯ve gotten no help from you!¡± Her nose was dry, her breaths were deep. She felt everything at once. The early day, the broken work. Pottery and weeks - months of effort, wasted on a fool who couldn¡¯t keep his balance. Months - Years of struggling with her sister and the little frail ego of hers. All of it flooded. Guilt over her addictions, anger too, poured out of her. It left her dry. Her eyes could not cry, they could not blink either.


    She raised her finger and pointed it towards the door.


    ¡°I¡¯m sick of you, you hear me? You take G¨¹nther, you take your baggage, you take yourself far and away from me!¡±


    He waltzed back in.


    "Get the fuck out!" Stefanie said. He wore a grimace, but something in the corner of his lips kept their uplifted smile. Something vile.


    G¨¹nther looked between the two sisters. He chose the ditsy, dainty one with the loose clothes and the exposed neckbones and the messy blonde hair. He put his hands on her shoulder, rubbed them and felt her hand grab his. This made Stefanie angry for some reason, even though she just finished kicking her out.


    ¡°So it¡¯s like that?¡± Claudia asked.


    ¡°What other choice do you leave me? If you won¡¯t work when I feed you, then maybe you¡¯ll work when you starve.¡±


    He whispered something into Claudia that seemed to ease her nerves. Her shoulders stooped. He walked away, his chains sounding like spurs as they walked past her. The door closed. The house shook. The small lamps and desks and sitting paperweights (wooden horses and Russian dolls) all rolled from the shockwave of the house. Everything shook but Stefanie and Claudia, who stared each other with planted feet.


    "What¡¯s this about?¡± Claudia asked.


    ¡°You,¡±


    ¡°What has you so pissed today?¡± It sounded like desperation.


    ¡°You,¡± She said. That was only half-truth.


    ¡°You¡¯re leaving me,¡± Claudia said.


    ¡°I wish you could understand how much I love you," Stefanie said. " But I don¡¯t think you ever will. It¡¯s like we¡¯re strangers living in the same house.¡±


    She looked at Claudia¡¯s veins, to the little holes in her arm where the hope was being sucked in through, or perhaps escaping into. She studied her thin arms and messy hair and bloodshot eyes, trying to convince herself not to kick her out, trying to find an excuse.


    For Stefanie did not want to admit, that perhaps her sister was a junkie. One who would not survive, let alone thrive on the winter streets, surrounded by the jolly people.


    She swallowed her throat.


    "Do you think playing these games with these people are doing you any good, do you think you''re getting what you want out of life?"


    ¡°I stopped wanting things a long time ago. I never could get them." She said. "What''s the big deal of having dreams or goals anyways? What do those even mean? Doing something because it completes you, because it makes you happy? What if the end is the thing that makes you happiest?"


    "What are you talking about you fucking idiot." Stefanie reached for Claudia. A final gesture. She was hoping, for a moment, that Claudia would take her arms. That they¡¯d embrace, perhaps. And in doing so, perhaps she could be convinced to change her mind. Oh, she hoped for it.


    But Claudia pushed back.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re doing this,¡± Claudia said. ¡°I hate this place. I hate you.¡±


    They stood opposite, Stefanie relieved in a way, as Claudia walked past her towards the door where G¨¹nther waited.


    ¡°You¡¯re a tyrant, you know that?¡± Claudia said. ¡°And this place will be your pyramid, your mausoleum. God, I couldn¡¯t imagine living a boring life in the same place, day to day, forever.¡±


    Claudia closed the door with a loud bang. The locks, the chains on the doors vibrated but eventually, the house settled to still silence as if no one was even there. The smell of her sister was beginning to wear off. It smelled like cigarettes, like overly-sweet cheap perfume too. Peaches? Peaches and cigarettes.


    She waited in the stillness and silence of her house. For an hour, maybe, just sitting with her hands on her face, expecting the doors to open. They never did though. Stefanie walked over, sighing as she did so. She opened the door and looked out the front. She left a spare key underneath the little rose-wilted flower pot out the front (hopefully the drugs hadn¡¯t rotted her memory).


    Perhaps out of boredom or exhaustion, Stefanie cleaned her house, wearing that bandana. Perhaps out of coincidence, or fate annoying her, she struck something. As she brought a sweeper down the wood floor with the dust and blonde hair collecting into a ball, she struck something heavy. She raised her hand, away from it. Too late. The water soaked into her shoes. The bucket fell over onto the floor. A drip on her face. She felt the wetness up high now, the roof was leaking again. That¡¯d be another two hundred euros. That¡¯d be the wasteful drip-feed of her bank account again, feeding away into trouble after trouble. Feeding a junkie, she, unfortunately, loved.


    She sat there under the drip of her rotten ceiling. It smelled sour for some reason. Unfiltered, acidic melted snow. She rubbed her face and tried convincing herself that these were not tears, rather just dirty water from a dirty roof.


    She didn¡¯t buy it. Not for a second.

 4

    There was always a thrill to be had when she was with G¨¹nther. As it had been, since she first picked him up in that little nightclub (it was just a repurposed garage) in that tucked away place in the city where not even the Christmas lights dare shine or the carols dare walk through. The blind spot God had not take into account. She had picked him up, G¨¹nther, the tall blonde with the tight leather pants and stretched out earlobes. They had sex the first night. And every night since, for the month they were together. And today, after leaving the house and Stefanie with it, they had gone to his little room and done it again. They had gone out and done it, underneath a bridge, with a family of ducks that quacked pass them on the underpass river.


    It hadn¡¯t been the high she was hoping for.


    This was though. Definitely. Her heart, rapid, unceasing, told her so. She passed glances to the dull cashier man staring down the aisles. She perused or at least appeared to peruse. Her delicate fingers reached for small toys and snacks and other foods to stuff into her purse. It was an excellent game, her shaking her head to see when the gaze was upon her, playing innocent, whistling with the stolen goods poking out her leather purse.


    G¨¹nther watched from a distance, at the refrigerator. He had the door open. His body against the cold air, his head looking over at Claudia and the cashier man. They were chasing each other, with shifty eyes, looking for a point of weakness when one would slip. Claudia and the clerk.


    She chewed on stolen jerky. She ducked and took a swish of vodka from the little bottle. Her veracity was unmatched, as if in the middle of a gold rush. She felt her bags five pounds heavier, she didn¡¯t stop.


    And the store clerk knew it. She wasn¡¯t stopping. She raised her head against the horizon of metal shelves. He just needs evidence, she thought. Just a tip.


    A bag of Swedish fish fell to the floor. She reached for it. They both locked eyes at that instance, both with straight faces like jousters at their corners.


    She smiled.


    He reached for a button below his little desk and tried to hide it with contrived, idle movements; like spinning in his chair or pinching his greasy hair or yawning exceptionally loud. G¨¹nther waved at Claudia. Experience told her what this was. The clerk was nervous. G¨¹nther came around, beer bottle in hand. He put a hand on her shoulder and smirked. He had disarmed Claudia with that smile once. They drew closer to the clerk. She, wondering if it would work on him. They walked slowly. Another bottle appeared from the inside of his jacket, they clanged like bells.


    She couldn¡¯t even sweat anymore. She felt too playful to sweat. She was feet away from the desk. She shook her bag. It made a rustling noise. The clerk stood up.


    They ran. Knocking down the shelves. Everything collapsed into screeching drags across the floor. She stepped on a bag. It popped, like a gun. She ran faster, in hysterics. The crunch of chips right behind her.


    She laughed like mad as she looked back to the clerk running slowly behind them. It was impressive, as she eyed the clerk, how that small desk had hid that big gut. G¨¹nther threw a trash can at him. It made the clerk slip onto the icy floor. The trash spilled onto the floor. He fell, screaming. He screamed, cursing with his middle fingers out. And they heard sirens. The hauls of police and their bright colored lights above their cars.


    They didn¡¯t care though. It was just a playful crime. The hid into the nearest crevice of the wall, a small alley. A cat ran past them, scared by their new territorial grab.


    Claudia peered her head out. She tucked it back in immediately. A car came past her.


    ¡°We did it,¡± she said, breathing exasperatedly. He moved closer to her. His hand went up her thigh and she felt his dry lips on hers. It chaffed, funnily enough.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Fun, don¡¯t you think?¡± G¨¹nther said.


    She broke off from him and put his hand back to his sides.


    ¡°Not here,¡± she said.


    ¡°Why not, no ones around?¡± The blaring sirens disagreed. She walked deeper into the alley, fiddling with her purse. She opened it, most of it was meaningless. Or perhaps, they were the only things with meaning. The little toys, the small bottles of alcohol, candies and treats, a tube of lipstick. She liked it. The feeling, the freedom. And she began to hum.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to give us away,¡± G¨¹nther came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. His mouth fell on her neck. She kept singing, something in Latin, something going smoothly - until, after pressed in the stomach, had gone off key. She stopped. Embarrassed, disappointed, only for a moment.


    ¡°I wanted to a be a singer,¡± she said. He kissed her neck. ¡°Haven¡¯t I told you this?¡±


    ¡°Mhm,¡± He licked her. His tongue felt grainy for some reason.


    ¡°I wanted to go to America, they have a television show there. I¡¯ve seen it,¡± She didn¡¯t even expect a conversation anymore. ¡°They all sing and the people clap and the judges judge. And you can find someone to invest in you, there. You can make a name and go around, everywhere.¡±


    ¡°And now you¡¯re free to do whatever you want,¡± He said in between his deep breaths. ¡°So do me.¡± He rode her nape, up behind her ear. She couldn¡¯t feel the sensations, strangely enough.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯m free. My sister said so.¡± Her eyes fell. ¡°I don¡¯t think she¡¯s letting me back in.¡±


    The police chased after ghosts. Their noise seemed distorted and distant, though they were only blocks away. But from within this sad back way, they might as well have been a different city.


    ¡°Then go apologize. When you do, who knows. We might all three go up to your room and...¡±


    She felt his small hope press against her thigh. She rolled her eyes.


    ¡°I¡¯m not apologizing. And you¡¯re not doing anything with her, you hear me?¡± She gripped hard on his thin arms. ¡°As a matter of fact, you won¡¯t be seeing her ever again. Neither of us will. She¡¯s gone from my life now.¡±


    ¡°Sisters shouldn¡¯t fight.¡± G¨¹nther bit her ear.


    ¡°She¡¯s not my sister, she¡¯s my parole officer.¡±


    ¡°Fuck it then, forget about her,¡± G¨¹nther said. ¡°You¡¯re killing my boner.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll talk however I want.¡± She broke off from his arms.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get pissy with me.¡± He said. ¡°I¡¯m not the one who kicked you out.¡±


    ¡°This is all you care about, isn¡¯t it? Cumming and drinking and sleeping?¡± She asked.


    ¡°And you don¡¯t? How are you any different?¡± He asked. She stayed quiet. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with that kind of life anyway?¡±


    Suave as he was, like the first time he met her. He coiled around her and wrapped his arms around her neck and shoulder and embraced her calm and easy, his blue eyes gazing into hers.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that why we met? To get away from everything, to be free?¡± He revealed in his pocket a little packet of pills. ¡°I never asked you why you were there, in that club. I never asked you what your problems were when I found you crying in the bathroom. I accepted you, for who you were. Didn¡¯t I?¡±


    She looked away, though she could not move away from his grip.


    ¡°Who cares about any of this shit? Whatever hurts you, whatever annoys you, why waste your short life on it? Seems pretty stupid, if you ask me.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not getting high tonight.¡± She said. He didn¡¯t believe her, she knew it, because she had learned in this small time what that cocky grinning was all about.


    ¡°Okay," He said. She knew he knew she didn''t believe him. They all played the game anyways. He looked down at her, smiling,


    ¡°You won''t get high? We can still have fun?¡± He said.


    ¡°Fun? What¡¯s more fun than this?¡± The police were in hot pursuit still.


    ¡°Want me to show you?¡± He asked. He extended his hand out. She thought it over, she thought of her sister and for a brief moment, of her grandmother and that little leaking house. She didn¡¯t want to think though. That was her problem. And looking at the pills, at his cold hands, at his grinning face, she thought, why not. Who cares? How could he be worse? Where would he take her now?


    It made her a little scared, where would he take her now? It made her a little excited too. She¡¯d never done anything boring with G¨¹nther, after all. Not at the clubs, not at the bars, not at the little deviancies around the town.


    Where would he take her now? She thought it over. She was glad, it was better than thinking of her family. She sighed. Blurted a quick giggle and took his hand.


    ¡°I won¡¯t disappoint,¡± He said. They walked into the alley. His little reverse crucifix hanging from his ear, bouncing up and down, as they walked through the now burgeoning darkness.

 5

    Dion shot open the door. It hit the wall and indented itself. The nun had to walk to it, close it and inspect the doorknob shaped hole. She rubbed her face. The lights shook with his presence as he strolled through the kitchen. His stride was tall and quick. A slight optimism was in his hips as he swayed stiffly through. Apollo watched him, and how the fireplace fluctuated as he walked by and away, towards his room. He waited for the door to slam up above, waited for the house to settle to a natural still state, before he lifted himself from his rocking chair.


    "What''s gotten into him?" The nun asked.


    "He¡¯s been going out lately. It¡¯s better than being stuffed inside."


    ¡°Going out doing god knows what.¡±


    ¡°As long as he stays out of trouble,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Do you think he¡¯s staying out of trouble?¡±


    ¡°What do you want from me?¡± Apollo asked. She frowned. He could read that face, the scrutinizing, hostile, patronizing face.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to prod. He¡¯s already in an unstable metal space-¡±


    She strained it further. So tight, he was afraid she¡¯d compress herself into a black hole. Hopefully, she¡¯d take him out too.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll ask a couple questions. That¡¯s it.¡± Apollo followed up through the steps, making sure to hit every creaky plank on the way up up. He opened the door, with tamed curiosity at first as. He just wanted to know if he was possessed, if he had gone insane. He eyed the inside of the room, scanning it and spotting Dion who sat in his little chair. Rocking up and down, not turning his bible.


    "We need to talk," Apollo said, he opened before he knocked. Dion sat there, talking to himself? Writing something? He had his back to Apollo. Apollo, now growing more anxious, took a step inside the dim room.


    "Are you alright?" He asked again. He walked towards Dion who fumbled with something.


    He stepped closer, his footsteps making no noise on the steps on the floor. He wasn¡¯t equipped for a fight, not that he expected one, at least he told himself. He had only one arm, no reach, his eyes barely adjusted to the darkness. That fire had made him too comfortable, he thought. Had relaxed him too much. Dion kept rocking. His heart beat faster, his eyes turned crimson with a blink. He grabbed Dion by the shoulder.


    Not a movement. He stopped rocking. Dion fidgeted with his hands. Apollo turned him, slowly. He was ready. Manic depressive? Apollo thought. From happy to sad, he had seen it (in dreams, which he didn¡¯t understand still) in Astyanax. The comparison made him flex his muscles. He turned him. The chair scratched the floor. He was ready for a fight. And Dion. Dion-!


    Was counting money.


    ¡°I found fifty more,¡± He mumbled.¡±That won¡¯t cover anything¡­Maybe she¡¯ll still take it. Maybe if I can just talk to her...¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Huh?¡± He looked up and leaned away from Apollo¡¯s breath.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Apollo looked at the euros. ¡°I gave you that yesterday. I thought you spent it on something stupid, you didn¡¯t come home with groceries after all.¡±


    He reached for the money. Dion shot his hands away.


    ¡°I need this.¡± He said.


    ¡°For what?¡±


    His eyes went in circles, he was lying. He didn¡¯t want to be hostile though, not intentionally at least.


    ¡°I¡¯m¡­¡± He said. ¡°Trying to get some souvenirs. I want to remember this city by, I want some good memories.¡±


    ¡°You can buy a postcard.¡± He tried again. Dion moved into the other direction. ¡°You¡¯re going to play like that?¡±


    He had an upper hand, one to be exact. He couldn¡¯t compete against the agility of a two-armed monkey like Dion. He sighed and went for the light switch. The room had a certain grit to it, a darkness that hid in the underbed and the closet and outside, in the overgrown pine forest, like tangled wild weeds.


    The light struck him. He looked away for a second.


    ¡°Why were you running like a madman up here? What¡¯s got you excited?¡± He knew he was only supposed to ask one question. He couldn¡¯t help himself though.


    "Oh, that," Dion said. He fumbled his wallet.


    "Don''t oh me." Apollo said. "You scared the shit out of me, I thought you were going to do something..." He looked up to the ceiling beam. The wood chopping axe somewhere in the closet. To every sharp and deadly thing. ¡°Something...bad.¡±


    "Like what?"


    "I¡¯m the one asking questions here," He crossed his arms (arm). ¡°What¡¯d you do yesterday? What are you planning tomorrow?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s none of your business.¡±


    Apollo outstretched his neck, for there was pressure there. A headache in the making. He knew what that face was, the mischievousness of it. Refreshing, in a way. He wondered if it was even wrongness if it was that naive a sin.


    ¡°Are you breaking any rules?¡± Apollo said. ¡°Just answer me that. You¡¯re an honest man, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I am,¡± Dion said. ¡°And honestly, I am. I am breaking a rule. Maybe.¡±


    ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I stop you then?¡±


    ¡°Because it¡¯s not immoral,¡± Dion said. ¡°I don¡¯t think so, at least.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re breaking a rule but it¡¯s not immoral. Which rule is it?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t tell you.¡±


    ¡°Which rule is it.¡± He repeated with more vigor.


    ¡°You won¡¯t let me go if you know,¡± Dion said.


    "If it''s that bad, why the fuck would I let you leave then?"


    "Because I need it," Dion said. His face went still. "I think if I stay in this room, reading this bible, I might just go insane.¡±


    "Fucking around isn¡¯t a solution. Us talking this out is, getting it in the open. Exposing the light -"


    "You can''t talk things out of being bad. It helps, I know. And I''m grateful," Dion said. "But if there''s anything I learned it''s that my problems can¡¯t be answered through a talk or a book. I need to go search for them."


    "Can you at least give me a clue at what you''re getting at? All you''ve told me is how bad a spot you¡¯re in and how good this thing is for you -" He closed his eyes in realization. ¡°Oh no,¡±


    He looked at Dion. At his nervous face, at the anxiety and joy.


    ¡°Oh, no. It¡¯s a girl. Isn¡¯t it?¡± He asked.


    Dion stayed quiet. Apollo nodded his head. He hung by the wall and broke into a quick laughter.


    "Oh fuck, not again," Apollo said. "Holy shit, you really want to get your head cut off, don¡¯t you? Relationships with normal people is one of the worst things you can do. It''s the fifth tenant of the damn rose code or whatever! Do not mix beasts and man!"


    "Let the blood of beast and man be unyoked..." Dion corrected.


    "So you do remember. Don''t you? You ever hear the rumor of Emanuel the fourth? Hmm? How he fathered three kids! Three, with some girl from Slovenia, don¡¯t you remember how it ended?¡±


    Dion nodded his head though still did not speak.


    ¡°Two of the kids went insane - were born insane more like it. They killed the mom and the dad. The third son had to kill off his siblings. You can go talk to him, Emanuel the fifth. He''s a Hospitaller and he''ll tell you the wrongness of Human and Vicar offspring. It¡¯s just a nasty combination. You can¡¯t expect a half-demon and a normal person to bring about anything decent. It just doesn¡¯t happen.¡±


    ¡°So? I¡¯m not even having, you know¡­¡± He whispered it. ¡°Sex, or anything. It¡¯s just a thing. A friendship.¡±


    ¡°A friendship, you? You¡¯d stick your dick a tree stump if it said hello and smiled at you." He shook his head. "Think about it, Dion. A girlfriend? That¡¯s decades in prison and given our record, more like a quick death sentence." He wanted to start laughing. It just sounded so terrible, so terrible a thing to die over. Dion furrowed his brow. He was getting angrier.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to kill us for some tail?¡±


    "It''s not like that," Dion said


    "Would you wear a condom at least?" Apollo slapped his chest, where the laughter was building up hardest. "Who am I kidding, you''re Catholic."


    "It''s not like that!" Dion stood up, the Bible fell from its desk down to the floor. "And I''m not Catholic anymore, either." He raised his voice as if to add a humph to the claim. Apollo stopped giggling. He got himself off the wall. The air smelled of smoldering wood and of hot cocoa.


    "Everyone is so fucking sensitive nowadays, what''s your problem? I was just joking." He said. ¡°About the condom part, not about the us-dying-a-quick-death part. I can see the guillotine now.¡±


    He rubbed his neck out of reflex.


    "Well I''m not joking," Dion said. "I''m trying to help someone, I don''t need you harassing me while I do it."


    Apollo stood, silent, awkward in the middle of the room with the light now showing the sweat coming off his forehead.


    "Help? You sure it helps?¡± He stretched his arm out and let them fall to his side. ¡°Alright, alright. Do whatever the fuck you want then. I don''t want to hear any bitching when you need my help, though.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t need it.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°You won¡¯t get it.¡±


    He walked out. The nun watched, from the bottom, having heard most of it. Having nodded her head, shamefully, to most of it. She waited for him at the bottom of the stairs.


    "You''re terrible at talking." She told Apollo. He walked past her, towards a hatchet shoot, a little square door leading to a room at the bottom, underneath the steps. He broke it open and moved quickly inside. He bumped his head. It only made him angrier. He tried to find space on the air mattress he had set up there. His feet dangled outside, from the little square space, out through the latched door, like a troll underneath his bridge.


    "What''s his fucking problem? He was crying just yesterday," He said. "I was trying to help."


    She walked over to him and looked down at him, the little woman somewhat imposing with her shadow cast over Apollo.


    "I''m sure he appreciates it. But he has to figure things out by himself, too. You can''t keep sheltering him. That''s not good either."


    "Sheltering him? I¡¯m rehabilitating him. Just a week ago he was breaking into sweats and seizing into paralysis from every loud noise. Now he¡¯s metabolized that strange behavior into some sexual fuckery and I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on in him.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s trying to make a friend. It¡¯ll help him clear his thoughts, you know, think.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, he¡¯s thinking alright,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Thinking with his dick.¡±


    She made a bitter face again. He opened his mouth and shut it quickly, he had to censor himself around her, he knew it.


    ¡°How¡¯s a fling going to help him?¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you listen? It¡¯s him helping her, that¡¯s how he¡¯s dealing with his trauma,¡± She said. ¡°He wants to help others to help himself.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a fine line between selflessness and self-sacrifice. I don¡¯t want him fucking around if it¡¯s only going to do him more harm in the long run.¡±


    ¡°If he can¡¯t see or feel or hear God in the Holy book, then he¡¯ll do it through the hearts of man. For where else is God if not in you and me? He¡¯s trying to find God, let him.¡±


    ¡°Who the fuck are you?¡± He asked. ¡°Walt Whitman?¡±


    She touched his leg. It was comforting. He hated that.


    "He¡¯s on his own. There are bigger problems I have to deal with.¡±


    She smiled.


    "Your plan and his are both the same, you¡¯re just...seeing the road differently is all.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, sure.¡± Apollo said. ¡°A road already determined. A road we¡¯ve been on. A road we¡¯ll be on. Forever and ever¡­¡± His eyes narrowed. ¡°Excuse me.¡±


    She smiled and closed his door. He tucked his feet in and turned on the little light bulb clinging on the under-staircase. He had papers scattered about him, books. In one hand he put a translators dictionary, on the other, the newspaper.


    ¡°I¡¯ve lived this life a thousand times before and I will live it a thousand times more,¡± He whispered to himself. ¡°So remember,¡± He compared the letters, ¡°What happens next?¡±


    The paper read, in small print, somewhere on the sixth page, away from inattentive minds,


    ¡®Mord in Club¡¯ it said. He followed the words to their appropriate place, sifting through the papers, trying to keep the thoughts of Dion and of his lover, and of the danger felt coming towards him. A nervousness that had followed him since Dion opened the door. He translated it,


    ¡®Murder in the Club¡¯ and sighed and put the pages to rest, wishing Dion had listened. Wishing him to stay away from it all. He couldn¡¯t sleep for hours. Until, perhaps, he just became too bored of the echo of his fearful thoughts. He slipped, only for a moment, and went into that snoozing sleep.


    He dreamt of swans.


    ?


    ¡°Don¡¯t wait up for me, I won¡¯t be home early,¡± Dion said to the wind that blew past him. His dark hair split at the middle.


    It was barely a goodbye. He just took his coat, counted the euros in his wallet and ran straight into the morning snow. It wasn¡¯t enough to pay for the damages, he knew. But maybe it was enough to reason his coming to the market. He stretched out his legs as he went through the snow. He didn''t even take his little bible of which he was getting bored of.


    He was torn a bit, as he waded through the crowds and maneuvered past the flocks of tourists in their small carts and cars, for though he was obligated, he was also happy. Happy, even, to have ruined the girl''s stall (he still didn¡¯t know her name, he¡¯d get it this time), for it brought him the opportunity to meet her. He smiled at the thought. For a moment, only because then he had to think about what scared him; the obligation. Because obligation reminded him of duty, and the pain those kinds of principles got him into. It was familiar, familiar mistakes from old days (still young). It was enough to even his face out. But he trudged along anyways. Hopeful to meet the girl.


    ?


    She waited at her stand. Around her were the little pottery trinkets, with no sheen or gloss for they had not been shined properly, for there was no time to shine them. These were not intended for sale, not yet at least, but had been forced on the market. Stefanie sat on her stool, both legs dangling as she watched with woeful eyes for people to come up, for people to walk by the little blue tarp topped stall, for people to say in a low whisper, ¡®those are ugly¡¯.


    She sat there, her hands clasped together and her head falling down at the snow-covered concrete. She couldn¡¯t fake a smile. He watched from a distance, an abrasive feeling hurting his hands. He must have gone back and forth half a dozen times before he decided to speak to her.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take all of them,¡± Dion said.


    She turned her head, hopeful for only a half of a second. But as her eyes adjusted to the sun covered figure, all hope seemed to drain from her face. It went back to glum, her blue eyes narrow and her lips thinned and sucked in.


    ¡°Are you here to finish the murder? This is all I have left,¡± she said. Dion stood there, sweaty, with his hands shaking in his pockets, as they moved closer to the woman. There were two hundred euros in his hands.


    ¡°That won¡¯t cover even yesterday''s damages.¡± She said. He kept his hand out. He couldn¡¯t tell what face he was making, constipation or anger or nervousness, maybe it rotated through the three.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± She asked.


    ¡°No,¡± Dion said. He shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t feel good. I want to pay you back is all.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t do that with two hundred euros.¡±


    ¡°What can I do then?¡±


    ¡°Nothing, you¡¯re scaring customers away. So just leave.¡± She said. He looked down and moved to the side and of course, no customers came yet. And he posted himself, a full block away in the corner of the street thinking it was his presence. He stood next to a beerhouse whose drunk patrons came out in full jolly hand-swinging stupidity. They tried balancing bottles on his head and shoulders.


    No customers came. Not for the hour he stood at least. He didn¡¯t want to make a face, it came naturally. One of sympathetic sadness. She didn¡¯t want to look at him, he could tell, by how often she looked away. He wondered if this whole thing would have been easier if he was drunk, and looking at a half-full bottle, he felt an urge to take a swig. He reconsidered when he saw someone, five feet away, vomit on the street.


    People kept avoiding her stall. He wanted to scream something, encouragement, anger at the poor taste of customers. He decided against it again. All conviction was out of him today, he had to bear it just as she did. She closed and rubbed her eyes, and with apprehension, raised her hand. He felt tingles. For me? He thought. She gestured at him and he ran across the street. A Volkswagon honked at him. It almost hit his leg as it drove away, cursing.


    He couldn¡¯t help himself but run, though.


    ¡°You know you¡¯re a creep, right?¡± She said. ¡°I should call the police.¡±


    ¡°Why haven¡¯t you?¡±


    She rubbed the bridge of her nose and looked him over, up and down.


    ¡°Because you owe me,¡± she said. He tried to stop himself from grinning, he pinched his leg. He slapped his arms behind his back. Stop grinning, he kept repeating, stop grinning.


    ¡°Pay attention,¡± she said. He stood straight. Her accent was easier to listen to when she was angry, which was odd to him. ¡°Here¡¯s what you¡¯re going to do, alright? Don¡¯t mess this up. You¡¯re going to go to the corner of that street, and you ¡¯re going to pick up this sign,¡± she pointed to the red arrow to her rear with the smiley face. ¡°And you¡¯re going to flip that and spin it until you fool someone into coming over here.¡±


    He looked at the poor showing in front of him. He didn¡¯t want to say something, he had a feeling she knew anyway, that what held her back was the product not the brand or the advertisement.


    He listened anyways and hoisted the sign over his hand and when to the corner of the street where traffic was greatest, with a hopeless optimism. He made sure to be cheery. To smile, to spin and dance. The cars zoomed past them, the families walked away from him. Children ran. The homeless sat, on the icy asphalt next to him, getting more business from their panhandling than he did attention from his sign spinning. He looked periodically to the stall, to the girl too. He smiled. She didn¡¯t. The sun was coming up harder. His shadow stretched out, the snow blinded him with brightness. His eyes were dreary and used and weak. No one was coming. He thought.


    ¡°No one came,¡± He walked towards her.


    ¡°No,¡± she played with her thumbs. ¡°Who would have want this shit?¡±


    There was nothing left to say, the evidence of a failure was laid out before them like the aftermath of a war, the pottery, like beaten soldiers, sprawled out dirty and ugly looking. She sighed. Dion scratched his head. They both waited there, in silence, hearing the footsteps and cheap conversation to their rears. Stefanie was the first to start unraveling the tarp. Dion followed.


    ¡°You don''t have to do this,¡± A pole fell down. He caught it.


    ¡°Yeah, I think I do.¡± he smiled.


    ¡°Can you promise not to break anything this time?¡± It wasn¡¯t a joke. She wasn¡¯t smiling. Her eyes seemed small, cautious towards him.


    ¡°You really don''t like me, do you?¡± he asked. ¡°I¡¯m not surprised though. Not many people do.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t take it personally. I probably wouldn¡¯t have trusted you even before your little accident,¡± she said. ¡°People always disappoint.¡±


    ¡°I have a friend who''s just like you,¡±


    ¡°Must be a smart friend,¡±


    ¡°Sort of,¡± He rubbed his chin. ¡°When he pulls his head out of his butt. Sure.¡±


    She took down the tent, or rather it collapsed on top of her.


    ¡°Are you alright?¡± Dion rushed to take the cloak off her. The poles clanged as they hit the floor.


    She struggled. She found a hole and let her head breath, her face was eerily calm. Collected, or perhaps empty.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± She brushed him away. ¡°Stop trying so hard. I¡¯m just a stranger.¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± He blushed. ¡°I¡¯m a sucker. I don¡¯t know what to do any time, but I always want to help. Like you said. I¡¯m a meddler.¡±


    The tarp looked like a tsunami wave. It rose high and overwhelmed her from the waist down. She flailed about, her hands pulling and grabbing until it finally sat on her feet, wrapped around, chasing the gusts that brushed past them.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need anyone''s help. I¡¯ve gotten by just fine till now,¡± she said. ¡°My problems are too big for you anyways, American.¡±


    ¡°Your big problems?¡± He scratched his head. ¡°It was just a couple gnomes. A horse or two.¡±


    She stopped and tilted her head. She looked over Dion, with curious respect.


    ¡°I don¡¯t get it, what¡¯d I say?¡±


    ¡°No, no.¡± she laughed. ¡°This. This isn¡¯t about the gnomes or the little toys or anything. No, my problems are worse than that.¡±


    She came down from her high. Dion was still staring at her, still ruffling his face, feeling mocked by the second, mocked yet still eager to help. Like throwing your hands into a burning building, through the rubble. Hurting and still eager.


    ¡°Well, what are they?¡± Dion pressed. "Your problems?"


    ¡°Are you touched?¡± She asked. ¡°Do you know anything about social cues?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    She looked down at her table, her smile deteriorating like a corroded cliffside. She looked moody again.


    ¡°I barely know you,¡± she said.


    ¡°So?¡±


    She looked off to the distance where the people wandered in happy, almost aimless, flocks. He could tell at least that she didn¡¯t know what to say, which of course made him want to know what her ¡®problems¡¯ were even more. She sucked in her lips, thought to speak and closed her mouth again. This happened three more times, three more false starts before she rubbed the back of her neck and gave up.


    ¡°Listen, you said you wanted to help, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Then help me close.¡± She pointed to the gear sitting to her rear, the table (half folded), the lawn chairs, the boxes of fragilities.


    ¡°You want me to help you get home -¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Her eyes locked to his. They didn¡¯t blink.


    ¡°Right, right. I don¡¯t want to impose. That¡¯s a little creepy of me,¡± He said nervously. ¡°Sorry.¡±


    She nodded her head though, yes, it was creepy. And it was only a half-truth, Dion could read it though he could not think about it. He had the gut feeling she kept something from him, perhaps it was all the time spent with Apollo and liars (were they different? He didn¡¯t know) that made him easy to spot the shifting tones and weird hiccups of people caught in a lie. She was lying about something. He wanted to know. But he couldn¡¯t impose, no. So he sighed and walked up to the boxes laying about and counted.


    ¡°Well, what are you waiting for? You¡¯re a big boy, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    He smiled. She did too. Maybe she liked him? He didn¡¯t want to start fantasizing, he kept the thought deep in his subconscious. He could not fantasize, could not romanticize. It was just a smile. Oh, a very cute smile from him.


    Stop it, he thought.


    She settled a heavy box down. It made a loud noise. Dion shook in awareness, he lifted a stack of four boxes. She seemed impressed, a little annoyed too.


    She pointed him where to go and they went through, to a parking lot, where he fixed the boxes in the back of her car.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± She wiped the sweat from her forehead.


    He poked his head out, grinning, through the mess in her car trunk.


    ¡°I''m Dion.¡± His had to dry his hand and the thought of having to dry his hand made it even sweatier, more twitchy, more awkward.


    ¡°Oh,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m Stefanie.¡± She extended her hand (thank god it was her and not him).


    And they shook hands, smiling, Dion too dumb in his pleasure to know when to stop. Too simple to know what was awkward. He just knew two things, nervousness, and pleasure, and lived in that moment for those two things. Which was refreshing for him, to finally put aside the mental space of all his tragedy and to finally have out of mind those scenes of Hell, all for a brief moment with a cute girl (she was cute to him, and that¡¯s all that mattered) in this cold German winter. He shook. She had to separate herself. Oddly though, she didn¡¯t seem that bothered. Maybe even a little flattered. And Dion, smiling still, rubbing his sweaty hand back on his pants, asked.


    ¡°Can I see you again?¡±


    She thought about it, or maybe she already made her mind and just waited to make him nervous. She shrugged her shoulders, casually, looked to the corner of her eyes and said: ¡°Sure.¡±


    It was cold today, but he was warm and hot and happy.

 6

    He waited around the noisy stalls, in that morning German air, where the cold was beginning to break his face and lips to a chapped mess. He could feel the winter on his thin mustache, on the few strips of hair on his chin, on his eyebrows and hair. It stuck them together and covered them with the specks of white. He waited there, with hands in his pockets and his feet tapping away on the floor. He waited an hour, took a break to find some sausages to eat and out of fear that perhaps he had missed her, had rushed back to his spot with the weiner in his hand. She came. Not with anything special, not with her gears or her sale, she came alone, packing up what few materials she left the previous day.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Dion came up to her. He threw the sausage over his side.


    She turned around and looked at him, he didn¡¯t know what was on her face. Defeat or relief.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got nothing left to sell.¡± She said. ¡°I think I¡¯m done.¡±


    ¡°Really? Why?¡±


    ¡°Because it¡¯s a waste of time and I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll need the money anymore.¡±


    He turned his head and observed her. His eyes softened. She had no makeup, no clean clothes either. Her face seemed pale. His voice eased.


    ¡°So it ends like that?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    ¡°So I can¡¯t see you anymore then?¡± He asked. He shouldn¡¯t have. She seemed to be going through a lot and he, feeling stupid, began to pinch his leg.


    ¡°Thank god for that, right?¡± She said. ¡°I¡¯ve been miserable towards you for a while.¡±


    He was taken back.


    ¡°We barely know each other and I ruined your stall, it makes sense that you¡¯d be mean to me.¡±


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t defend someone who¡¯s trying to apologize. Let me save some face, would you?¡± She said, laughing, sad at the same time. That kind of false optimistic thing, with a broken voice.


    ¡°What if I didn¡¯t mind you being mean? I don¡¯t think you were particularly good at it anyway.¡± Dion stepped up. He helped her with the last table, with the signs. ¡°What if I want to get to know your problems?¡±


    She stayed quiet and looked away.


    ¡°Would you mind?¡± Dion asked. ¡°If we went out on a...date maybe?¡±


    There was silence. He immediately felt the need to fill in the noise gap, to cushion the crash of his blunt question.


    ¡°Well, you know. You don¡¯t have to. We barely know each other, I don¡¯t even know this city. I¡¯m a creep, after all, I¡¯d understand.¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± She said, bluntly. She couldn¡¯t turn to face him, he couldn¡¯t see what face she was making. If her face had shown color. He couldn¡¯t tell whether he was just a distraction to her problems (which he wouldn¡¯t have minded anyway) or if she actually liked him (or thought he was just cute).


    After a while, he stopped caring though. His head filled with imaginations, his hands shivered with anticipation.


    She turned, her face, still a bit downtrodden now showed a smile. No matter how meek, or flat.


    ¡°But you¡¯re paying, alright?¡± She asked. He didn¡¯t think anything of her discomfort at the time, he couldn¡¯t. He just moved his head up and down and was glad, strangely enough, of that day in which he tripped and in which he ruined someone''s business. Fortune in the unfortunate. It was strange. But he wasn¡¯t mad.


    ?


    ¡°Stop thinking about her.¡± Claudia felt a tongue slither into her mouth. They enveloped each other, sucked on each other before they let go.


    It was a confused state she was in, in the aftermath of a high, when the lights lost their glare and the feeling of touch its intense electricity, a time in which she did not what was louder, the moans of pleasure or the frenzy of EDM music blaring at her. There men and women squirming on the floor, grabbing handfuls of the fur of the rug, grabbing handfuls of her.


    This was one of the stranger sex clubs she had attended, the first in a few weeks since she¡¯d been with G¨¹nther. It wasn¡¯t that the people were different, they were all lunatics same as they had been, with the same rabbit thrusts into gaping holes and the quickness of their groaning consummation. The music wasn¡¯t strange either, the same loud, fast rhythmic blasts of bass and drums. Nor was it the drugs, the candy shop of debilitators ever present on the glass tables or bean bag chairs or soft fur rugs. None of that was different. But the atmosphere was.


    The low, dim hue of red that contoured her body and subsequently the mountain of bodies around her. It looked like a wall of decadence, the fleshy limbs of nudists dancing and fucking on the floor, flat and writhing.


    Maybe she was still just mad at her sister. Days later (she lost count how many, clocks were banned in this club, which was strange). Maybe it was the heroin coming off her bloodstream, and the bloodshot eyes and tired drained muscles that gave her that unsettled, weak-leggedweak-legg feeling of dread.


    How long have we been here Gunther she said


    ¡°I don¡¯t care about her anymore,¡± She lied.


    ¡°Why do you look like you¡¯ve got somewhere to be then?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve got nowhere to be,¡± She said. ¡°That¡¯s the problem. I want to go places.¡±


    ¡°Where the fuck do you want to be besides here?¡± G¨¹nther asked. He wrapped his arms around her. On his ribs, in mockery, a tattoo of bleeding incisions were painted on his ribs, like Jesus before. The backward crucifix rattled in his ears.


    ¡°This is heaven. Don¡¯t you know? This is Carcosa.¡±


    Ah, she remembered. That¡¯s she was. The little club, Carcosa. A girls hand grabbed her breast. She looked down, the whole movement of her eyes felt eerily slow. The nail was chipped, the nail polish was cracked, red.


    She slapped the hand away. All of them. G¨¹nther licked his palm.


    She stood. Her feet landed on someone''s face, she felt a tongue on them and she stepped down harder. The man below was too drugged to scream in pain, he just wheezed and turned his head. None of them could scream, their eyes were open and nose dripping and small bubbles of saliva formed in the edges of their crescent mouths.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    She went past the DJ, the music disc scratched as she walked past him. She felt thirsty and picked up the only martini glass not knocked over, it was blue. She drank. Her throat burned. That wasn¡¯t water, she thought. Why would it be water?


    She went through her pockets, a condom, new still, some lipstick, a cell phone. The music kept going. She looked around the mess. The druggies, the half dead. She couldn¡¯t stay here, tired and weak, no. She dialed her sister''s number, her eyes still blurry. Her battery was nearly dead. It rung. It hung up. It went on for five times before her phone died. She put her hands over her face.


    G¨¹nther came up, trying to comfort her it seemed.


    ¡°Fuck off,¡± she said. ¡°I want to go home.¡±


    ¡°You were having fun just last night.¡±


    ¡°I want to go home,¡± She repeated.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you relax and have a drink, for me?¡± He handed her the glass. She held it, just to satisfy him. But she did not drink.


    ¡°Why is it so cold?¡± She said.


    ¡°It¡¯s winter, honey.¡± He rubbed his hands on her nude shoulders.


    ¡°It¡¯s so terrible in here.¡± She walked away from him, cursing underneath her breath. Her eyes slowly coming to full alertness. The darkness of the room now deeper, frightening. The shadows cast by the lone, smiling DJ, almost following her across the room. G¨¹nther came running behind her. She kept repeating, whether he could hear it or not, whether anyone could hear it, I need to go home. I need to go home.


    ¡°I need to go home.¡± She screamed.


    ¡°Settle down, baby.¡± He said. ¡°Come on, where are you going? Why don¡¯t you stay with the people that love you? Like me.¡±


    She walked faster, a steady jog almost.


    ¡°Hey! We¡¯re all waiting for you, calm down. Hey! Talk to me!¡±


    ¡°Fuck off.¡± He grabbed her. She shook his weak grip off. ¡°Get away from me. I¡¯m sick of this shit. I¡¯m sick of being tired, I¡¯m sick of you and all this. Of this god awful city. I¡¯m sick of all of it. I¡¯m leaving, you hear?¡± She dropped her phone. The screen cracked, the battery dead.


    She shouldn¡¯t have expected anyone to have called anyways. She knew it, as she struggled off of G¨¹nther, as she walked over the zombies on the floor. She should have known no one would have come for her. After all, that¡¯s what she said she wanted. She walked towards a metal door and where the noise of wind came from. She hated herself, she slapped the walls and broke her heels in her angry stomps. She hated herself for ever having gotten mad. She hated herself for quitting singing. She hated herself for what she had done to her grandmother and her sister after. She put her shoulder first and tackled the door open. G¨¹nther was still, steady and hot behind her.


    ¡°Now you¡¯re getting cold feet?¡± He asked. ¡°This isn¡¯t the first time we¡¯ve done this kind of thing.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but it¡¯ll be the last time.¡±


    They went through the alleys now of those little awkward, curved streets. Like a forest tour, the winding rough road. The graffiti opened up to her rear. Pictures of a yellow eye plastered everywhere, pictures that pricked her, that dug deep into her skin with fear.


    She picked her bra strap up. She could see the little medieval town she thought she knew somewhat corrupted here, the little wooden squares and the columns bearing those happy homes now changed to grim chain link fence and the undertow of railroad tracks. The screech of wheels roared past her, above. They walked underneath a bridge now. He grabbed her. His dry hands like lizard scales, a dragon perhaps. He wrapped himself around her like a stray jacket.


    ¡°Where the fuck are you going, huh?¡± He asked. His voice changed somehow. Savage, cruel.


    ¡°Get off me,¡± She cried.


    ¡°They always say that,¡± He pulled on her. ¡°Get off me, leave me alone. You don¡¯t actually believe any of that shit, right?¡±


    She screamed anyways. Inane little things like; you¡¯re hurting me, I¡¯ll call the police, please, I¡¯ll do anything. Those desperate human things, those linguistically evolved yelps of pain.


    She kept crying all the way past the corner. Past another one. Until they made a full circle back. She screamed at the apartments near them, no one even ruffled their curtains. It¡¯s as if no one was even here. And for a while she began to blame herself, feeling stupid and helpless, thinking of all the permutations that could have gotten her out. Thinking of all the times she had gone to sex clubs, had been safe, had enjoyed herself. Thinking, sadly, how she should have avoided this man that night, how she should have never trusted his kindness. Thinking his charm, that satanic aesthetic to be nothing more than some perky, hip thing.


    ¡°Please, G¨¹nther. I won¡¯t tell anyone.¡±


    ¡°You would. Trust me. You aren''t the first, you are the more fiesty ones though.¡± He smiled.


    She was still drunk. Still a bit tipsy, still too weak and sad to punch or kick him. The scene of snow and of the grey brick building came as foggy blur.. She was out one moment, with the snow burning her bare feet and in again, with the wall of flesh on the floor below licking and reaching for her. And the men and women yearning for her, crawling towards her as G¨¹nther sat her down on a seat.


    ¡°You made an oath when you walked in, you know that?¡± He said. She didn¡¯t remember. Maybe she did. She didn¡¯t realize what it meant. She thought it was just fun. Just games. Just escapism.


    The orgy kept going on, faster now. People came to circle them and to inspect and lick her.


    ¡°She was having fun earlier, wasn¡¯t she?¡± A woman asked.


    ¡°She got a little scared is all, she just needs some help.¡±


    The woman smiled. She had a pentagram on her lower back. Her flesh was ripped, scarred from whips or blades or something else. Most of them were. She hadn¡¯t noticed this when she was fucking, when her passions were roaring and eyes were closed and her mind was muddied. She hadn¡¯t noticed anything. She began to cry. I hadn¡¯t noticed, Claudia repeated in the echo of her blank mind.


    ¡°I can help her with that.¡± Another woman said. She had piercings from her breasts to her feet, like hook holes to stick her on the butchery line. A walking carcass, gaunt eyes, sickly thin.


    She walked away. G¨¹nther kept her still though she moved in her seat. The thin woman came back, with a glass.


    The lights blared yellow. The graffiti of the eye was everywhere. Strange symbols filled her thoughts, she couldn¡¯t get them out. Strange geometry. She closed her eyes.


    ¡°Don¡¯t avert your eyes.¡± He said. He pulled her face open.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want this.¡± She said, pushing away from her. Another pair of hands gripped her tight.


    He started with her eyes, to make sure she would see the images. Then with her mouth, as she opened it wide and another girl poured a drink down her throat. Something fizzy, something that tasted familiar. G¨¹nther closed her mouth shut and shook her head until she swallowed. As if she had a choice.


    She sat there, growing more paralyzed. With the sounds vibrating through her. With color, fading in and out. Confusing senses, taste for color, sound for touch. Confusing her thoughts with the non-euclidean shapes. She wanted to rip her hair out. She couldn¡¯t even raise her arms to do it. Her body leaned back, her neck laid on the back of the couch.


    Gunther held her by the shoulder. She was still able to register that much, that cruel touch of evil. She could see his low grin, his beady eyes like two black holes.


    ¡°Look, they missed you.¡± He said.


    There was no DJ, no lights, only smoke that filled the room. Astral projections that made her face go wide. She wasn¡¯t even sure they were in the club anymore, the lights looked like halos. G¨¹nther turned her head. She saw nothing but limbs below. Almost detached, almost inhuman, like something down below was yearning for her.


    The room spun with the dragging sound of a train roaring past, away from them, but very near, her head seemed to spin with it and she allowed herself to slump by the side of the sofa, near the arm. Blood fell on her face. She couldn¡¯t tell whether it was hers or someone elses. She couldn¡¯t tell what the screaming was, what the laughing eluded too, whether G¨¹nther was in pain or pleasure. She only saw the hints of it, the spectral images coming in and out of her vision, looking at her with pale and deformed faces. She couldn¡¯t scream, she wanted to. She couldn¡¯t leave, she had to stay and watch the dance. The sex, the fire growing (was it even real? It felt hot), the strange dance around the symbols. A ritual, she thought. For what? She asked, For what? For whom? They went in circles around bodies they were cutting up.


    She gasped.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± A voice said. It sounded as if in her head, like an invader had taken the last sanction of independence from her. ¡°You¡¯re in Carcosa now, it¡¯ll be alright. We¡¯ve all waiting for you here too. So don¡¯t you worry, child.¡±


    The voice spoke in Latin. But she could understand it. The ocean of blood increased. Her body moved, she could tell. But her soul seemed to sleep, deeply. As if sucked into a vortex, a comfortable, warm and distant sleep. A sleep better than any she¡¯d ever have, or had ever known.


    A sleep of the soul, an awakening of something worse.


    G¨¹nther screamed. Claudia, or whatever was inside of her, smiled.

 Interlude Chapter: "One for my Baby Part 2"

    He heard about the murders. One morning and had spent the good half of that morning pacing in and out of rooms, with his hands to his chin as he contemplated. Then, at around noon almost, he looked at the nun with newfound confidence and said: "I''m going out to work."


    ?


    He had to break three men to finally get the answer and even then had to make the last one, some poor slob on a corner street selling heroin, suffer as he shuffled for a translators dictionary. The man lost four fingers for waiting and struggling for Apollo to find the words he was pleading with.


    Carcosa, the junkie explained, Carcosa. He had heard that somewhere, in some old literature, perhaps. It didn¡¯t take much more after the ruined hand for him to get directions.


    He came in at dawn. When the sun barely broke through the tops of the glowing evergreens surrounding the city. The lights were still on, sputtering sparks and hanging loosely from fickle nails. It was somewhere deep, past the Christmas trees and festive cornices and vibrant decorative lights. Somewhere in the annals of the town where the people walked quickly past from, where they spoke in quiet tones and in murmurs and in stuttered fear. It was that part of town. It was funny to think too that this was where Apollo was most comfortable.


    No one was awake yet, he noticed as he crept along, against the brick walls with his hands crawling along the chipped stone. There were apartments near him, but no one bothered to ruffle their curtains to watch the strangeness about to occur. He could see trails of smoke outside immediately, bonfires from the sleep hazy homeless.


    He stopped at a door. He looked behind and around himself, it seemed engraved into a giant graffiti infested wall. Like a cavern within a gloomy, flat mountain. There was nothing near him, save for a late train. The apartments were far now, far enough not to hear a scream or two. This explains a lot, he thought.


    He pressed his ear against the door. Nothing. He grabbed the handle. It stuttered and shut. He put his foot against it and pressed down. The steel frame bent long before the lock broke. He had to dig his foot out the door.


    It shut behind him with a loud bang. He flinched, braced for the noise and upon the sound, he took out his flashlight and scanned across from him.


    It looked like a desecrated field. The light bulbs were scattered about the floor like a field of glass, he could feel it in the heel of his shoes, the jagged teeth of glass. There were no lights. Bottles spilled sitting on their sides. The tables were bruised, scratched, in pieces. The stools were broken, the legs laid interred through the cabinets of liquor. Apolo grabbed one of the legs and twisted it. Rum or whiskey spilled from the hole like an open wound. He ran his finger under it and let it drizzle onto the floor.


    A ruffle. He turned. The scope of the flashlight came late, he looked around. He must have scanned the whole room searching for that noise, under the tipped tables, around the beaded curtains, through the bone-dry glasses. He searched the stage where a lone microphone spun as if just grabbed. The speakers were blown out, they looked like geysers. He flashed inside and felt through the material that was torn and ripped, the mesh. He removed his hand, disgusted by the texture and rubbed whatever had caught on him. Dried blood scabs, he looked at them with curiosity almost, apprehension too. He put the blood against the light and raised it high to inspect it, thinking (stupidly) that the angle would make a difference and in this intense examination he had ignored everything. Sight and sound.


    He ignored it all until he heard the noise. A bang.


    He flinched. Some was scurrying, crawling. It came from the staircase. He heard someone hanging on the metal handrail, it had that kind of reverberation to it. A ringing, a stepping. Apollo ran towards it, the glass broke underneath his boots. He turned the corner. He held his breath. The light flashed up the stairs. His spine tingled. His legs slacked. He saw the shadow elongated against the wall, just the shadow.


    Fuck, he thought, a good time to have weapons. His flashlight rattled.


    He hesitated to step, but took a deep breath again (for it had been a while since he breathed). He didn¡¯t know what seized him, fear or excitement, a second voice or his own, both screamed at him at once. It made him stiff legged, even as he moved forward.


    He stepped onto a wood plank. It broke and he almost fell through. He recovered, grabbing the guard rails and shook his head.


    The thoughts formed, visualization of the enemy.


    He can¡¯t be that tall, Apollo thought, he would have made more noise, the son of a bitch. It¡¯s gotta be smaller than me, at least.


    His heart beat faster. He hadn¡¯t felt a thrill like this in a while, not even the court case was this thrilling. Maybe the fight with Astyanax, maybe even further back when he was still a young man with young hopes and young desires. He had to hold his hands together to stop them from shaking. His head felt split down the center, both wrestling for control, to run or to flee. He swore he heard a different voice from his own, he swore it. Right?


    Go on, kill it.


    He kept skipping steps as he went up the stairs. To the left, only a few steps left. A large hallway, with the bulb blown out and the copper coil still warm. There were rooms in this hallway, dozens of them leading to an end which hosted a darkness to hard for even him to figure through, too dark for his flashlight to reach. He looked to each side, some doors were closed, others creaking. One the fourth door he smelled something. Terrible, he cursed his heightened sense of smell. He put his shoulder against the door. Another metal frame. And the thing was still around, he had to be careful and looked at each of his sides before he tried working at the door. With a quick punch, he made a socket through the door, like a rivet gun. He looked inside the keyhole, briefly, he only needed to look at it for a second anyways. A second was enough. He held his breath. The smell rushed him. The decomposing bodies were overwhelming. He lifted his head to check his surroundings again. He looked back through with his nose pinched, trying to analyze how they died. The way the victims laid around the small room, as if they hadn''t struggled, almost willfully died. As if they had died sleeping on the bed and carpet, sprawled out. Eerily peaceful.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    He reached his hand inside to open it from within. He got one finger in before he heard the sixth door down open. Immediately, he pushed himself off and against the wall and looked to each side. His light caught only a glimpse of the creeping door coming in and out, the hinges whining into the silent hall.


    I should call Dion, he thought. Yet he moved. He couldn''t help himself but move. What would Dion do anyways? He reasoned. He¡¯s already messed up in the head, why make it worse?


    He inched closer, each step cracking glass, each step sloshing through the coagulated pools of blood like mud, each step a brief heartache as his chest throbbed tighter and tighter. God, I wish I had my sword. He thought.


    His head rose high, a defiant expression against all his fear and anxiety. He broke the door. His muscles flexed, his legs extended out for better balance. The flashlight scanned the room. Left to right! Top to bottom!


    It had to be here. He heard the window curtains drape around something. He looked towards it, there was sunlight there, and a shadow behind the greenish-red curtains. It climbed upon the ledge. Apollo ran.


    ¡°Stop,¡± He screamed. He tried to jump after it. He saw the shadow fall, dropped and plopped (the sound was loud). He came to the ledge himself and looked below to a hooded figure running across the street, he stuck his body out. That was a mistake.


    For the sun of a dawn only protected him, only insured him for a brief section of the room. The rest was dark. A complete blackness. Even for his red eyes. So dark, so hidden, so caught in the action, Apollo didn¡¯t hear the creeping parasite. The sleek, black tentacled goop. The creature with the single yellow eye and the baby¡¯s teeth who rustled atop a corpse. The corpse of G¨¹nther.


    He couldn¡¯t hear it - let alone see it. His heart was too loud, his screaming too overwhelming. He had one foot out into the open air. And suddenly the other stuck inside. A pain shot up his leg.


    ¡°What the fuck,¡± He screamed out. A dark spike, a prod almost, had stabbed into his leg, through his bone. He grit his teeth to stop himself from screaming.


    The parasite grabbed him by the foot, then climbed his leg. A tendril drilled deep through his calves. A little thing no bigger than a child¡¯s doll, black and formless, a glob of sorts. Its yellow eye skid around sporadically and zero-inned on Apollo. His body went cold. He saw something on the spike stabbed through his leg, something that looked like a swelling liquid being passed through, as if the tendril was a kind of syringe. The knot rode up, nearing his veins. He was injecting something into him. Apollo punched the spike down immediately to try and cut off the injection. His fist went deep into the floorboard, the creature did too. Gripping the pressured limb, Apollo yanked the parasite closer to him. He felt funny, odd. Not dead, not yet. He grabbed the parasite by the body (if it had a body) and crushed it, the only thing he could say firmly was material, the eye. The creature screamed, cried out. Its sound fizzled into bubbling blood. It died, but not in vain.


    Apollo felt odd.


    We feel odd, he heard the voice in his head.


    His legs had a strange weight to it, as if one was heavier than the other. He ripped part of his pants for a tourniquet and tied off the end of the injected spot. He looked to where the incision was, the part of his leg still stabbed through. Apollo removed the stake and threw it on the wall. His throw was weak. He shook his head, his vision not necessarily fading, but becoming more colorful, strange. Warm. The sunlight breaking through seemed warmer, at least. More inviting.


    He looked at his wounded leg, smiling. Why am I smiling? He thought. Why not?


    He shook. It was time to deal with the wound, he had to stop the poisoned blood from flowing. He stuck his finger inside his leg, searched for vein and severed it. A forceful bleeding out, one his superhuman body did not understand. For he kept healing, regenerating. And he kept cutting, on and on, tiring himself, bleeding himself.


    ¡°Stupid, stupid.¡± He slapped himself with his other hand (the other was siphoning blood still, maybe for ten minutes now). He caught himself smiling. ¡°Stupid!¡± He couldn¡¯t even form sentences now, he couldn''t even think. He slammed his head against the wall. Scared, happy, scared of his happiness. He didn¡¯t know what wrong with him, what had caused all of this. He stopped bleeding himself and ran for a corner of a room, grabbing his flashlight along the way (who knows when he threw it, in the heat of things you tend to forget those small details). What he did know, though he could not vocalize it because his mouth became slack and his thoughts dumber and dumber, what he did know was that he felt safe in the corner, with his flashlight, bundled into a ball.


    ¡°If they come.¡± He struggled to talk. He laughed. ¡°I¡¯m dead,¡± He repeated, heckling. ¡°Stupid, stupid.¡±


    None of it made sense, the poison, the ecstatic joy in him. None of it. He looked around the room, at last, he had the opportunity to.


    It looked like a mural, blood everywhere. A few bodies here and there, on the soft fur rugs below. He kept laughing, though he was terrified. Lightheaded, funny, eerily pleasant. He looked at the walls painted with the blood of the corpses laying lazily. He saw the symbols, the strange spiral, and the trident.


    He laughed, he knew he shouldn¡¯t have. But he felt so good, so good as his memories tried hard to remember what those images were. Who they worshipped, what this all was.


    His stomach hurt. His rubs were pained, he gasped at least and killed his laughter, the foam appeared at the edges of his mouth. He understood everything, the poison and the creature running on the streets, the bodies, the symbol in blood.


    He remembered, only briefly, before he succumbed to the ecstasy once more.


    ¡°Asmodai,¡± He said. ¡°Lord of pleasure, seducer of kings, Asmodai.¡±

 2

    Dion had waited for her on the sidewalk by a bakery and a flower shop, with his black jacket and his sagging thick cotton pants. To his rear, the loud roars of people. It was cold, even with the bustling noises and faces. He couldn¡¯t focus too much on it though, there was something else, something important here.


    She had come through with a coat covered dress, which disappointed him a bit. A brief feeling, killed by the sight of her face through the anonymous crowd.


    He inched his hand closer towards her arm and she did not protest.


    "You could have dressed up," She smiled. "You look like a furniture mover."


    "Sorry," Dion said. "I don''t have much of anything else. All of it -"


    He remembered why he was poor and clothes-less and why he wore the second-hand garments the nun had provided him. It was that whole dying business at Soloman¡¯s Keep. That thing, right.


    "I packed light before I moved. It¡¯s all I had.." Dion said.


    "It''s fine," She tugged at him and leaned him closer towards the stalls. Observing each one, the bright colored stands, as a kind of carnival game in and of itself. They could hear the voices of tourists behind them, a group of twelve lead by a young woman. They could hear children and natives laughing, food in their mouths. The streets were cleared of snow, thankfully, and the lights were bright even on this dark night.


    The cold air was relieving to breathe, his cheeks were hot. His palms sweaty.. He passed glances at her.


    They stopped. In front of them was a game of sorts, plushies of bears and swans and lions displayed behind the stall, on shelves. In front of them were pellet guns and the ducks. Lots of wooden ducks, with bullseyes, center through them.


    The man behind the counter said something eagerly, in German.


    "He says, do you want a try?" She yanked the gun closer to her, the cord hit Dion¡¯s leg.


    Dion smiled, yes. He frowned immediately when she stopped looking. He picked up the gun. He felt cold all of a sudden, drained. His hands shook. His vision nearly blurred and he felt in one ear, a loss of balance that made him lean heavily on his left leg.


    He aimed, trying to put his eye to the struggling iron sights of the pellet gun. He raised the toy and thought to shoot. He couldn''t find the trigger. His finger tapped empty space.


    Dion was breathing loud now. And the more he thought of relaxing, the worse it got. He tried putting the butt of the gun against his shoulder but he couldn''t lock it on his bones and muscles. He tried shooting. A pellet flew out, it nearly hit the man behind the stall. Stefania took the gun out of his hand, nervous too, but smiling, warm. Warm in this cold hour.


    "It''s alright." She said." I was bad at these too when I first started."


    He settled as the responsibility of the trigger was out of his hands. He watched her now, his composure coming back as he watched her wield the toy and shoot, with focused eyes and a stiff body. The ducks rang out as they died. The man behind the stall still looked angry, even as he handed her a lion.


    "Do you want it?" She asked.


    "Shouldn''t this be the other way around." He said, looking over the small plush.


    "Not with your aim." She said. He felt hurt, not by what she intended but what she revealed. He had to look away and ease his face before he could speak to her. He returned, facing her, with a half-smile.


    "Where''d you learn how to shoot?"


    ¡°My grandfather before he died.¡±


    ¡°Sorry.¡±This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°Don''t worry, I wouldn''t have told you if it still meant something to me.¡±


    ¡°How long has it been?¡±


    ¡°Ten years. I never really knew him, and most of what I did know came after the fact. A military man, my grandfather. A poor lover, too, my grandmother told me.¡±


    Her voice dropped at grandmother. She recovered, not fast enough for him not to notice.


    ¡°Well, to me he was just the old guy with a shotgun I would spend a weekend or two with.¡±


    Residual fear was still in him. He put his hands in his pockets, now his pants shook.


    ¡°Did you know your grandfather?¡±


    ¡°No, I never really never knew anyone in my family.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not too bad.¡± She said, ¡°You never learned to be disappointed in your family. That¡¯s a good thing.¡±


    He couldn¡¯t comment, he was trying to understand her and himself, her strange awkwardness with her family and his own constant fear. Guns felt strange to him, she felt strange to him. She tugged his arm. He realized he was staring down and finally got the opportunity to become aware of the plaza.


    They stopped in front of the Christmas tree. There were benches lined up around it. Men on ladders were putting the finishing ornaments and ribbons on the tree. Giant flashy balls and trinkets, lavish scarfs, gold and pale like the rings of Saturn. There was a celestial quality to the color scheme, the gold and the pale silver and the ruby red. There was something celestial about Stefanie too, the silhouette of her body set against the lights all along the street and floor. An angel.


    Her beanie topped head, the slim frame. She smiled at him and walked towards a bench and laid her hands against it, leaning forward. All his anxiety subsided for that brief moment as he looked at her, and the more he did the stronger he felt. Until his stomach was burning with an unconquerable fire, until he felt in his heart the will to power. He clenched his fist. He stepped forward. She, still leaning, whimsical, smiling at the tree and the lights and the slow falling snowdrops.


    He came up next to her, moving left and right, letting the fire in him burn faster and brighter. Until - Finally, when it seemed to rise up towards his lungs and out his mouth, he could not contain it anymore.


    ¡°You look beautiful,¡± he blurted. In an uncomfortable kind of courage.


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    He couldn''t repeat himself. That¡¯d be too disgraceful. His face blushed. He¡¯d just show it, yeah. He took a deep breath, extended his hand and tried to grab her own.


    She pulled away. His face froze, eyes wide open. His ¡°unconquerable fire¡±, pissing away into smoke and ash.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡±She wasn''t horrified necessarily, more so amused, curious as to how he¡¯d respond.


    His throat was clogged, he formed empty words with his mouth. He wondered, when he found respite from his self conscious thoughts, he wondered how someone so small could make him feel so weak.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Dion fumbled the words.


    ¡°You don''t know how to read the mood do you?¡± She said it with a kind of authority. There was a gap of experience between them, one tallied not by years but by broken hearts. She obviously had many under her belt, obviously.


    ¡°At least you¡¯ve got balls.¡± Her laser gaze scanned over him. His left leg quaked. ¡°I think?¡±


    He slapped his leg to stop it from shaking. He was whispering words, interrupting them with his breathing. He felt like a deep sea diver in a cage, with the lone shark circling. She tried taking a bite.


    :¡±You know if you weren''t so cute I would have left, right?¡± She said.


    ¡°That¡¯s shallow,¡± He mumbled, a quiet rebuttal.


    ¡°Oh? You¡¯re putting up a defense?¡± She laughed. Her voice was deep, hearty.


    ¡°I just thought I''d try,¡± he said.


    ¡°Like so many men before you.¡± She sat on a bench, calm and curious and Dion felt angry for some reason. He didn¡¯t feel wrong, he didn¡¯t feel sick or perverted or ill-intended. But he felt bad, annoyed.


    ¡°Now don''t get mad,¡± She tapped the seat next to her. ¡°I¡¯ve been with a lot of guys who want a lot from me and I just want to know what you¡¯re all about.¡±


    ¡°I get it.¡± He was demure. His eyes fell to the wet floor. ¡°I messed up.¡±


    He couldn¡¯t sit next to her. Or answer her. He turned and started walking towards the crowd. She grabbed the cuff of his shirts.


    ¡°Who said you messed up?¡±


    ¡°I thought?¡± He fidgeted his fingers. ¡°I mean -¡±


    ¡°I said you tried. Poorly. But I like that.¡± She held his hand, her grip was strong. ¡°And I¡¯d like it if you try it again later. When I know you better.¡±


    He wanted to retaliate, a tinge of frustration clung to him. But he felt the warmth again, as he felt something peck his cheek. Something like a bird, a sweet, small songbird perhaps.


    She kissed him. He stared into empty air.


    She smiled. She really was pretty (he thought, and whose other opinion mattered anyway?) and her face was a bit sagged on the left, and one of her eyes was a bit lazy, and she had some funny sharp-shaped teeth. And he loved that. And she was beautiful. And he couldn¡¯t stop thinking that.


    So stupid in love, so stupid in her eyes was he that he could not see the figure. For beauty and love and all good things were blinding, stupefying. He could not see the hooded figure, he could feel the danger and the pressure of the stranger glaring at them. He could not see this person run across the plaza, into an alley, glaring at Stefanie and Dion. He could not.


    He couldn¡¯t look at anything else but Stefanie. Ste-fa-nie. The name made him shiver thrice. Ste-fa-nie. The woman he lost himself into. It was good, in a way, to be hypnotized by the beauty of someone. It was finally good to get out of his head, to feel something warm melt the bitter cold of his soul.

 3

    Apollo rushed into the house. The door slammed into the wall. The knob embedded itself into the cheap wood. His pupils were dilated. The lights were blurry and erratic, like speeding wisps in the night sky. He started following them. Walking, running, into the fridge. The counter, knocking over chairs. He followed the erratic light, until he realized it was just a bulb dead center a slow moving fan. The nun came into the room, eyes open. He turned to her, his eyes wide and his mouth drooping. His hand reached over to touch her stomach, her hips. He got closer. He felt closer. A surreal oneness with her, with the very universe.


    She slapped him across the face.


    "What''s the matter with you?" She asked. He stopped for a while and rested against the sink. His heart, still racing, his artificial happiness, still surging like an electrical shock.


    "Drugged," He blurted like a drunkard. "Feel happy, so happy,"


    He tried to get closer to her. His arm hovered over her chest. She grabbed it and put him in an armbar. It was supposed to hurt. But he couldn''t feel it, though he knew his own arm was bent irregularly And noticing this, his complacency and his drooling smile, she eased. She grabbed his shoulders instead and reared him towards the chair. He plopped down, his hands extending out to touch her again. Smiling, stupid.


    ¡°Lord have mercy on your lewdness," She said. ¡°I¡¯m three times your age for god¡¯s sake.


    "Orange juice." He whispered. She leaned closer to him, her ear towards him.


    ¡°What was that?¡± She asked.


    He tried to reach for a kiss. She hit his hand.


    "Sorry," He said. "Orange juice. Need it. Food too, fatty."


    He held his chest and felt his heartbeat. It was twice as high as it should have been, and he was just sitting, staring at a seventy-five-year-old woman. He didn''t know what hit him worse, the blood loss or the reality of his dumb state. It was difficult, annoying, embarrassing, to be conscious of your high and uninhibited self, to look at yourself from the third person, judging someone you can¡¯t control.


    She looked into the fridge. He turned away from staring at her bottom. She put the carton of orange juice on top of the table. Next to it, a few sticks of butter. He gripped it with one hand, put it against his mouth and with the other, crushed it through the plastic mouth hole. It nearly spilled out of his mouth, like a burst, a fire hydrant.


    "What''s wrong?" She asked.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ¡°Nothing, juice helps with blood loss,¡± He ate the butter next. ¡°Calories help my system, help filter whatever''s in me.¡±


    He extended his hurt leg out. The calf muscles were torn, there was an obvious incision wound. It looked thinner, weaker too. "Drugged. MDMA like substance, demons." He blurted in between drinks.


    "Demons?" She asked. "Here?"


    "Where else?"


    She scratched her head.


    "I looked into those murders, they lead me somewhere...bad. Real bad." He said.


    "You should have taken Dion."


    He stopped, the thought sobered him. He rubbed his head, the images clashing with his sense of happiness. The images of the corpses littered in that little dark enclave, below the trains.


    "No, I shouldn¡¯t have. It''s a good thing he didn''t see what I saw.¡± The images started to return. Only slightly, to a more normal, dull shade."What''s important is that he''s safe and that I make an effort to contain this problem. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s that many creeps left, anyway.¡±


    "What makes you say that?"


    "Because most of them were dead when I found them.¡± He looked at her, smiling. ¡°Asmodai, lord of pleasure. She¡¯s not a demon you covet for power. She¡¯s one you covet to get away. To escape. To indulge. And from my knowledge, only one remains. That I know of, at least.¡±


    "You let one escape?" She screamed.


    "Not by fucking choice." He was glad to be angry. Glad to feel anything other than stupid, drunk fake happiness. "I''ll find it. It couldn''t have been that dangerous, it ran from me after all. If it had any power, it would have fought with the other one and..."


    He thought it over.


    "Well, I shouldn¡¯t jump to conclusions" He rubbed his chin. His irises shrunk. "Whatever it is, I''ll take care of it."


    "Is it another demon?"


    "Maybe, maybe not." He said. "It''s something dangerous, though."


    "How are you going to find it?" She asked.


    "How else? By hunting."


    His hand went across the table, towards hers. They touched fingers. She reeled back.


    "I can''t help myself, sorry." He said.


    "One more move and I''ll break your jaw."


    "I thought you were a nun, understanding and all." He said.


    "Ex-nun," She repeated. ¡°Ex-nun, ex-nun.¡±


    He rubbed his head and drank from his carton. He could feel the lightheadedness leaving. He could feel some semblance of strength returning.


    "Still, whatever I was injected with really fucked me up. I can¡¯t imagine how much worse it would be for normal people." He looked deep into the empty carton, he tipped it over and curved his tongue for the droplets. ¡°I don¡¯t have to imagine that hard actually. I saw what happened to them. Dead, murdered.¡±


    "How many did you see?"


    "I lost count. I tried to look over the corpses but the incoming police and drug were too much. Some of them had slit throats, some of them had puncture wounds. Some of them looked like mummies, completely drained." He said. ¡°Brutal, but I think there couldn¡¯t have been too many murderers. And considering I killed one of the culprits, some shitty slime thing, then I can¡¯t imagine there are many left.


    "And you let one escape, doing god knows what because you were too horny and high to stop it." She screamed. "Imbecile."


    "Doing god knows what, huh.¡± He looked out the window. ¡°If it''s going to kill, we¡¯ll hear about it soon or would have. I don¡¯t think it is too. It had...sense. At least, it was smarter than what¡¯d you typically find. There aren¡¯t many demons with what we would call, intellect. At least none you¡¯d find on earth. Which either means it belongs to a higher echelon of demons. Or¡­¡±


    He stood up.


    ¡°It¡¯s not a demon at all.¡±

 4

    She went to her little house with a twist of the door knob. The neat and orderly and silent house that felt exactly lonely, exactly depressing as she remembered before she left. She missed her sister.


    The bucket dripped to her rear as she looked around to set down her purses and shoes and coat. The home was dark. The lights turned on, a flick of the switch. She walked through, a table hit her rear as she walked through. And it felt like all the niceness of the date, the happy distraction, was wearing out. That it was just a moment, a fake memory, for she couldn¡¯t imagine, as she settled into her sad house with her missing sister, that life was anything but lonely.


    The apartment was big. And she missed the loud banging and screaming and laughing and crying from the top floor.


    She hit a table by accident, a set of Russian dolls fell down. It belonged to her grandmothers, but you wouldn¡¯t tell by how polished Stefanie had made them throughout the year after her death.


    She looked around, there was a plastic film all around the furniture. She moved to the kitchen to find a beer. The fridge door was full of magnetized pictures of herself and her sister. She almost ignored it, after all it had been there for almost a decade now. But upon closing the door and flipping the bottle cap, she noticed something strange. The picture was defaced. There was a hole through the face she was supposed to occupy.


    She shrugged, it was a strange then. It must have ripped and she was too depressed to care. She tried thinking of Dion, then to her job (at a bakery, early morning tomorrow). She tried to think of everything but her sister. And by proxy, the picture too. She sat on one of the sofas. She almost slipped on the plastic. She held herself by a table and cut herself with glass.


    ¡°Ow,¡± She looked at it. A picture frame laid broken.


    She brought it close to her. Again, strange. Creepy, her shoulders shivered. There was another hole here, on her and her grandmother.


    All that remained was Claudia. She turned it around, perhaps to find a clue. As she did, the lights went out.


    "Fucking electricity box." She said in German. She set the picture down and went out, into sloshy snow, around the apartment, and towards an alley. She looked around, noticing, only her section was ruined. She opened the box, nothing was broken.


    ¡°It¡¯s probably the bulb then,¡± She thought. She looked up to her neighbors above. None of them seemed there, none of them reared their heads. They were quiet. The whole world seemed dead.


    It¡¯s a dump of a house, I shouldn¡¯t expect more, she thought. I might be able to afford to leave now.


    To leave her grandma''s things here, to leave Claudia here and to go off. Perhaps towards the city, where there was life.


    Whatever.


    She went back inside, to the lower cabinets, reaching for a candle or two. The sound of her clicking lighter was a comfort, the feeling of the glowing light, even more so. A light warmness, that tickled the tip of her nose.


    She could see, barely, only three feet in front of her. At least she could see. The few lights, even the street lamp, could not reach through the windows and into her building. The light was parsed, cut into sharp lines that tessellated the wood and beige walls. A cat-shaped clocked was cut in half. She could see the sneering smile, like a split Cheshire cat. The candle flickered. Her shoulders shivered again.


    She went into her room. She wanted to look over the accounting, the bills and what not. To frustrate herself, mostly, but now, with the strange isolation about her, she mainly wanted a distraction.


    Whatever.


    The room was dark and simple, a bed lay close to the floor and a mirror-table lay behind her, the glass was cracked. She went to the corner of the room, upon a little work desk to rest the wick and to open a giant lodge with a ribbon bookmarker. She¡¯d have to change everything. Without her sister. Her sister, fuck. She put her head down, she thought of her. She didn¡¯t want to. She kicked her out, of course.


    She lay bent overl lazily on the table, letting the cold air hit the back of her neck, the window that blew through curtains and she dozed off, with her head facing the desk, with her thin sweater hanging loose, with every muscle slowing and easing to gentle sleep.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    She heard the walls banging.


    Above her. On the second floor where her sister''s room once was. She jumped, immediately. She moved her head to where she heard the sound, again. Banging. She ran out (stupid decision), to try and catch someone (but what would she do?).


    She didn''t know why she was so courageous. Perhaps because she didn¡¯t didn¡¯t feel in danger. Perhaps because she thought it was her sister, sneaking in, like a raccoon chasing scraps. And she felt glad. Glad! At the thought. She would yell at her, scream, bully even. But at least Claudia would be here, and the idea that it wasn¡¯t her seemed sad. And frightening.


    She went up the stairs, candle in hand. The wax dripped to her fingers.


    "Claudia," she said. "Let''s talk."


    The candle waned and by the third step to the last, died completely. She tried relighting it. Nothing. The sparks deflected off her flint. The wick wouldn''t budge.


    Whatever.


    She found the room opposite the bathroom, Claudia¡¯s room. Both of them were closed, only one had the scurrying, loud and obvious.


    Or was it?


    She walked up, tapped along the door.


    ¡°Claudia?¡± She asked and looked behind her, towards the bathroom, noticing glass sticking out from underneath the door frame. ¡°Claudia!¡± She banged at her sister''s door upon the sight.


    The door opened.


    And perhaps by the sheer depth of that darkness, the density of it, she did not notice the thing inside. She had to step closer. To feel the pieces of the wardrobe splintered on the floor. The feel the bed springs coil underneath her soles. She looked for her candle again. For the lighter and fumbled it and sparked it and cursed.


    ¡°Fuck, fuck.¡± She lit it.


    She pointed it, to the wall, the sound still scurrying. And all across the room, she saw the dark and grainy and glossy red, the writing on the walls stretching across. The letters, the imagine.


    Why won¡¯t you love me? Why won¡¯t anyone love me? Fuck me, please. Fuck me. Sister dearest, please.


    Her face went cold. What was the tapping? What was the crawling? Something moved up. She pointed the candle. Nothing was there, nothing but a hole. The door closed behind her. She reached for the light switch (Stupid! She knew it didn¡¯t work!). The candle spilled to the floor and died. It sputtered. The scurrying intensified, all around her now, like a mad animal. It was behind the door. No. Above it, slamming from the ceiling. She thought to escape from the window. She thought about it, but the pointed sharp tips of a fence persuaded her. But with the noises...she thought about it again.


    The walls banged. Tears fell down her cheeks, her mouth fumbled for words. It was loud. An intense running, a breathing, like the ceiling was alive. She pushed against the door now.


    ¡°Let me out!¡± She pushed. ¡°Let me the fuck out!¡± German and English blending in her fear.


    And she felt it. Something dropping, like a spider upon the web. Something extending its long limbs down, to the floor. She looked behind her. The curtains moved gently, the light caused an outline of the creature. She couldn¡¯t even speak. Move. She didn¡¯t want to see it, to figure out the details of the humanoid thing. She pushed, finally. The door broke open. The lock went flying. Her shoulder hurt, she didn¡¯t care. She tripped into the main hall. The doors opened and closed all around her.


    ¡°Please, stop!¡± She said to nothing in particular, perhaps the creature breathing behind her. Picture frames flew past her. The windows opened and shut. The house was alive, rattling, screaming at her. And she walked through it. Glass shattered beneath her feet, she walked. The bloody footprints marked her haste, down the stairs, around them. A light bulb crashed down on her forehead. It cut her across the face. She screamed then, still running, one of her eyes couldn¡¯t see past the stream of red.


    She made it to the bottom floor facing the front door. But she had to stop.


    The silhouette, the lanky armed silhouette, that eerie female form. It waited there. In front of the door, in front of the low light of a street lamp, moon perhaps. Stefanie was seized by the scene.


    She wanted to run up. She wanted to run out. She began to think it didn¡¯t even matter. As she saw the figure crawling closer, raising itself as a biped would, but still low and daunting and prepped to leap. She couldn¡¯t tell what it was. The muscle spasms. The sporadic rushing, the fidgeting of limbs told her it was something unnatural. A walking glitch of humanity.


    It¡¯s broken, this thing, It doesn¡¯t move right, She thought. It just doesn¡¯t.


    The limbs twisting on the creature as the very thought came to her attention.


    She walked back in caution. Her back hit the wall. Any pictures remaining fell with her. And the person, resembling her sister, who she knew wasn''t, turned her head. Twisted it like a screw. The neck cracked as it did so. The monstrosity appeared to her, low, inspecting her, inches from her face. She stifled a yelp.


    ¡°Why won''t you talk to me.¡± Claudia, or what was supposed to be Claudia, said. ¡°Why won''t you fuck me like the rest?¡±


    The monster walked back, in reproach, in struggle. Grabbing herself. Hurting herself. Mumbling to herself, let go.


    And whatever struggle there was, did not last long. The creature twisted its head again, a full three hundred and sixty degrees. She held her breast, squeezed it, as a taunt, as a disgrace.


    ¡°Just one little touch. Please, just love me.¡±


    ¡°Get away¡± Stefanie cried. ¡°Get away!¡±


    She started to crawl up the stairs, with all four limbs, desperate, trembling as she took a step.


    ¡°Just love me!¡± She heard the voice morphed and deep and scratchy. She heard it low and near behind her.


    But she wept, alone. Cry, alone. All she could do.


    ¡°No, no!¡± She felt a hand grab her neck. It gripped it hard. It dragged her, her fingers split open, gripping the shattered-glass floor. She gripped harder on the wood floor, her nails chips and broke and scratched and left straight line marks. And she cried, dragged along, carried into the air. And she cried, as she was thrown, straight across the room. And she cried. Until she hit something. Until it stopped hurting. Until the hurt of thinking stopped completely.


    And everything went black.

 5

    The sad part was that Dion didn''t hear the news until a week later when he went to the plaza, the street, the stall and realized she wasn''t there. Even sadder still, he didn''t know where she lived or what her phone number was or really what had even happened.


    Dion learned about Stefanie, late into the week, on a cold morning, reading a five-day-old newspaper. His sleepless nights were well-reasoned, vindicated in a way. And it was sad news, hearing the paper translated through the nun. Even she was depressed about it, though she was a stranger because seeing Dion¡¯s face fall flat as she went down the column of the news clipping invoked her a feeling of helpless drowning.


    ¡°It¡¯s not even headline news, is it?¡± He looked at the paper. It was the sixth page inside. She nodded her head, she didn¡¯t really have much to add. She had explained everything prior, this whole newspaper business was just confirmation.


    ¡°And you''re telling me Apollo knew about this?¡± he asked.


    ¡°He didn¡¯t want to involve you, he was worried about you.¡±


    ¡°Well, now I''m involved.¡± He stood up and went out the door and the nun chased after him. With her hands up asking, screaming at Dion as he ran through the forest, pleading in a way; ¡°Where are you going? Come back here. I can call him!¡±


    She didn¡¯t try running after him, only sighed and closed the door quietly against the harsh winter winds.


    ?


    He went to the hospital of course. To see Stefanie who he hoped was conscious, unlike what the tabloids said.


    He almost had the urge to jump rooftops, to gallop across each pointy, green top. No. It was day, it was better to run at his steady fifty miles per hour pace, through the cracks and alleys of the city where no one could bother or intervene.


    When he made it to the hospital, he did not pause to breath and walked up to the glass doors, past the counter and towards a stairway leading to the dormitories of the sick. Two nurses came to stop him, it was then that he had the opportunity to wipe his sweat and breath out his sticky shirt.


    ¡°I¡¯m here to see Stefanie,¡± He said.


    ¡°Are you family?¡±


    ¡°No. I¡¯m a close friend, real close.¡±


    ¡°Do you know her last name?¡±


    He exhaled like a dying animal. ¡°No,¡± It escaped him like a whine. ¡°No, I don¡¯t.¡±


    The nurses looked at each other, he already knew the answer from their faces. They said it, they told him what he could do and could not. They told him, briefly, about her current health status, as a compromise. It didn¡¯t help. She was still in a coma. The news was visibly unbearable, doctors stopped by Dion, thinking he was sick himself. It was almost as if they wanted to admit him. They would have if there was a wound to match his wincing face, his crying eyes. But his suffering was just that, abstract, real but invisible. It was the feeling of sinking. Of limb limbed drowning.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± One of the nurses came by, she had poor English. ¡°But we can¡¯t let you in.¡±


    He left. Outside, to his rear, the cigarette smoke of agitated surgeons. Further beyond, police cars waiting to question the unconscious girl. A stray reporter and her satellite topped van. All of it, noise. His nose was still runny. His body, a bit weak. But he began to focus, to zero-in on something, anger. It was good to have that clear vision amongst the murky fog of his concerned imaginations.


    He had to go back to settle it. To run through those same crevices and cracks and alley, this time with even less caution or care, a certain lack of inhibition that let him bump and push people aside and to turn stalls over and to run so fast that not even the police could be dialed before he was gone. It was that kind of pace, that head throbbing pace.


    He slammed the door open again. He walked inside and looked for him, his eyes scanning left to right. He was there. Waiting, center in the kitchen. They both locked eyes and intuitively knew what would happen next. He grabbed Apollo by the neck.


    ¡°What the fuck is going on?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Why didn''t you tell me?¡±


    ¡°Tell you what? I haven''t been in this house for more than ten minutes and you already want to rip my head off.¡± he reached for Dion''s hand. He must have forgotten he was missing a limb because only his amputated lump moved. Dion pressed him deeper against the sink. The metal bent. It snapped. Apollo¡¯s face tightened and he balanced himself against Dion, like bulls, butting heads.


    ¡°You didn''t tell me about her. You didn¡¯t tell me about the cult. The dead!¡± he felt the saliva spill out of them. ¡°Why. Didn''t. You. Tell me.¡±


    He shook his body at even intervals. Apollo head-butted him. He kicked him back. Dion felt his feet drag across the floor, screeching, before he hit the other side. He recovered, facing up, with his knees tightened, looking at Apollo. He steadied himself, primed himself to tackle and ran. As fast as possible, saying nothing to each save for grunts and cruel glares. Their shoulders almost touched, they were a foot away from each other. Almost there, Dion thought, almost.


    He felt something grab him by the back of his neck. Something that raised him high into the air and that flipped him onto the floor until his bent back was dug deep into the floorboard below. His steady breathing ceased, he gasped.


    The nun walked in front of his vision, now just a blur of light and shades of the different complexions on the nun¡¯s gaunt, crimson eyes. She hovered over him, he saw from the corner of his eyes, Apollo on the floor too. Laying there, coughing.


    ¡°Why don''t you to explain yourselves?¡± She asked. In a tone both severe and annoyed. ¡°I don¡¯t want any more fights in here, do you understand me?¡±


    He nodded as if to say, yes ma¡¯am.


    ?


    ¡°That''s how it is,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I inspected the place, I didn¡¯t think there was a connection with your girl until you mentioned it just now.¡±


    Dion sat in his chair, neck curbed back at the spine of the seat. He looked at the slow moving fan above, the two dangling chords that waved around.


    "I didn''t know who she was or what she did or how she got hurt," Apollo said.


    "So it was just chance," Dion said. "Random chance. Fate."


    "No," Apollo stood up from his chair. He looked at the nun and at the outskirts of the city where the brick walls lorded over them with their wide shadows. He rubbed his strained neck. "I don''t believe in coincidences."


    "What are you trying to say?"


    "That we should go out and investigate where she got crippled to see what we can find. A clue perhaps, on the whereabouts or identity of the perpetrator."


    He rubbed his nose bridge.


    "This always happens because of us," He said. "We always bring trouble here."


    "Stop," Apollo said. "Evil exists with or without our consent. It¡¯s not prejudiced, it doesn¡¯t care. If shining a light made those cockroaches come out, then so be it. We¡¯ll use it as a good opportunity to smite the fuckers."


    Dion stood up, his shoulders slumped.


    ¡°Why are you so righteous? I thought you hated helping people.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve changed, I can say that I think,¡± He looked away, staring deeply into the window with the frost covered edges. ¡°There¡¯s an ambition in me that wants answers. Can you understand that?¡±


    He felt a burning sensation where his pocket bible laid, in his back pockets.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Dion said. ¡°I can¡¯t believe this is happening though.¡±


    "It¡¯s been happening for a while now,¡± The nun said, standing by the door frame leading into the living room.


    "I knew this vacation wasn¡¯t free. I just wish the Leper would have told us ahead of time," Apollo laughed underneath his breath. "It¡¯s not too bad at least.¡±


    "Are you still dumb and drunk?¡± The nun asked.


    "You don¡¯t feel it? There¡¯s a thrill to these kinds of hunts." He smiled.


    "I don¡¯t have a taste for these things anymore," Dion said. "I just want some peace for Stefanie."


    "And I want some peace of mind too. Closure, if it even exists." Apollo looked for a jacket. Something to cover the simple cotton sweater underneath his clothes.


    "We should get started," Apollo said.


    "I still have questions." Dion turned to Apollo


    "Like?" Apollo opened the door. The wind wafted through and blew a cold gust at them all. Small particles of snow approached the lacquered floorboards, crawling into the kitchen.


    "I want to know why you didn''t trust me. Why didn''t you let me help you?" He rubbed his neck, it felt cold.


    "Because I didn''t trust you," Apollo said, rather bluntly. His face showed no remorse. "You''re still fucked in the head with the last bout with Astyanax. You''ve only barely begun to speak and to emotionalize properly. How was I supposed to just lay all this neatly on you? Look at you, you ran across the city twice in your fury, casually even."


    "I¡¯m only this bad because you didn¡¯t tell me earlier." He felt the rush of anger again through his veins.


    "Maybe. Maybe not. You didn¡¯t see what I saw, you can¡¯t say that." Apollo said. "I don¡¯t trust you right now, and you won¡¯t change my mind. But I can¡¯t stop you at this point, given the circumstances. So try and behave."


    Dion stayed quiet. He wasn¡¯t wrong, it hurt him to admit it. But he had to protest, even if slightly.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    "How are we supposed to be partners if you don''t trust me?"


    "If it makes you feel better," Apollo started to walk. "I don''t trust anyone."


    The plainness was something Dion admired. The simplicity of his militant nature. Apollo walked forward, leading into the cold, raging wind, leading through the inches of snow sticking to their shoes, sticking to their hair and their eyebrows and their teeth. The melted, cold snow upon their tongues that broke and chapped their lips. Lips that healed, only to break again.


    Their direction, simple. To the heart of the city.


    ?


    "Hurry," Dion said. "Every second we waste is a second that thing has to run around."


    "Yeah,¡± Apollo wafted through the yellow tape. ¡°I get it.¡±


    They went up the side of the building (there was a police car outside, not too close, hanging by the edge of the block) and up the emergency ladder to a closed window. Apollo stuck his nails, then fingers and broke it open. The glass cracked. The wood scratched. He set foot inside, pushing debris outside.


    He touched the floor. The shrapnel of tile and wood displaced Apollo¡¯s leg. He almost slipped but caught himself barely on the sink lip. He realized there was hair on it, long strands of it like spider web.


    ¡°Shh,¡± Dion said. Apollo glared at him.


    ¡°Good thing is,¡± Dion said. ¡°I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anyone here.¡±


    ¡°You keep talking and someone will be.¡± He grunted and they went through the house, the walls were ruptured and loose plaster fell down by fistful sizes. The door hinges croaked, upon the entrance of the bathroom and the bedroom across. All across the floor, they saw the chalk outline, the specimens highlighted by special markers, white outlines and yellow tapes and little cards with numbered exhibits. Apollo went around them, into the bedroom, below more yellow tape. Inside, the profanities. Walls scribbled with red. Infantile and cruel literature littering the walls. Bedrooms broken, cabinets thrown out and embedded into the walls.


    Apollo to the center of the room, beyond a collection of clothes decorating the floor into a patchwork flag of tight tank tops and black brassieres.


    ¡°What?¡± Diane said.


    A piece of ceiling landed on Apollo¡¯s face, more did, grey and brown like metal filings. Or ash. Dion looked up, to what Apollo watched. There was a giant hole blown open. The wood beams hung downwards.


    ¡°I¡¯m trying to imagine,¡± Apollo said. ¡°It must have used this to wander the house unnoticed. A little tunnel system.¡±


    ¡°It must have come down from this hole,¡± His finger followed the imaginary perpetrator, down the hole, to the center of the room, out the door where the footprints and chalk circles were at. ¡°And it ran out. Presumably, to chase after the victim.¡±


    ¡°I think the police did most of the work for you there.¡±


    Apollo jumped and dug his nails into the cheap plywood acting as ceiling. He held onto a beam, his fingers like fine nails in the wood. His feet dangled as he held himself.


    ¡°What are you looking for?¡± Dion screamed, he shouldn¡¯t have. Apollo hushed him. He repeated again, this time in a whisper.


    ¡°I¡¯m looking to see if there was another hole if it got here from the upper floor. I don¡¯t see one though.¡±


    ¡°Then she came through the windows, like us.¡± He said. ¡°The bathroom was messed up, after all.¡±


    ¡°But the windows weren¡¯t. I don¡¯t think they were even touched. I think we were the first people to crack that glass.¡± Apollo came down and started pacing himself up and down the hall, down and up the stairs, and through the main room where another hole appeared. One that, upon inspection, led to a small boiler room on the top floor. He nodded his head and stood in the door frame, in that same moonlight he imagined the perpetrator stood in, with that same kind of ambitious hunger and aggression. He punched his leg.


    ¡°Look at this? This is all destroyed when it chased after Stefanie,¡± Apollo said. ¡°It wasn¡¯t before. The kitchen looks fine, most of the house looks fine save for the path of destruction. Why would a demon give a shit about keeping a house as neat as possible, about preserving it? Why wouldn¡¯t it just break the glass panes or blow up the wall or slam the doors down?¡±


    ¡°Who knows? Maybe she just knocked,¡± Dion laughed.


    ¡°Just knocked?¡± Apollo slanted his head and looked at the doorway. ¡°Maybe it just came in with the key to the door.¡±


    ¡°How would that work?¡±


    ¡°You tell me, why would this thing have a key, let alone use it, let alone known how to use it.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a lot you¡¯re accusing. This thing had some semblance of intelligence, a key or access to the house. What are you suggesting and where is your evidence.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve got no evidence, it¡¯s all intuition.¡± He ran up again. This time ignoring the yellow tape, letting it fall below his feet. ¡°It must have ran upstairs, walked right through the front door.¡±


    ¡°I remember it, it was afraid of me. Why wouldn¡¯t it be afraid now?¡± He followed the imaginary perpetrator, into the first bedroom. Claudia¡¯s. ¡°Stefanie must have entered the house, no, she must have just been near it, just outside, maybe this thing heard the car engine or something. And it dug a hole straight up, out of fear. This demon panicked.¡±


    ¡°Demon¡¯s don¡¯t panic like this,¡± Dion said. "Not for a human woman, at least."


    ¡°They¡¯re usually not smart enough to panic either unless they¡¯re Commanders or Dominions or Princes.¡±


    Dion gulped.


    ¡°We¡¯re dealing with a prince? A Dominion? A Principality?¡± The titles reminded him of those terrible sketches in the handbooks. The dreadful pictures of plagues and wars and torture and devil, the trumpets of death that rang for those demons with those careful, dreadful titles.


    ¡°No, don¡¯t be ridiculous. If it was anything that strong, I wouldn¡¯t be here..¡± He said. ¡°Hell, I don¡¯t even think it¡¯s a demon we¡¯re dealing with.¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s definitely not a thief.¡±


    ¡°Oh, it is,¡± Apollo said. ¡°It¡¯s a kind of thief. We¡¯re dealing with a possession, a thief of the human body. Of the soul, even.¡±


    ¡°Please back up these wild claims.¡± Dion sighed. ¡°Of who, how?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s find out.¡±


    He ran up the stairs and towards.


    ¡°Hey! Say something!¡± Dion chased after him, his footsteps sinking into the floor. He noticed markings of nails, it made him feel sad for some reason. Angry, too. Mostly angry.


    Apollo walked in front, his eyes looking over the room, scanning over the bed with the spring coils hanging out like torn muscles, with the cotton ripped out like organs. He began throwing and knocking and turning over furniture.


    "This room was important. It¡¯s the one with writing on it, the only one. It¡¯s the one most damaged." Apollo said. Dion turned over furniture and scraps of wreckage if just to keep himself busy.


    ¡°What are we looking for?¡± Dion asked.


    He went for the table, to the pictures laying on the surface of it. A shattered picture of Stefania, of Claudia too.


    "Did she ever tell you of anyone important in your life?" Apollo asked.


    "No, she didn''t. She made it an issue for me to even question things, actually."


    "Good," Apollo said. "That definitely means she had something wrong going on."


    He raised the picture up to his face.


    "There were three people living here?" Dion asked. He pointed to the grandmother behind the frame.


    "I don''t think so, we''d be dealing with another injured body. Probably a dead one, given her age." Apollo said. He gave the picture to Dion. "Is she older now than what she looks like in the photo?"


    "Yeah, she looks like a teenager here. She has to be at least ten years older, maybe a bit more."


    Apollo grabbed it back. He undid the back to see for any writing. Nothing, not a scrawl. He went more so towards the back of the room, near the closet.


    "What are you looking for?"


    ¡°Evidence for a profile I¡¯ve been ruminating over.¡± He threw a small teddy bear over his shoulder. ¡°Did I tell you where I first met this monster?¡±


    "No."


    "A sex club"


    "I didn''t know you were into those types of things," Dion said.


    "No, mindless fucking bores me. I¡¯d rather masturbate, honestly.¡± Dion fake gagged at the thought. ¡°I went there following a lead, expecting trouble, getting trouble. A whole lot of it. Fifty corpses worth of it.¡±


    ¡°Sad to say, and what does this have to do with our perpetrator?¡±


    ¡°Our perpetrator was in a sex club. it was probably a member.¡±


    ¡°So you think...this persons room, is the room of our perp?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m just looking for evidence now.¡±


    He went through the clothes of the closet, mundane things like jackets and ripped pants and a few accessories sitting in an ornate purple box, with a butterfly for a lock. He turned it around, held it against the light and threw it away. The closet was deep, it took a while for him to situated himself amongst the faux leather jackets... And he found...nothing. Nothing abnormal, nothing extreme like he saw at the club. Nothing. He took a step out his way out. Would have, but he stepped on something. Something that fidgeted when he walked over it, something unstable.


    "Oh?" Apollo looked down. A neat carpet rug laid across the floor of the closet. He rolled the topographic carpet and pushed it aside.


    "Well, shit." He put his face down to the floor. He felt a draft. "I can see why the police might of missed it. There''s no latch."


    "I don''t see a secret button either-"


    Apollo smiled. He dug his fist through the floor, the wood scraped his cheeks as he dug out the floorboard one by one.


    "What''s worth hiding down here?" His hand searched the dusty gap, the cloud passed his face. A little satchel was below, he threw the contents of it onto the floor in front of him. There was some white powder, some yellow pills, a syringe. He had an idea of what it all was. This was one half and him, hungry, almost foaming like the mad dog himself, kept digging. His whole body went into the floorboards, the upper half at least. And he came out, smiling, both hands still inside.


    ¡°What?¡± Dion asked. His arms stretched up like a fisherman proud of his keep. He raised his catch, a whip and what looked like a corset with the breasts portions cut out. With high, black heels. Rope. There was more, gags and other luxurious things.


    "We found our freak," Apollo said.


    "You''re accusing someone based on their sexual expression, that''s a bit of a reach, don''t you think," Dion said.


    "No, I''m matching the description with the person. What we know is that someone was possessed," Apollo said. "And this possessed person was a patron of sex clubs and other deviant places, whose obvious lusts and passions have expressed themselves in violence. A woman who came home from a sex club, who, startled, attacked her own sister. Not before she terrorizing her, of course. Probably hating her too, maybe loving her in a way..."


    His voice withered near the end. He leaned back.


    "I¡¯m going to guess that your girlfriends sister didn¡¯t like her that much. Or maybe she loved her too much, it¡¯s hard to tell.¡± He slicked his hair back, his bang moved down his face. "Sex is the ultimate expression of all desire and fear, after all. It¡¯s hard to tell what kind of deranged thoughts passed over a murderous nymphomaniac.¡±


    "Why''d she do it?"


    "Who knows exactly?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°All I know is that she probably slammed your girlfriend. Crippled her, like the papers said.¡±


    "She''s not my girlfriend." Dion said.¡±But it wouldn¡¯t matter if she was or wasn¡¯t. I¡¯m finishing this. Give me an address. Something, anything. Where would this thing go next.¡±."


    "Hmm," Apollo said. "Hard to tell. There''s a lot of places a possessed soul can go to. Usually, though, they haunt locations that were meaningful to them once. Like a ghost, a haunting ground.."


    Apollo walked over a counter, past a little puddle of broken glass, into a picture frame. There were three girls, two young, one old. Only one face remained, the other two were cut through. The one he had taken out of the two girls and of the grandmother. He went down, looking at more pictures, rubbing his face as he did so.


    "We''ll be looking all across town for her. We''ll never get here at this rate." Dion said.


    "No," Apollo stuck his fingers through the glass and retrieved the photos. He collected them in a line, upon a table. "We can narrow it down. We know she was a deviant and a junkie. Where do junkies and deviants hang out¡­¡±


    ¡°Great, you narrowed it down to every dark alley and damp sewer.¡±


    ¡°Well, we can go club hopping. We might find her.,¡± Apollo smiled.


    ¡°Stop joking around.¡±


    ¡°Tell me, why does someone take up drugs? And why would that same abuser roam sex clubs?¡±


    ¡°Addiction? I don¡¯t know?¡±


    ¡°To run away, of course.¡±


    ¡°From?¡±


    ¡°A problem, at home. Guilt, perhaps. She was trying desperately to escape something or someone.¡±


    He picked up a picture of the grandmother, or what he presumed to be the grandmother. It was written as such behind the signed photo, and the limbs of the woman in the picture were old and discolored and saggy.


    ¡°The evidence is in the fact that she was possessed, at all, of everyone in that club. A demon yearns for kin. That¡¯s how they form their ranks, that¡¯s how they¡¯ve populated Hell. Misery enjoys the company of the miserable, so on and so forth.¡± He said. ¡°She was miserable. No doubt, and her possession itself is evidence of it. She was trying to escape something.¡± He went to the cabinets by the kitchen. Bills, mountains of them, came out like a shoot past Apollo. On it, phone bills, internet, rent, so on and so forth. He spread out the papers across the floor and table.


    ¡°It¡¯s a funeral service,¡± Apollo said, a hint of joy. ¡°Their grandmother died recently.¡±


    He immediately began stripping the papers, looking for an address perhaps, a phone number. A name.


    To the relatives of Anja Schmidt. His fingers started to fumble, his brain started to process everything like a completed film. Whether it was true or not, the machinations of his imagination had already begun to spin and turn and churn and crush every factoid into wild images. It felt like he was losing sense of time and place like he had escaped his own consciousness and very thoughts and now existed in a separate vantage, a plane higher, looking down at himself.


    ¡°Say...¡± He almost salivated. ¡°People deal with tragedy different ways, don¡¯t you think, Dion?¡±


    Dion looked, a bit scared. ¡°S-sure.¡±


    ¡°We need to find Anja Schmidt.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s dead.¡±


    ¡°Good job, genius,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And where would you find a corpse?¡±


    ¡°In a jar or a tomb or¡­¡± He felt a bit of that electrical epiphany Apollo had on his wide grinning face. ¡°A graveyard.¡± He said.


    Apollo repeated, a graveyard.

 6

    ¡°Vielen Danke,¡± Apollo said. The florist handed him the bundle of lilies. He looked over the flowers and inspected each one, some red, some white, all them bulbous and without bloom, with nothing so much as a few strands that stuck out.


    "What are we doing here?" Dion asked. "We have something to deal with and it''s getting late."


    "Good," Apollo said. "We''ll meet her there then when no one is around to get hurt."


    "But how are you sure she¡¯s there? At the graveyard."


    "Possessed people don''t stray far from their emotional attachments. Think of the demon or spirit as an influencer, not necessarily a total body control.¡±


    "That still doesn''t excuse the fact that we''re wasting time buying flowers."


    "Stop being so hasty," Apollo said. "We''re doing an exorcism. Exorcisms require patience, preparation. You''ve studied them before, right?"


    "Sure. I have a bottle of holy water with me too." Dion brandished his glass flask.


    "Holy water won¡¯t do shit," Apollo said. "That¡¯s Hollywood shit. We¡¯re dealing with Asmodai, with one of her followers and we need to come prepared.."


    "So..." Dion repeated. "We¡¯re buying flowers?"


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s right.¡± Apollo brushed people aside. He held the dozen in his bosom, the flowers half-asleep, half-open and lazy and dead this late in the year. ¡°Lillies are a symbol of chastity. And they¡¯ll make a powerful conductor for the ceremony, a means to seal away or separate the two.¡±


    He handed them to Dion.


    ¡°I need you to bless these. You remember how to do that, right?¡±


    "It''s been a while," Dion said.


    ¡°I know it¡¯s not really fair asking this of you. You¡¯re the least chaste person I know. You always manage to stick your dick into something, you¡¯re a horny bastard. But please, please, at least pretend to be celibate and make sure you get the prayers and the holiness and all that light of God shit sorted out. I really need you to bless these flowers, you hear me?¡±


    He rolled his eyes at the words. But stopped, perhaps he really was that bad. He clenched the stems of the flowers, ruffled the plastic and nearly broke the stems.


    ¡°This would be a lot easier if you could trust me.¡± He said, rather bitter.


    "Now''s not the time to act like a drama queen."


    "I''m just asking because it¡¯s really hard for me to follow orders and to do my job when you criticise me at every move. I need you to trust me."


    "I trust you enough," Apollo said. "That''s as good as it''s going to get. Don''t push it."


    He sighed.


    ¡°And here¡¯s how it¡¯s going to get¡­¡± He leaned into his ear, they waded through the crowds who looked at them curiously, for in their faces was the look of schemers.


    ?


    They made it to the graveyard a few minutes before midnight. The metal gates were blocked off, and they jumped past the pointed, black metal tops, onto the cold, icy floor. Midget pine trees, no larger than five feet were sparse across the winding path. An angel loomed over their wings, to their rear, immediately from the entrance. Some trees, with dead leaves, pattered as if in conversation with their other dead leaved neighbors. Whispering about the two trespassers, about the strange dark night.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    It felt like the ghosts were here, upon the cool and calm breezes, upon the low mist of the path in front of them. Ghosts, who draped them with the spectral white, who tried to stop them from continuing onto the path with intermittent gusts of winter wind.


    They walked ahead, towards the grave that Apollo had informed Dion about on. They noticed no one, it was late after all, but not even a groundskeeper. Dion, who kept his lips shut until now, whose low face was focused upon the flowers in his hands now loose and shaky.


    "Are you done?" Apollo asked.


    "Sort of," Dion opened his eyes, a bead slipped from his hand. "I lost count of how many I''ve done. It''s been a while,"


    "It¡¯s as good as it¡¯s going to get" Apollo undid his sleeve instinctively. "God, I wished I had my gadgets. Not even a fucking sword."


    They stopped at the grave. A tall coating of white snow had covered the top. The writing on the slab was fresh, next to it, three marks like the scratching of long-nailed beasts. On the floor below, the snow had been tossed and shoveled with bare hands. The stones were turned over, still rolling left and right like a tortoiseshell. Apollo knelt down to inspect the area.


    "You stay here and prepare the seal. I''m going to go find her."


    "Hey," Dion grabbed his shoulder. "Don''t kill her."


    "Weren¡¯t you just complaining about our trust issues? I¡¯ve got this, don¡¯t worry." Apollo smiled. Was it even his own smile though? "I won''t kill her."


    He started walking.


    "Don''t hurt her either," Dion screamed.


    "Can¡¯t promise that." He waved away.


    He skirted along the path, past the drooping and slanted tombstones. Bumping into statues and lids and small pantheons for the long dead. It wasn''t a large graveyard, thankfully. But he kept thinking, as the cold and darkness encroached, as the lights flashed and flickered, he thought, where is the gravekeeper. He went past a wooden bench. Lights were set along the feet of the paths like small tikis. He must have taken three out with his clumsy gait.


    The graveyard darkened. The electricity died. The little lamps low to the floor strobed. He looked down, to the fluctuation of fluorescence. To lights, shutting on and off, like a warning for shipwreck. The bulbs popped. He leaned back, instinctively. Though, no one came. To repair the fixtures, or to witness.


    Apollo turned on his cellphone and began to dial. He heard a dead beep.


    He stopped walking. The cold seemed bitter here, like water even with the way it infiltrated every crevice of his clothes and made a layer of thin cold around him. It was numbing. Maybe worse, as if the cold was in itself a conscious entity. A cold, living, short-breathed astral entity. There was rustling in the woods. A bush began to shake. His first instinct, a flash of his red eyes. His second voice in his head, screaming at him, kill, kill, kill. Ready. Ready?


    "Shut up," He had to audibly tell it, the voice of Astyanax. He walked closer. His feet tiptoeing to the source of the rustling. Snow went up his pants. He straightened and tightened his bomber jacket. He fitted his black hat firmly on his head. He breathed once, then out. The long cloud of white came out of him. With it, all comfortable warmth. He moved his hand towards the branches. Hesitated. He pushed them aside.


    A man laid there, squirming, in pain. He held his shoulder that bled and froze midway down to his stomach, a large gush. His pants were undone, his penis lay flaccid and...worsened than his shoulder.


    "What happened here?" The man was half-blinded, with a cut on his left eye and the other skidding aimlessly in his skull out of confusion. His arms flailed about like an infant, trying to find a face to attach the voice too. He cried like one too, not that Apollo blamed him. He couldn''t stop shaking, coughing, fidgeting. His sweat and blood coalescing to a thin, pink shower across his neck and face.


    "Geist. Geist!" He screamed.


    Apollo understood it, at least the fear behind the words. The voice in his head again spoke, kill him, he won''t survive. He knows your voice. And Apollo, shaking his head, ripped a piece of his jacket and wrapped it around his shoulder. He looked down, to where he was nude. Circumstance had killed his disgust or shame, he had to see if he was injured. The man was dying after all. He inspected the wound with calculated patience. He sighed, it was just a lesion on his thigh. Thinking, grateful, thank god it wasn¡¯t his dick. As if a kind of small victory in itself.


    Again, he ripped some cloth and began to form his small knot around the thigh. The man gasped, squirmed in pain and slapped his chest.


    "Hold on, you idiot," Apollo said. "I''m trying to be a nice guy here."


    He kept slapping his shoulder. Screaming, foaming, "Geist! Geist!"


    ¡°Huh?¡± Apollo thought. His neck became sensitive. His pores exposed.


    He realized it that instant, staring at the reflection on the gravekeeper¡¯s eyes, what he meant with those words, geist. For in those eyes he saw the figure, fast approaching him. The puss-filled face of the ¡®Geist¡¯, reflected from the innocent blue eyes of the gravekeeper. He turned around. Saw her, only for an instant, like a thin monster. He put his hand up. Air escaped him. The pain surged through his body and he looked to its source: three nails shot straight through his elbow.

 7

    He felt her nails cut through his bone, straight through the forest that was his nervous system, the veins, the sprawling web of that jolted him with the visceral feeling: electricity, a hot shock up his arm and through his body. Blood slid down, dripping from his elbow He kicked her away, the wound worsened as her arm released and squirted out onto the cold snow. He felt the heat rise up his nose. Across, having hit a statue of the Virgin Mary, she waited, low and prone, with smoke exhuming from her crazed smile-driven mouth. She was half naked, half exposed, her garments ripped from one side of her breast to another.


    "Please, come closer," she said. "Don¡¯t play hard to get"


    He couldn''t understand her in German. He was thankful he couldn''t. Behind him, the man was wheezing but he could not turn his head. His eyes were transfixed on her.


    "You fucked him and then tried killing him, I''m guessing," She looked around, her eyes a nice yellow sheen. Her head was crooked. Her movements were sporadic, strange, like a walking seizure.


    "You know, a part of me still wasn¡¯t sure what you were all about. But seeing you like this, well that just confirms it." He looked at his arm, where the blood rushed out. He walked around her. Droplets of red marked the circle tread. The steam from his regenerative cells had already begun, a few seconds later he was done, his arm restored saved for a stubborn scar.


    "What demon do you serve?" He said in Latin.


    "Leave, heart-eater." It responded back, in what he understood to be well-spoken Latin. So it knew the mother tongue, he thought. That¡¯s a good sign for a possession.


    He smirked. He didn''t know why perhaps it was the secondary entity inside of him. The residual form of that monster, Astyanax. And in a way, it was proper. To have two subjugated hosts of two different uncontrollable monsters go at it.


    But maybe it wasn¡¯t Astyanax. Maybe it was Apollo, happy now, that he had an answer to the brief mystery.


    He walked forward, he was not ready for a fight, not dressed for one, but he welcomed it still. Dressed like a tramp or not, he flexed his legs.


    His arm extended forward as if to lunge.


    "You¡¯re very lucky.." He smiled. ¡°I can¡¯t kill you.¡± His toes pulled him inches closer to her.


    She smiled at him. Screamed. Her voice a kind of morphed, blaring siren as it went forward. He dug his feet into the floor, his heel into cement. She felt on him. He was pushed back, the rock shot out from underneath his foot.


    He grunted. Spun, threw her. Her body shot towards a tombstone. The gravesite, ruined. The rock laid halved and spinning in the air before it stabbed into the snow floor. He felt sad for whoever had died there, in that spot now resembling a meteor crater. He breathed heavily. The snow screen cleared up, and for a short time, he thought sincerely, that he had won.


    She shot out.


    Faster than he expected, he tried ducking but she managed to rip a piece of his flesh off, his shoulder. She turned, faster than he could recover. Her arms wrapped around him, her legs and thighs squeezed his head. She meant to choke him. He tried to pry himself open. She kept twisting, crushing. He felt his throat compress, the interior walls collapsing and it felt like two fights. One against the very real python now twisting his top. The other, more argumentative, the fight to stop himself from killing her. He thought about stabbing his arm through her stomach. The image, enticing. The enticement, disgusting. No, he told himself. ¡°No.¡± He screamed. He got low, Apollo looked around, his eyes almost popped out from their sockets. He searched fdor the nearest object: a wall, the ferns of bonnie plants pocketed about. He ran towards it, screaming, feeling the blood leak from his eyes and nose.


    He slammed her into the wall, and himself. His head rattled, she weakened with each blow against the wall. He continued, on and on, until he almost went into it. By then, she had let go, her shoulder crushed. He slowly rose, watching her crawl away.


    "I understand, you''re putting up a great fight," Apollo said. ¡°But there¡¯s no hope in this realm for you, take your punishment with stride. Why make things more difficult?¡±


    He walked up to her (it, rather).


    "Kill me then," The creature said in Latin. "Try it, kill me." It laughed. It grabbed its shoulder and snapped the bone back into place, without any care for the woman it controlled.


    A lack of pain receptors, Apollo thought.


    It grabbed its limp hand. Apollo thought nothing of it, a gesture from a losing foe, nothing more. Until it pointed it towards its own neck.


    His eyes widened. He ran toward her (it). He threw out his arm, a kind of shield. She had tried slitting her own throat. He felt his skin shredded through, the monster biting him, stabbing him all at once.


    ¡°You really don¡¯t care, do you?¡±


    ¡°The girl wants it too.¡± It said, with pride too. Joyous pride.


    He wrapped his arm around her as she bit. He grabbed her through the snow, leaving the crooked trail from her flailing legs.


    He was close, he could see Dion some tombstones away, past a frozen, pale road.


    "Come on, pretty boy." She screamed. ¡°Make this fun. Fuck me, fuck me.¡±


    Her voice, somewhat sad, somewhat authentic. Perhaps it was both speaking now.


    "Why won''t you fuck me, come on." Her voice becoming lighter, sweeter even. "What''d I do wrong, please. How¡¯d I mess up this time?."


    She slipped in German.


    "Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯re getting rid of whatever you have," He said. "So please, try to be polite and still.."


    The demon began to puncture its own face, Claudia''s. Apollo had to wrap his arm around her to make her stop. He lifted her. The legs kicking, stepping down on Apollo, crushing his toe nails. He felt his shin almost collapse inward. He kept marching. Dion¡¯s face appeared beyond a little hump of neat, blocky, shrubs. He looked studious, busy, as he fixed the totem. Apollo approached, mad woman in hand. A little circle of flower petals was made, a small sheet of glass-textured holy water was frozen at the center. A bible in his hands (the ruined one, the only one he had). He began to lick through pages.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    "Are you done?" Apollo screamed.


    "Bring her to the center," Dion screamed back.


    "That¡¯s a little hard." Apollo took two steps. He felt an elbow hit his face. His nose broke. The bone shards stabbed him and he took a moment to blow out the blood from his nose. A moment she took, to hit him in the back of the head, as he was leaned away.


    She head butted him from behind. Apollo waddled back, holding his face. The demon reached for Dion, who clung to his bible, who read steadily without a drop of a word. Apollo grabbed her by the hips, brought up and above his head, and slammed her down behind him. A suplex, straight into the dirty snow, into white mist. Apollo felt his head rattled, he stood, wiping the snow from his hair.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me I killed her?¡± He looked around for the woman, who in the smoke and mist of snow, had disappeared.


    He wished he had killed her.


    ¡°I thought church boys were supposed to be nice." It spoke. In a voice contorted, but oddly feminine. "Sympathetic."


    He couldn''t tell what direction it came from. Snow and mist covered his vision, it grew thicker. He saw footsteps on the floor. He turned. The image was gone, from his right he felt a blow against his head. He stuttered.


    "What do you know of my pain though? What do you know about killing? About killing the people you love?" He looked again to the direction. From behind, another blow to the head.


    His eyes felt pushed out of his skull, she had a strength of the inhuman kind. He could feel his legs go weak. Dion paused just to spectate, then, worried, kept going at his book.


    "What do you know about living a life that you don''t deserve? To lose everything and to sell yourself, the little that remains."


    Again, from below, his chin vibrated from the sharp pain of an uppercut. He tried reaching for the arm of the girl who leapt back into the veil of mist, he barely caught a finger, a finger that dislocated as it went back into the cover.


    "Do you know what I was worth? Hmm? Ten bucks a man, baby.¡± She said. ¡°I just fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It¡¯s all I know, it¡¯s all I¡¯m worth don¡¯t you see? My sister knew it. Grandma knew it¡­that¡¯s what they hated about me. That¡¯s what pushed me.¡±


    More taunting, more sinister. The voice changed, once again, to something grossly raspy. A voice, deep, without that sweet timbre of womanhood.


    His head shook, searching. The voice kept going, laughing. And after a while, he stopped trusting it all together. Closing his eyes, letting his breath ease into calm. He trusted nothing, not the footsteps on the floor, not the sound of movement. He trusted nothing but the feeling of cold and the feeling of air pushing in and out, of air cutting from the wide swing of the woman. He snapped. He turned to face the feeling of the woman. He made himself small, at the center of the storm of mist, with nothing to him but the vain feeling of danger. He waited. Dion kept chanting. He heard footsteps but did not turn. The echoing laughter rang out, but he did not listen. He felt death upon his neck, the cold winter breath, but did not think.


    He turned. Immediately, behind him. Towards Dion, the fingers of the girl reached for his neck. He jumped. The snow pushed behind his footsteps and he clutched her by the hand, twisting her wrist. He pushed her leg in and used her momentum, flipping her again, over his shoulder, straight into the grave plot of her grandmother. Straight through the center of the lillies and the cold stain of holy water. She looked up them, surprised almost, afraid even. Her face was mutilated, her eyes red and bleeding from a near self inflicted gauging. And this terribly disgusting creature, cracked skin and diseased colored, screamed. She screamed and threw her arms in fear and wondered, in amazement, at wht did it all. Her skin began to boil on her nude back and the more she tried to roll the burning sensation away. There were no flames though, it was more like acid and the more she rolled, the more it entrenched upon her flesh. Burning her red, a scar tissue red. Boils formed on her, bubbles of protein filled liquid that popped and added to the ruinous scene.


    "Are you sure this is okay?" Dion put his hand in front of his mouth. He looked away.


    "No," Apollo said. "But I don''t think she''ll be free otherwise. Come on."


    Apollo put his knee down her neck and held one of her arms down. The other flayed, it dug into his leg and he winced. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from screaming. The fingers played with his muscles, out of sheer resentment and fear. The demon screamed, incomprehensible, some mix of English and Latin and German.


    "Please," He heard the whisper of Claudia, the human. "Please, kill me."


    Dion looked away.


    "We''re hurting her.."


    "You¡¯re damn right we are. And for good reason." Apollo said. "Keep your prayer up, don¡¯t just stare!¡±


    He did so, talking of Michael the Archangel. Talking about the holy sword and this and that.


    "It hurts so much, please. I''m sorry," It continued, bearing that somber face. Apollo pressed harder, digging her face, muffling it into the snow.


    "We''re killing her!" Dion screamed.


    "Do you trust me?" Apollo screamed. Dion looked up for an answer that would never come. He had to bite his lips, to close his eyes, to stop his breathing before he could continue.


    ¡°Say the fucking prayer!¡± Apollo screamed.


    He began. One after another, from Mary to Michael to Gabriel. To Peter, to Matthew, to Mark. Of all holy saints, and all heavenly fathers.


    ¡°And bless us, Jesus Christ, bless us and from all evil, deliver this girl.¡±


    Apollo winced. ¡°Deliver us, O¡¯ Lord.¡± He repeated.


    ¡°I am a minister of God who comes here, bearing a warning. Your name is signed for death, demon. The holy sword is coming, free yourself from this woman so that you may find salvation yet. Obey the Lord, obey!¡±


    Dion swallowed his. Claudia squirmed. Overpowered Apollo, he had to rebind her. But he kept going, both of them did. Apollo felt his leg bruised and stabbed and eventually he lost all feeling to them. He moved his nub and moved his arm and wished he had both. Especially as the chant continued and her condition worsened and the black mist came around them and spiraled. He laid there, staring as it approached him. Like a black hole was forming, from the woman, into the woman. It was a rift. A bleeding entity, coming out of her ruined flesh, a goop or molasses of the soul. It came out of her shoulder, above her breast. Quite literally, a demon was coming out. He stuck his arm inside, into what seemed like a chasm.


    She really screamed then. Both of them did. He felt her nails dig deep into his arm as he pulled, his muscles straining with the strength of his grip.


    His forehead began to sweat. He found footing and pushed. Pulling, feeling his wrist bones yank away in their dislocation. Feeling his bones pop out, he kept pulling.


    "Fuck." He screamed. Dion came in and tugged him. Now both pulled. ¡°Fuck¡± Apollo screamed louder. He felt a pop, heard it too. The mist exploded, into a swarm of darkness that colored them, a radius of ten yards, all stuck in complete lightlessness. They did not let up. Even as the screaming continued and the condition of the land worsened.


    With one final hurrah, Dion yanked at Apollo, Apollo yanked at the girl. Something split. Exploded, rather, with a sound loud and ear-shattering. The car alarms from miles off screamed out in response. The floor was filled with small instances of static electricity, coming in and out as miniature white lightning.


    A small gem, the size of a marble popped out. Around it, thick coating of black, dripping off Apollo¡¯s hand. What must have been grease or black blood? A mouth formed in the pool of this goop. It seemed to sigh or to moan. It seemed alive.


    So Apollo crushed it, the stone and all.


    The voice faded to obscurity, the dust of the small Philosophers stone blew out of his limp arm. He laid down, falling on his ass as Dion went forward to look over the girl.


    Apollo could see, vaguely, the deformities. The scarred flesh surrounding her front and back like zebra stripes. It hadn''t gotten her face at least. But he had a feeling it would always mark her body, evidence for life, of her loss of control, of her weakness.


    Dion put his coat over her body and lifted her. He passed by Dion, and perhaps only by virtue that he was recovering from the battle and pain, that he did not complain or berate him much. He sighed, hesitated to thank him, and left all in such a quick move that he couldn''t even tell if it was gratitude or resentment.


    Apollo struggled to stan. He found the man bleeding in the bush, still breathing, now propped against a wall. He picked through his pockets, found a cell phone and called the police.


    When the sirens were audible and his senses and wounds somewhat healed, he dug the phone into the floor and did his routine; jumping from roof to roof with the moon against his back, with the red eyes a sort of dragging blur against the black landscape. Like two, dancing stars fading through the night.

 8

    It was a while before they could visit. A few days after the police, and the police, a few days after the fight at the graves. They were terrible days, for Dion at least, who stood in front of the hospital doors every opportunity he could and who resisted the strange inquiries of nurses and officers alike. It took a while before one of the nurses broke, who just had it one day and whispered to him, near a janitor''s closet in the hospital, ¡°She blinked yesterday, she can move now.¡±


    When he heard the news, the grand statement, he exploded. In joy, then anger that he could not see her. It wasn¡¯t long after, after the complaining and the harassing and with the help of Claudia (who was now conscious, in the same hospital), he was allowed to see her.


    He went into the room now, expecting nothing. Getting less than that. For she was still, for the most part, asleep. She was at least for the first few days he was there. When she did move her finger, he was unfortunate enough to be asleep for the reveal. He missed it, but the doctor''s had told him about it and it filled him with cautious optimism. Another day she moved her wrist and from there the machine that was consciousness began to move. Like a golem coming into being, slowly, twitching awake.


    ¡°Thirsty¡­¡± Was the first thing she said. The hospital rushed in when Dion told the news (he was crying in English, so it was hard to understand) to the doctors. They fed her green juice and mush for food and small drips of syrup from a syringe.


    Her sister, Claudia, had not gotten off easy. And eating mush, yes, was the easier path. For Claudia, for all intents, was in police custody. More so a perpetrator rather than victim and survivor, someone who they had no evidence against but having been the only person worth to blame. Of course, the ridiculousness of the crime made her seem more innocent than she actually was. After all, how could a small girl like her kill so many people at the club? That was the argument lawyers had prepared, at least.


    Apollo heard the police debating doctors. They shook their heads and moved their arms in a crossed gesture, a no entry allowed gesture.


    "You''re still here?" He heard Stefanie say behind the noise wall of machine beeps and swirling fans. The tubes up her nose made her sound strange as if her voice was caught in a tunnel.


    "Yeah," Dion played with his fingers. "Always."


    "Always, huh," Stefania looked up. Her eyes had some dead aura to them, desperate and sad. "They say I won''t be able to move my legs ever again. Do you think that''s true?"


    Dion could not lie, he was not sophisticated enough to lie. He put his face down in that little, white room, with the pale grey tile. He started tracing imaginary lines in his head to buy time, time of which they both had but at that instant, felt pressed to save.


    He looked up.


    "I''ve heard it''s important to believe," Dion said. "I think that''s true, maybe."


    "Even if its a lie?" She asked.


    "Yeah, sometimes you have to believe in lies." He felt his heart sink. Gods eminence leaving him, a coldness left where his faith once was.


    The door opened. Two figures started to walk inside. One in a wheelchair, the other one holding her wheelchair. Apollo stood behind Claudia, pushing her through the door. A slew of police officers answered small walkie-talkies on their shoulders, a signal of admission, a call of observation. Apollo closed the door shut and waited in the corner of the room. He seemed dispassionate, as usual.


    "She wanted to see you." He said in a stern voice. Dion felt his eye twitch, a resentment growing towards Claudia and a guilt for that resentment growing too. Each time he would see Claudia, he felt his fist tighten. Every time he saw her scarred, red flesh, his heart sank a bit. It was a strange conflict.


    No matter how strange though, they had nothing to say to each other. They just kind of looked at each other, knowing what was done, both of them conscious of the act, but without any grounds to speak. They would open their mouths and start to form sentences, only to interrupt each other. Silence. Apollo coughed.


    "I remember everything," Claudia said. Stefania was barely conscious. Perhaps no one cared if she even knew at this point, what had happened. "I have to live with that for the rest of my life. The knowing. You don''t forget this stuff.."


    Dion moved in his seat, he felt sweat and fear. She remembered everything?


    "I don''t," Stefanie said.


    "That''s convenient," Apollo said.


    Dion shot him a glare. He shrugged his shoulders to repose.


    Claudia however, did not act so coy. Guilt did not allow it.


    "I just remember your face..." Stefanie said. "That...face...and then. Darkness."


    "Amnesia, it''ll come back to you,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And when it does come back, I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be a scene. I wonder how you¡¯ll deal with it.¡±


    He looked out the window to see how patient the police officers were outside.


    Dion stood.


    "Maybe we should just let them hash it out." He said.,


    Claudia tugged his arm as he headed for the door.


    "It''s okay." She said. "You¡¯ve earned your right to be here. You''re the reason I''m here, after all."


    He looked at her, wanting to yank away his wrist. Seeing her thin face, her trembling lips, and deciding not to.


    "We did what we were trained to do. It was duty."


    "Yeah, duty,¡± Her eyes fell. ¡°I won¡¯t tell anyone. Promise."


    "Good," Apollo said. "But that¡¯s not the biggest problem right now. The biggest problem will be getting you out of prison. Are you ready to deal with the courts? Lawyers? The money?"


    "No. No, I¡¯m not." Claudia said.


    ¡°We can help,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°How?¡± Apollo just wanted to hear his plan, just wanted to humor himself.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. We just will.¡±The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    He was disappointed. He wasn¡¯t even trying anymore.


    ¡°There you go, mouthing off again. You can¡¯t help yourself from helping, can you?¡±


    ¡°N-no, it¡¯s fine. Really.¡± They hadn¡¯t even suggested anything and she was already rejecting the help. ¡°It¡¯s not like I don¡¯t deserve anything coming to me.¡±


    Her English was good. Her voice was soft, fading.


    Stephanie went back to sleep. Not by choice, of course. Her eyelids shut down on their own and her brain was too tired to stir them back up. She settled into a nap but fell into sleep. Soon, she snored. Lightly. Like a whistle. Everyone looked at her, watching her chest gently go up and down. alright just simply drifted for a moment and she settled into a short sleep.


    ¡°What do you deserve exactly?¡± It was as if Dion was trying to convince himself as well, to reason that she was not herself at the time. ¡°You were being manipulated.¡±


    There was silence. Apollo tapped lightly on the floor. They turned to attention.


    ¡°That''s not absolutely right, is it?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°You weren¡¯t fully manipulated, were you?¡±


    ¡°No, I wasn¡¯t.¡± She said. ¡°It felt like¡­how do you say in English...it was like I gave up.¡±


    ¡°What set you off in the first place?¡±


    She looked down at her wrists. Two streaks of burned flesh, though painless, wrapped around her forearms.


    ¡°I felt like I was stuck. I was in danger, I think. And I just wanted to be free, escape. That¡¯s it.¡± She said. ¡°I was never good at being angry. I always just ran out of arguments and...well...I ran into something I couldn¡¯t escape.¡±


    Apollo got off the wall, eager, his shoulders and chest flexed upward. ¡°And why the grave? Why your grandmother? Were you mad at her too? She¡¯s dead, have you held onto some kind of obsession?¡±


    Dion glared at him. Though it did not matter, Apollo had on him that growl, that keen glowing eye for an answer. A joy, he had seen in Purgatory, worn by the false king.


    She stayed quiet. Maybe she had nothing left to say. Apollo waited. For a while, before he shook his head and started going towards the door, looking out the window where the police officers waited outside in a courtly matter.


    ¡°Why do you care?¡± she said.


    ¡°In my line of work we don¡¯t get paid much. Even fewer celebrations or congratulations. In my line of work, the only satisfaction is an answer. If there even are any answers in this universe.¡±


    She rubbed her hands together. Apollo twisted the doorknob. She rose, to speak, releasing a pneumatic sigh like air trapped in a century-old coffin.


    ¡°My grandmother was a diabetic.¡± She said. ¡°A sick woman who was very strong in her youth and very mad in her old age. A woman who needed help, but hated getting it. A woman who...well...was mean I suppose.¡±


    Apollo turned around with arms crossed.


    ¡°She never approved of anything we did,¡± Claudia pointed to Stefanie sleeping easily on the bed. ¡°She never approved of my talents, singing. I think she hated me, I was never smart or useful as she put it. Well, one day, I just got mad you see.¡± Her eyes trailed to the corner of her sockets in thought. In remembering. Her face softened, her chin trembled. ¡°I left her. I forgot, I didn¡¯t think it was that bad at the time, I just wanted to get out for a bit. I just thought To leave, to have fun and Stefanie wasn¡¯t there you see, she went off to another city for a job interview. A couple of them and it was just me and I left.¡± She repeated. ¡°I left her alone. Left. Well, I came back a day later. A bit hungover, tired. And I find her on the stairs. Dead. The doctor¡¯s said they didn¡¯t know what killed her, the lack of insulin, the lightheadedness and weakness that made her slip. They ended up saying that her death was due to complications. That was the first time I ever killed anyone,¡± She sighed.¡°And I was never caught. The charges on me were dropped.¡±


    She brushed her sister''s hair.


    ¡°I¡¯ve had this coming to me for years now. Always trying to forget it, always being too guilty to ever let go.¡±


    ¡°And now you hate yourself,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And you think your sister hates you too?¡±


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t she?¡±


    He looked at her markings, which now seemed disgusting to him though they hadn¡¯t moments ago.


    ¡°You¡¯re right, you might deserve it.¡±


    ¡°Hey!¡± Dion screamed.


    ¡°Though I can¡¯t blame you. Hating family isn¡¯t rare. It¡¯s actually quite common, as a matter of fact, you could probably find more people on this earth who hate their family than love them.¡± Apollo walked up to her. ¡°You do deserve everything coming to you. But your sister deserves peace, even more.¡±


    ¡°What am I going to do then?¡± Her voice rose, her fist tightened.


    ¡°Lie. Shamelessly, I don¡¯t think they have anything on you. There weren¡¯t any video cameras, and the place of the murders was such an isolated incident. So lie. They¡¯ll harass you I¡¯m sure, but lie.¡± He said. ¡°Lie because you don¡¯t deserve prison. Because your sister, the cripple, needs you more. Deserves you more.¡±


    Dion wasn¡¯t sure if he was being noble or not if his words were any good or not. But he felt, perhaps, that above kindness or brutality, that they were necessary. So he kept quiet, for he too, blamed Claudia.


    ¡°Can I even take care of her?¡± She rubbed her sister''s cheek, her ruined hand flashing briefly behind the bandages. Stefanie jerked underneath. She made a strained face but fell back into slumber.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to have to.¡± Dion stood. ¡°And I¡¯ll help, as much as I can, for however long I need to.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t make promises you can¡¯t keep,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to be taken care of you. I don¡¯t want anything. Not this life, most of all.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t help you there,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And with your track record, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if you tie yourself off. That¡¯s the only escape left.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s something I won¡¯t let you do.¡± Dion walked up to her, imposing even, angry, definitely. ¡°Death is the thing you deserve least of all. You have your life, which is more than most could say. And you have your sister. Don¡¯t throw it away.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t lecture her,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Living and dying are both just as selfish. Let her do what she will.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just going to let her get away with all this?¡± Dion screamed.


    ¡°Relax buddy, don¡¯t be so righteous. So vengeful. I¡¯m just pointing out a truth. If she wants to escape the pain of her life, if she wants to make her sisters life even harder, that is her right. And I wouldn¡¯t blame her for it either.¡± He said. ¡°Living is tough and it¡¯s something only the strong can do.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re....¡± He saw Astyanax in him, or perhaps the synthesis of all the worst things about the two. ¡°You really have no mercy or shame or anything?¡±


    ¡°No, I don¡¯t.¡± He turned to Claudia who stood there absorbing it all. ¡°Do you?¡±


    She looked at her hands. Then to her sister. Then to Dion, expecting an answer from any of them. Getting nothing. She gripped her forehead, lowered herself, in defeat, in prayer, in forgiveness.


    ¡°I can¡¯t¡­¡± her voice quivered. ¡°I can¡¯t let her down anymore. I can¡¯t.¡±


    Dion lowered himself, his stature crumbling at her mournful pose.


    ¡°I¡¯ll help, I promise. You¡¯ll get through this. We will.¡±


    Dion held her, looked at her. The thin girl with perforated arms, with the needle holes unhealed. Apollo opened the door, Dion watched him walk out towards the elevator.


    "Where are you going?" Dion asked.


    ¡°Home. You have the problem solved.¡±


    He ran up to him, past doctors and officers and looked at him as the elevator dinged open.


    ¡°You told her to kill herself.¡± Dion hissed.


    ¡°I told her the truth. Life is hard and it¡¯s going to get harder.¡± He said. ¡°I don¡¯t like patronizing people, least of all the most helpless of society. There¡¯s a cruelty in giving false hope, you of all people show know that.¡±


    He couldn¡¯t rebuke it. He couldn¡¯t say anything, only that the bible in his pocket began to burn again and that his neck was tensed and aching.


    ¡°What¡¯s she going to do? You¡¯re just going to leave it as is?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m done.¡± Apollo pointed to the unconscious girl behind the door. ¡°I¡¯m leaving the rest to you. She¡¯s your girlfriend, after all? So I guess that makes Claudia your step-sister. Right?¡±


    ¡°I thought it¡¯s forbidden. The eunuch''s and the monks and all that¡­¡±


    ¡°Breaking rules is the only thing we¡¯re good at.¡± He smiled. ¡°So go help them. I can¡¯t. I¡¯m too mean for it, you know that. But you? You¡¯ve got the heart for it.¡±


    Apollo walked back, into the open elevator and waved goodbye at Dion who stood there in the stupid fluorescent light, with the red and blue Christmas lights flickering on and off and breathing deeply that smell of pine from the small dwarf tree decorated with small, dwarf ornaments. He turned behind, to the police officers lined up and the doctors with their clipboards and the girl crying, and the lover sleeping and he thought, life is hard.


    But he walked forward anyway, shutting the door to the officials and their cold stares, to reporters, to the world itself. He held Claudia, who still trembled and held Stefanie, who slept cold and nervous and said, with as durable as a voice as he could make, ¡°We¡¯ll get through this.¡± He gripped their hands tighter. ¡°Yeah, I promise.¡±

 Season Two: The H?xan Gamble

    The beady-eyed, grey-skinned sharks passed by her. Their forms; sleek, uneasy, pacing inside the large water tanks. Two sharks to be exact, which had been the newest pair to join, and they would die like the others, in that claustrophobic tank amongst the disturbed gawks and stares of patrons and workers. It was a violent zoo, Mrs. DeVorne concluded. No tank, let alone one at the top of the Casino Del Rey, could contain these beasts.


    Perhaps the same was of Mr. Wolfe, whom at the very saying or thinking of his name, caused her to build a cold sweat. It was a name that made her pace.


    "Back to work." The other dozen workers turned, stared, then ushered themselves through the main hall of floor sixty-six. In their tuxedo suits and blue denim overalls, they swept and mopped and dusted every nook and cranny with obscene intensity.


    The meeting would be soon and everyone had their role to play, especially hers. She had to make the hall, the rooms and the subsequent floors (five above her, sixty-five below her) presentable. They had all worked hard at cleaning the room, so hard indeed that they had to conjure, delusion blemishes and stains. Mrs. DeVorne saw a new intern, sweating, wiping the same spotless tile for half an hour.He''s trying to sand it down, dig a hole right out and away.


    Her hair, Mrs. DeVorne¡¯s hair, the head maids hair, was a mess. A bad sight, especially for Mr. Wolfe who wanted nothing but the best. It made her nervous, it made everyone else nervous too. She tasted sweat as it came crawling down her cheeks.


    The clock ticked. Twenty minutes left. She took a dust brush out and fiddled with a small statue of a tiger. Her eyes, keen on the giant clock hanging on the ceiling, looking down at her like God¡¯s watchful eye. A clock. Two bold, black hands circling, hitting eleven fifty-five in the morning. Ticking. Reaching, shooting for, striking twelve.


    The lights went off.


    Everyone gasped, all twelve maids and butlers like synchronized horror. A cuckoo clock gone mad. Doors opened and closed in their dark peripheries, they only felt the wind and the shuffle of footsteps. Then? Solemn silence. Another door, crashing. Voices now. Screaming, muffled, off in the distance. Was she the only one who heard it? No one else seemed to notice or at least made the noises of people who noticed.


    Then the lights reappeared. One by one, shooting off the hanging chandeliers, the rectangles of cut and mesmerizing glass. They looked milky, like a cloudy sky. They waddled a bit before settling, their cacophony obnoxious to the disturbed bunch who frowned at the glass and lights. She looked around, everyone spoke to each other but said little more than the cues of frightened people.


    What was that? How did it happen? Is it over?


    The broom fell from her hands and hit the side of a rising staircase, against the rail guard of small pillars and marble white. A red light flashed from across the room, she didn¡¯t notice it, her vision was still blurred. It was only after approaching that she saw the glare of red from the black telephone line and the small beep, the summons. She put the black phone against her ear. No voice, though the writing on the glass panel told her its location. The conference room, behind the sequels of Roman statues, at the very end of the stretch of this road. A road squeezed at both sides, by the aquarium, by the sharks. She was thankful to know those damn sharks would be dead soon, as the other oceanic leviathans before them.


    A great white hovered to her rear as she looked down the hall. The glass lights above rattled as if wind had passed over them, a thin gust that she must have never felt, that might have never existed in this closed off expanse.


    She hung up the phone. It beeped red still like an SOS. Though it made no noise. Looking back she could see the supportive waiting-stares of her co-workers. At least, maybe, that''s what they must have thought it was, supportive. From her point, at the epicenter of the room, with the myriad wide white eyes, she seemed more of an offered black lamb. She sighed and fixed her hair. Though, why? It would messy again when she would be made to shake and apologize. As it was with the Wolfe family, who were prone to rage, Mr. Wolfe, most of all. She felt the phantom screaming in her body, an imaginary reflex as she approached.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    She went through the glass doors, past floors that transitioned into black and white checkerboard patterned. And her, the clumsy pawn piece, wrapping around towers and statues, past the sweeping jetting of sharks and small fish. She noticed a crab receded back into his shell, she wished she could too. The lights dimmed, they weren¡¯t working well. Then they shut off. Instantly, as she thought it. All she could see, then, was made possible by that blue color of the artificial sea, the LEDs stuck to the bottom of the tank shining through the filtered water.


    She came to the end of the room, a collection of ferns laid at even intervals, two doors presented themselves. Her face was blue, the cool ocean water-tight was to her back. There was no secretary. She touched the door handle and reeled back, they offered no resistance. Surprised. As if the lack of a lock invoked in her a kind of fear.


    Opening it, the first thing that hit her was the smell of coffee and nicotine. Further, a flicker of fake fire attracted her eyes. It was to her rear, near a leaned-back leather chair, facing out the window, out to the desert and the mountains and the long stretch of desert earth of Nevada. The chair. You can watch the whole world turn, from that chair.Watch the lazy sun carry itself. Watch it drag.


    This was a throne room. She concluded. At least, when there was no one here. Like there was now, which was strange.


    The curtains went half-way down, from top to mid-way point. She saw Mr. Thomas Wolfe behind them, seemingly staring at the half-covered vista, at the very end of a rectangle glass table.


    "Yes, did you want me?" She asked, as gentle as she could say it.


    Silence.


    Small statues sat out in the corners of the room. Lions, tigers, panthers, predators with their mouths agape and their fangs a dilapidated brown and crumbling size. One of the lions was missing a fang, the wound dripped rubble and sand. Her footsteps were loud in the tall room. Made even louder by the silence and loneliness. Three chairs spun slowly.


    "Hello, sir?" She walked forward. He was always quiet when he was mad and always mad when he was quiet. A talker, him, Mr. Thomas Wolfe. He, who needed company, who needed to shoot his wisdoms and truisms because perhaps, he believed, had he no audience to speak to, they might not be true at all. Maybe that''s all truth is, the guesswork of a man, agreed by a crowd whose size and ferocity determines the weight of the truth itself. She was convinced there was no truth, after all. Ever since she found Casino Del Rey here as a teenager, with disgusted eyes at the giant golden pointy tower in the middle of the desert. It hadn''t made sense then and still hadn''t now, this aberration. But it sure as hell was true, all the gambling suckers said so at least.


    She stared at Thomas Wolfe. He looked angry, still, his back turned to her. She prepared herself for the long-winded speech. Her stomach had dropped long ago. Her blood, weightless and her limbs, weak.


    "Mr. Thomas!" She said, desperate for her punishment, hoping to get it over with. She shouted right behind him, his ear did not so much as even twitch.


    She started to move in place and skid about. Her throat was clogged and her face was sweaty. She clung to her blue one-piece cleaner outfit, pulled on the belt and all the tools and bottles that hung off them.


    "Hello?" She put her arm on his shoulder. He turned. His inertia suddenly disturbed, his whole presence disturbed. His chair creaked. Stopped. Whined and plopped itself forward.


    And she screamed.


    She screamed. She ran. She tripped, knocked over a statue and hurt her thigh. And she screamed. The door cracked as it hit the wall with her strong push. The hinges snapped. And she screamed. Through the halls, past the sharks and the tanks and the other workers and all the gaudy things of the Casino El Rey. She screamed down those wealthy, lonely halls, down the elevator shaft.


    And Thomas Wolfe Jr, watched her leave. With cold grey eyes, with his tongue out and blue. With his neck bleeding, wrangled, like a well-worn red tie. With the gaping hole staring back at her, like a bottomless pit. Blinking. With the last beats of strength in his missing heart, moving, compelling his muscles to twitch. That was all the protest he could summon. It didn''t last long.


    A final streak of blood fell from his wound. Down, right through the center, past his corpse bloated belly.


    His mouth slacked. His tongue fell. His head succumbed. His whole body slumped, his feet rested on their heels and his arm extended out on that glass table, a proper Wolfe, with his clawed paw out, one finger on the dial of the phone. The button pressed, the red light flashing desperately.


    He was tired. Leaning back, almost as if enjoying his death. Perhaps he had, it was a long day, an even longer life. Perhaps his last resolution, one of stern authority, was to die in happy-exhaustion. To die knowing that his short time on the stage was worth its efforts, and most certainly worth its mistakes.

 hg. 2

    Apollo lugged his body through the snowed forest, the large black overcoat on him. He had against his chest, with a wide single arm grip, some wood for kindling. As if a crow, stepping and teetering with the small plaything twig in its mouth. He was coming back home, to the quaint house with the red panel walls, with the snow clinging on the lips of the window sills. He approached the door, and to it, next to it, he saw the worst thing he could have seen.


    The Leper, with his smiling, golden, etched mask, waving back at Apollo.


    I was just getting used to this place. He dropped his sticks and looked next to him, a smaller, prideful looking woman with a large ponytail down half-way her back glared at him. It seemed worse than the smiling lunatic.


    He came to them and the dear, a stick dragged by his fingertip before it fell like a tired soldier upon the snow.


    He felt the air escape his body, his mouth open to try and catch it back before releasing completely. Surrendering.


    ¡°Well? Are you coming in?¡±


    ¡°Well, I thought you¡¯d never ask!¡± The Leper said.


    ?


    Apollo sat at the table opposite of them all. His eyes honed on the Leper who stood against the wall.


    "Bonjour, Rose," The Leper said to the nun. The nun nodded. Out of obligation, for her face was dull and dead with emotion.


    "Do you want some coffee?" Dion asked the woman. "It''s very good."


    Apollo took a sip from a steaming mug in front of him.


    "It''s average." He said.


    Dion frowned. They stood, amongst the sounds of moving and clashing plates as Dion set the table for them. Apollo, still in his small chair as the Leper stared down and the woman looked opposite the table, with thin-lipped intensity. She was blonde, had stockings, and showed little behind her bearskin coat. Her eyes were focused, her face unmoved like a practiced poker player. She had stockings, funnily enough, he could see by the little ankle she showed. Her shoes were pointed and he wondered, looking at her high-heels, how she had climbed a mountain with them.


    Rubbing his chin, looking at her. He changed, he was more disgusted, frankly, by her. By the classy-ness of her essence. She dressed rich. Smelled rich. Was rich. Disgusting.


    "Why are you here?" Apollo asked both of them.


    "You¡¯re as warm as usual" The Leper took a cup from Dion. "After I saved your life too."


    The Leper took a sip (quite a scene, to move the liquid straight into the little slit on his mask). Nodded his head and set it down, presumably, never to pick it up again.


    "Months ago I might have been thankful," He said "But now I''ve lived long enough to know what shit place you''ve stuck me. Out one prison, in another."


    The Leper started to laugh. Air whistled through the holes of his mask like some great wide-mouthed fish, taking all fauna and small creatures with his giant gulps.


    "It¡¯s worse than prison. Worse than hell!" He laughed. ¡°It''s Rothenburg!¡±


    Apollo leaned back in his chair, the sun warmed his neck. He rubbed it.


    The woman moved from her seat, at last, to switch one leg forward in her cross-legged seating. From left, to right. The whole movement made the chair whine.


    "These idiots don''t look capable." The woman tapped the table with her fingernails. "I told you I wanted the best."


    The Leper clasped his hands in consolidation, in prayer, in hope (as all prayer was just that, hope).


    "They¡¯re fine men, believe me." He said. ¡°And the only Hospitallers we have available.¡±


    "We''re not Hospitallers," Apollo said.


    "What?" She asked.


    "Don''t mind him." The Leper pleaded.


    "And who are you calling an idiot, anyway? You bit - " The word was formed, but looking at the nervous smile of Dion, he stopped.


    "Easy, please." His voice (Dion''s) more a whisper.


    The woman crossed her arms, the nun came around with some sweet rolls. Nutmeg, cinnamon, warmness filled the air. She was reliable, staunch. But even her attempt at warmness, hospitality, was not enough for Apollo who felt colder by the second. Frigid, even. For across from her, the blizzard sat in her seat, with her measured and quiet anger. Rote, and bitter.


    "Who are you?" Apollo repeated. This time, more conversational.


    "I''m Aenea."


    "Aenea, huh," Apollo said. "What do you want?"


    "Capable men for an investigation task force."


    "Ah. Ah. Ah. Hold on, allow me to inform them." The Leper came in. "Miss Aenea is in a sour mood, so I thought I''d divulge the details, ease you into it, you see."


    She sat there without blinking, without moving. Her skin was pale, not out of fear, but out of life itself.


    "I''ve requested the both of you for this case in consideration from your previous ones, at Havenbrook. Apollo, who has experience investigating, and Dion who is a wonderful support. And a bit encyclopedic, when you aren''t full of buffoonery, of course."


    He sounds like the devil, act like it too. He sipped and burned his tongue.


    "Get to the point." He flinched and set down his cup. The cat-shaped clocked ticked away in the background.


    Aenea wriggled in her seat. She looked at the Leper who nodded his head. She set her hands down, wrapped together, into a ball in front of her.


    "My father has been murdered." No one made a sound, not a whisper or a gasp and the clock too, as if caught in the grip of the silence, had ceased. Apollo waited. Holding the cup, tipping it without noticing, dripping the boiling sludge down the side of his finger, not without noticing.


    "Oh my god," Dion said. "Get the police. Get the armed forces or something."The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "She can¡¯t," Apollo said. ¡°She would have if she could have."


    "Still, what a terribly frightening thing to go through. What can we do?"


    "Be her detectives," Apollo answered.


    "Oh," Dion said.


    Oh, is right.


    "I have some questions, then," Apollo said. "What are your connections with the church? Assuming you know of demon hunters, of Vicars, of the order...well, that makes you a bit strange then. That strangeness, your background, is something important to me."


    She shook the bangs off her face.


    "We''re H?xans." She said. The nun put her hand across her face and left the room in a gasp. Her rosary dangled like a chain.


    "A witch" Apollo leaned closer. Silence answered him. ¡°A whole Salem lot of devil-worshiping sons of bitches?¡±


    "Yes, a witch, that''s the colloquial term for it, I guess." She straightened out. "I belong to a family of witches. The Wolfe family."


    "Oh no, oh no," Apollo rubbed his forehead. "That explains everything. The Wolfe family. Oil tycoons with a nice little side business in casinos? I heard you had an accident down the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Saw it in the news, shrimp literally drowning in sludge. Hurt your reputation, didn''t it? Did it your casinos hard?¡±


    ¡°No, it did not.¡± She said. ¡°The people play games whether or not the world is on fire. Maybe it¡¯s because it is on fire that they even play in the first place¡±


    She rubbed her hands. "It''s not my business anyway. I don''t deal like my family does, I do things on my own without their help or approval."


    "Yeah, that explains everything.¡± Apollo laughed and looked at Dion, who smiled without knowing why. ¡°A rich family of witches. That''s why you aren''t being burned in front of my face right now. How much money did you have to throw at the church to allow you walk all over them?"


    The Leper laughed.


    "Please, Apollo. Have a higher opinion of us, would you?" Dion asked.


    "I can''t have a high opinion towards the rich and the powerful. For it is them, most of all, susceptible to corruption. And them, most of all, who deserve criticism. Case in point, the walking witch in front of us, who''s not getting an ounce of resistance from us."


    "If you''re that annoyed by me, then strike me down."


    "Don''t worry sweetheart, I''ve got no problem with you. I''m not even surprised."


    ¡°I''ll have you know that peace, good moral standing, and a Christian father,"


    "You had a Christian father?" Apollo laughed.


    "Yes - My Christian father, had more to do with my being safeguarded from your psychopathic cult than money ever could.¡± She said.


    "Sure as hell didn''t hurt, did it? The millions?" He observed her. "The tens of millions? The hundred of millions?" She nudged her nose. Hundreds of millions, huh.


    "Money bought my freedom. That''s a sad thing, don''t you think? To be burdened at birth by a history you never wanted." She said. "I had to buy my freedom, think about that, Vicar, as you talk down to me."


    No one said a word save for the Leper who breathed, whistled through his mask.


    She leaned in. She wore no makeup, her face had a natural sharp beauty to it. Something intimidating. Something, still feminine but bordering masculine. A small, angled jaw, two big blue eyes, deep contours and groves from her intense gaze.


    "Money saved me from being burned alive,¡± she said. ¡°Would you prefer that, savage? Like the good ol¡¯ days. Or would you rather drown me? Reduce me to screaming ash? Wring my neck and have me tap dance in free air?"


    "I didn''t kill any of your people." He said. "That being said, don''t pretend all of your kind were as understanding, as moral, as ''Christian'' as you are now. You are a witch, after all, someone who makes deals with devils."


    "Or people cursed by devils." Aenea said. "Is it any worse than what you do? Cutting the chests of children open and stuffing them with a demon¡¯s heart? Into children. Children. Is that more moral? If so, how? You conduct in violence as we do. You conduct with devils, as we do. It just happened that you had more manpower, more organization."


    Apollo leaned back. He had no answer. He tried to look at the other two Vicars, who felt even worse than he did. They were quiet, lacking in his lively defense though they were of the same kind. And after a while, Apollo stretched his leg, looked at her, felt the mood.


    Why even debate it? It''s not like I like this job. It''s not like I don''t know that she''s right. He accepted it. It wasn''t hard that hard to once he let go of his contempt.


    A sip. Bitterness. He drank the rest of his coffee as he waited for the mood to settle back to something tamer.


    "A couple fire trials, some purging and now we''re here." He said. "With you asking for help. It''s hard to imagine your kind was ever a threat, to be honest."


    "Am I supposed to be insulted?" She was still. Uneasily, still. "I''m not a witch, idiot. I just happen to have them as family, that''s all."


    Right. He sniffled. The cold was biting his nose, stinging it.


    "I bet you think you''re hot shit, but I have you figured out." His muffled voice spoke between sips of his mug. She angled her head to the side. The other two looked with curiosity, the Leper more so than Dion. "You¡¯re a girl trying very hard to not be plain."


    "Am I plain?"


    "No," He said. "You''re definitely a no-bullshit type of person. Which is rare.¡±


    ¡°And you''re a narcissist." She said.


    "But am I wrong?"


    "No, you''re not." She tapped the table.


    The Leper nodded up and down.


    "He''s capable, don''t you think. Not that dumb, right?"


    "What about the other one?" She pointed to Dion.


    "I can fight." He smiled. Apollo looked at his smile, which to them must have seemed authentic, but to him, was extremely fragile. So much so in fact, that he had to protest.


    "Who said we agreed to this?" Apollo said. They turned to him, in shock almost. "What are we getting out of this venture?


    "I mean, she''s in trouble, that''s enough right?" Dion asked. His conviction seemed weak, not like before, not like when he was selfless and heroic and noble. Now, it seemed a shadow and him, right down the damn middle of it.


    "You''ll get the only thing that matters!" The Leper walked forward, he put both hands on the table and stretched his head to both sides as mediator. "Your life back!"


    Both stared at him, Aenea sat with her arms crossed and eyes closed, uninterested.


    "You were right when you said the church was corrupt and right when you said that Miss Aenea pays them off, at least, her family does.¡± They nodded up and down. "And what is the benefit of corruption? Hmm? The belittlement of democracy, of course!"


    "Sure, that''s right."


    "That''s a good thing. Because Miss Aenea here, or her family at least, has connections with some of those officials. Officials that may or may not be observing your application, who may or may not have the power to vote or veto your migration. You understand, right?"


    "So¡­¡± He felt his temples compress again, he rubbed them. ¡°We¡¯re being coerced?¡±


    "Yes, yes you are." The Leper laughed. Jovial. "But also rewarded. You have a chance to finally redeem yourself and to join the Hospitallers, officially. That should get the grasp of the nasty low-class trash off you. You''ll be free men as Hospitaller Knights. Doesn''t sound bad, right? You might find you''ll have even greater freedoms than before. Fewer weapon restrictions...travel restrictions...a bit more, rule-bending..."


    He looked at Dion, as if in the knowledge of something. Dion looked back, nervously smiling. A fake smile, Apollo observed, one that grew more severe and grave. A face that seemed in remembrance of a time with Astyanax. One, that reacclimated Dion to that past pain and trauma. And soon, he was not smiling at all so much as staring empty-eyed, dull face.


    He needs more time with Stefanie. Apollo banged the table to grab their attention, to snap Dion out of it, to have him answer.


    "Do you want to do it?" Apollo asked. Dion looked back to him, his lips kind of trembling.


    "Yeah. We have to, right? Or it¡¯ll be our heads next." His voice puttered, seemed nervous, anxious.


    "But can you do it?"


    He hesitated. He looked out the window, perhaps to his lover, who was distant and far off into the city, trying to walk with rail guards (as Dion had explained to him one late evening), to a pleasant place that now stirred in his face a look of nostalgia. Nostalgia for a time, for a girl, that he was sure Dion would have to leave. Even if just for a moment, and hopefully, just for a moment.


    "Yeah. I can do it." Dion said, his face, serious.


    Apollo sighed and looked at the two.


    "What¡¯s the threat level of this case?¡± He asked.


    "Danger? There is no danger." Aenea''s legs untwisted. "The danger passed. My father is dead. All you have to do is point the finger, we¡¯ll do the catching part.¡±


    Her sentences came quick, in successive blows, as if trying to hide something between the letters themselves, the sound. A lie.


    "Place? Time? How long do we have?"


    "A month or two or three. We¡¯ll see, depending on your progress." The Leper mused.


    "A few months? It takes years for some detectives. Years!" Apollo drew his head back. Dion covered his mouth and bemoaned.


    "The problem isn¡¯t in the time allotted to the case, it¡¯s in the time allotted to your lives.¡± He said. ¡°You have a second court hearing, I have news of it?"


    "Second? For what?"


    "For sabotaging your previous court hearing, of course. You''re getting a re-trial."


    Oh no, they both said. Oh, no.


    "That means you need to become Hospitallers before then, and before then is however long I can distract the judges and tribunals."


    He looked at the Leper, standing with his hands his back. His eyes shifty looking, thin behind the little holes, some purple showing.


    I''ve only ever seen that look with snakes. Before the bite comes.


    ¡°Then it''s settled,¡± Dion said. "We''ll accept."


    Apollo turned. His eyes closed, his brain trying to shake away anxiety, trying to focus on mantras and meditation.


    "Alright," He opened his eyes, renewed them with keen focus. "Start at the beginning, tell us everything you know."


    She took a deep breath and started.

 hg. 3

    They drove through the desert, looking for the abominable stake struck upon the scorched earth, The Casino El Rey.


    "Another desert," Dion said.


    "I hate deserts." The creosote passed by them, falling and bouncing back as they rolled over them.


    Apollo stuck his leg out of the window of the car and puffed a cigarette, he felt the drag through his clothes, it felt nice even with the heat.


    "Don''t do that," Dion said. It didn''t matter. He kept puffing and watching and idling in the car.


    "We''re older than this casino? Can you believe it?" He inhaled. "You''d think it''d take longer to build a sky-scrapper but Thomas Wolfe did it in a year. A year. Two decades ago."


    He spat out the window and threw his cigarette and wiped his tongue on his palm. The nicotine was terrible tasting. Did he get the wrong brand? Gold label, wasn''t it?


    He kept licking his hand, he could feel Dion staring.


    "I didn''t know you were a cat," Dion said.


    "I taste something bad," He said. "The taste of gross wealth."


    "What are you? A communist?"


    "I don''t care what people do or make as long as it doesn''t get in my way." He said. "But this is different. It tastes bad, literally. It feels bad. I don''t think we''re going somewhere nice or kind or moral."


    "I don''t taste anything and I don''t feel any certain way. Are you sure it was just nicotine in that roll?"


    "You can''t taste it? It tastes sour. Vinegar, lemon, rancid too." Apollo rolled his tongue inside his mouth. A jackrabbit tried to outpace the car. The car rolled up and down ditches, the asphalt long since lost in the desert scape. The only reason they knew they were going the right way was by the signs every five miles, by the stray and forgotten cars sitting in open desert.


    Who builds a kingdom twenty miles off Las Vegas. Who has that kind of ego? Thomas Wolfe does, that''s who.


    He spat out again as the shadow found them. It enveloped them, the giant mass. Apollo rubbed his eyes, to see if the piece of paradise in the gloomy yellow-orange of the desert was mirage or true vision. They approached, it sparkled. Black and gold and sleek. Little houses were scarce, there were mostly apartments and restaurants and loan shark shops like the unbridled fauna underneath a whale. For a moment, as they rolled closer and as the road appeared below them, it seemed like a monopoly board. And they were just at the first stop. A board filled with traps, with the real estate and walkway long since bought and sold.


    They stopped, turned a right, they came into the mouth of the city, a large sign reading: Greetings from Casino El Rey, where everyone can be a king. The long stretches of dark road contrasted, harsh and painful against their eyes, against the drab desert.


    "I''m excited," Apollo said. They looked around themselves, towards the neon lights flashing arrows pointing to strip clubs and storefronts and the Casino itself. Apollo opened the door but felt like closing it. He hadn''t realized how hot it was, the rushing drag had fooled him. He came out with a newspaper then, waving against his face.


    "I guess you can''t be playing games all day. You''d need restaurants to feed you, motels to keep you, bars to drink your misery," A giant money sign flashed to his rear, a pawn shop and a loan exchange store. "And loan sharks to have you do it all over again."


    "Are you sure we can do this? We aren''t being used, right?" Dion scoped out, a haunted look on his face as he watched the zombie-look of the patrons.


    "We can do anything," Apollo laughed, it seemed comical even to himself. "And whether we''re being manipulated or not is irrelevant. We''ve got no choice, right?" Apollo said.


    "I guess."


    A man passed them, wheel in his hand and jack wrench in the other. He smiled and rolled it away. Others showed up to distract them, to offer their services. Car washers, car watchers, seedy folks who began to stink the place with their alcoholic stench.


    "Fuck off," Apollo pushed one of them away. "Let''s go."


    Dion walked, hesitantly before running back. He gave a man twenty dollars, to Apollo''s chagrin.


    It was like that. The whole time, giving homeless and the poor money. And it was a lot of money spent, for the stretch to the casino was long and unpleasant.


    It was like this all the way to the casino, where the giddy old men and women with their Hawaiian rumbled through with hope in their pockets. A casino, whose entrance was devised to be a golden crown, who upon entry from the self-moving doors, tipped to the side. Dion and Apollo looked at each other and then into the casino, into the noise of beeping and of losses and of crowd cheers. A loud carnival of noises, beeps, and tunes and dice rolls and ball rolls.


    "Better luck next time, buddy!" A machine screamed at a woman who banged at the glass screen.


    They wandered inside, towards a front desk and a young man staring blankly at checkbooks on his computer screen. Apollo hit the bell. The boy looked up, his eyes dead and tired. His lips, fat, his jaw a little slack.


    "I know you," He said. "They told me to send you up."


    An ornate key card was handed. A gold, black key card. They walked past the young boy, past the crazed gamblers, past the lewd women and cheating men, towards a glass-tube shaped elevator. They scanned themselves in. Waited, the doors rumbled. They looked at each again. And it opened, wide.


    "Welcome," It said. The lights and noises all a flash against their faces. A disco-ball potpourri nightmare of light. [i]Welcome, Apollo stepped in, [i]to a schizo''s dream.


    ?


    "Don''t break anything." An old, box-jawed butler told them, he wore simple garments and plastic gloves and looked like a boxer made subservient. Or perhaps, a mobster. He had waited for them past the fifty floors leading up, the fifty floors Apollo had spent looking out towards the city and its topography. It was a hamlet, a village. And Mr. Thomas Wolfe was its dead king.


    The butler handed them both latex blue gloves to wear. They walked through, on floor fifty-three (Maybe? He lost count). The first thing they saw, a hall full of doors and the inscribed numbers or what he thought were names. Most of them followed a different categorical naming pattern, gems. A room was named Saphire, another Emerald, another Diamond, and so on and so forth. There were elements too, platinum and silver and gold.


    "I read about these in the pamphlet," Dion said. "They''re VIP rooms."


    "They''re also not what we''re looking for."


    Past the rooms, as they went along the halls, was the main circular plaza. A sort of hub for every elevator and room and stairway. A piano sat underneath a chandelier light. Small crystals rattled at their entrance. The light shown off them was bright, accenting the mild peach colored room and the parchment colored tile. There were other people here too, fleets of workers who shuffled and busy-bodied and whom upon seeing the two, lined up with brooms and mops like knights with their swords.


    "Look at all these suspects," Apollo said. They all stared terrified and wide-eyed.


    "Come on, don''t joke around."


    "Who said I''m joking?" Apollo smirked.


    "This way, sir." It was obvious the man was trying to contain anger and fear, he was shaking. But he pressed them on anyways, more obligated to duty than anything else. They followed him through the shark tank, past a little desk that was now empty. The papers were neat, the pen orientated at the top. In front of the big conference room was Aenea. She waited with folded arms and tapped along the floor. He couldn''t tell for what exactly, if it was fear or anxiety or irritation. She shot them a glare.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    "We''ve tried to preserve the body as much as possible but..."


    "But he''s deteriorating, isn''t he? It happens to Vicars too. They call it the devil''s touch," he said. "The arcana inclined tend to rot faster."


    "Right, so take your evidence and get as much as you can out of him. He won''t be here long, I aim to bury him soon."


    "Already?"


    "Salome doesn''t want it so, neither do her kids but I''ll be damned if I don''t get what I came for. To bury the b..." He said. "The man, to bury the man."


    Apollo''s eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to say something but Dion grabbed his shoulder.


    "Come on," He said.


    "We''ll see what we can figure out. We won''t make any promises." Apollo told her as he was pulled away.


    They opened the creaking glass doors. There was a corpse alright, he could smell it. It must have been going hot for a day or two. Apollo got some vapor rub from within his jacket, sticking his hand into his coat at first before realizing there was nothing special about it. It was just a normal pocket. A normal, regular persons pocket. The whole movement was odd, an affront to his old habits.


    He put some of the minty grease on his nostrils and offered it to Dion who did the same.


    "Let''s not avert our eyes now, we''re the only ones who can. God left this room a long time ago." Apollo came forward to the corpse sitting straight on his chair, the neck up and bending along the backseat of the office chair. His chest was exposed. The ribs, showing, the muscle torn, stabbed through and slightly slashed. Apollo reached into his coat again and revealed blue gloves (he only needed just the one though). He slapped it on. He looked at the injuries particular to the chest, dragging his finger along Thomas Wolfe''s corpse. The flesh felt leathery under his finger. [i]He was an older man. Anyone could have told you that though.


    His pointer finger followed the trail of injury to the top, to the neck of the corpse where it was marked and also bleeding. [i]Marked? Was his neck slit? A hand couldn''t have caused this much blood. Piano wire, maybe? No, there''s no cut at all.


    It was hard to tell what made it, only that there were imprints on him and just as much blood as there was on his chest.


    "He was stabbed, then his body was cut open. Somewhere along he was choked. I can''t imagine he was choked first, what do you think?"


    Dion had his hand to his mouth, he wanted to speak but gagged at the words. He looked away, completely, after a while.


    "I think whoever did him in has a sick head." He said. His voice was quivering.


    It didn''t matter to Apollo, for better or worse. Though it might have made him see psychopathic, there was a pathological ambition here, a professionalism that made him immune to the sight of the scene. He put his gloved hand to his chin and almost rubbed it before he realized the blood and set it back down.


    "You''re right, he has a sick mind. It was definitely a passionate crime, that might have to do with the intent and nature of it."


    He moved the chair, it sounded pained, loose. The chair seat wobbled. He looked at the table, there were signs of a struggle. Part of the glass top of the table was crack. His head rose to the statue in the corner of the room, some predatory animal with a missing fang.


    "I''ve got some concepts on what happened," Apollo said. "Small things."


    He walked around the room, imagining the footsteps. The actions. The passions.


    "How many murderers do you think were here?" Apollo turned a picture frame of the family over.


    "One?"


    "Maybe," Apollo said. "Might be two. That might be why the guy is so bloody. Someone choked him, another stabbed him."


    Aenea was watching this all. From outside, behind the glass doors. Her eyes following, cold and apathetic at the treatment of her fathers corpse. Apollo noticed it, felt it eerie. And disgusted with himself that he was so dispassionate as he was.


    [i]It''s not my fault, I''ve just seen so many people dead. It''s not my fault.


    She opened the door at last, tempted and walked past her father''s corpse.


    "Are you saying there were two murderers?"


    "Or three, or four. Or one. Who knows. But it''s important to keep all our options open." Apollo said. "Out of curiosity though, were there even two people available? Do you know who was on this floor at his time of death?"


    Her eyes did not flare, she did not blink. She was strong, not in an honorable or noble way, but in that abominable analytic sense. Someone who had no feelings to get angry about. She stared at the body, unblinking. [i]Jesus, to her own dad too.


    "My whole family was here. There were about twenty-five workers too, and perhaps half a dozen VIP guests."


    "That''s a lot of suspects. What about the upper or lower floors? It''s not hard to imagine someone running in from there and killing him quickly."


    "To be honest..." She thought, scratching her head. "Given the abilities of some of these people, it might be a worse number. I''ve seen some bodyguards...walk through walls... it''s strange. I hope you''re more used to it than me."


    He wasn''t. Even with all the years. And worse, she reminded him: these people were witches or people who associate with witches. They were all culpable.


    "You said, back at the house, that you came here for a dinner," Apollo said. "Is that all though? There wasn''t any other motivational factor present?"


    "We were here to celebrate my father''s retirement. He was to choose an heir," And that explained it, Apollo took off his glove and chucked it. It was sweaty, he rubbed his hand on his pants.


    "When''d you all show up?" He asked.


    "Most of us were here by Tuesday, father died on Wednesday the next day."


    "The killer might not have planned the murder then, not with that small time frame."


    "She said the lights went out, remember? And the building shook. That definitely sounds like something planned." Dion said.


    "That might have been something done in the heat of the moment, too. Witches are capable spellcasters, it''s not hard to believe they caused an earthquake by sheer passion and emotion of the act."


    "I don''t think any of my siblings are that capable."


    "Who said we were just talking about your siblings?" He glared at her. "Do you have reason to believe that one of them was the murderer."


    "No, they''re just the first ones that came to mine."


    He looked at her, readjusting his position, rethinking her naivety.


    "And where were you Wednesday, again?"


    "Apollo!" Dion nudged him.


    "She hired me to investigate and I''m investigating. What''s the problem? If she''s innocent then it''s best we get it out already, so I don''t waste time in the future."


    Dion stayed silent. They both looked at Aenea, who seemed unfazed, uncaring. Less than apathetic. Bored almost. "I wasn''t here, most of my family would attest to that...I was the last one to come, I took a jet here six hours after my father''s death."


    Apollo tilted his head.


    "So you found out last? About this whole thing? Why were you the first to request a detective."


    "They did hire detectives. But I don''t trust them. They''re comfy with the family and I don''t like that, might make them dishonest if they find something...unsavory."


    "So you brought outsiders, huh."


    "I brought people who might give me closure and who might not. What I really want is for you to get this over, one way or another." She sighed. "If you don''t like that, you can still leave. I won''t fault you."


    "We won''t be outdone by amateurs and phonies," Apollo said. Dion nodded.


    He took his notepad out and wrote everything down, his pencil dragged and furious across the page.


    "Where do you work at?" Dion asked. Apollo lifted his head, his pencil ready.


    "I work in a pharmaceutical company. I was with investors, they can attest to it. So can my family. Didn''t I say this already?"


    Dion scratched his neck.


    "Just trying to make small talk."


    "Don''t waste my time."


    "Where do you work?" Apollo asked, sharp. The graphite made a scratching noise.


    "You might have heard of it. Excel Grand, we deal with over-the-counter medicine mostly."


    "Excel Grand..."Apollo wrote it, thought it, let it rumble against the inside of his skull. He remembered taking an aspirin with their logo on it, that one day Dion punched him and left him in a dumpster after that whole construction-site-demon business. He felt a headache forming.


    "Any reason why you ''weren''t invited''?" Dion asked, this time. Apollo wanted to nod as if to say, nice question.


    She felt hurt. For once. Apollo looked up, he saw her face morph, reel back almost to the question. As if she had an allergic reaction to it, felt itchy with a kind of guilt towards that question.


    "Is that information necessary for your investigation? All you need to know was that I wasn''t here and I didn''t have anything to do with his death and that''s a promise as much as anyone can make."


    Her tone was expedient, she wanted to get rid of the words as soon as they came out. Apollo raised his pencil and his finger, the notepad hung by the edge of the stump of his arm. It fell. His mouth opened, for another question, an intense look in his eyes. A craze, almost.


    The phone rang. She sighed, in relief almost and looked at Apollo. He felt his mouth suck in, close.


    "I need to go talk to some of card dealers. There''s a problem at the poker tables, we can talk about this later. If we still have to, that is."


    She left. Ran out almost, the doors didn''t even have time to settle before she was down the elevator and gone.


    "You see that?" Apollo asked.


    "Yeah, I saw it," Dion said. "You made her angry."


    "I got under her skin and that''s good," He said. "Now I know what bothers her and what she wants to keep secret. And the only things worth keeping secret are important things."


    "Do we really need to pry? She''s got a strong alibi?" Dion asked.


    Apollo picked up the notepad.


    "We don''t need to pry, but why was she so hostile?"


    "Who knows? Does it matter?"


    "It might."


    "She has a right to exclude any details, personal ones especially."


    "Dion," Apollo turned to him. "Our heads are on the line. We can''t afford to care about other peoples feelings. You understand that, right?"


    "I understand that I need to be civil when you refuse to be. You won''t find me act like an ass like you, that''s for sure."


    "Good luck being civil," Apollo turned to the corpse. "That''s a luxury for secured people. And we are not secure."


    The dead wide eyes stared into the black tile, the milky-waved, black granite. Dion left, taking one look at the corpse, his hand on his mouth again.


    Apollo stayed for a moment. Stayed and stared and wondered and felt. Imagining the nameless, faceless anonymous murderers. Imagining the struggle, the fight, the death.


    [i]I''ve come to meet the children of a king, and I hate them already.


    He opened the door. It shut. A maid, standing the corner, a little curious at the yellow tape and shushed words, stopped by the glass doors. She took one look and fainted.

 hg. 4

    "Who are these men, Annie? Annie?" The Old Woman sat center of the garden. She had a long purple skirt, her grey hair bundled in a bun and on her lips with a deep red lipstick. She was Caucasian, which told Apollo that the other ones must have been so too. And she sounded southern, not too deep or comical. Light and modest.


    It had taken them an elevator trip to the highest possible point of this casino to reach her. And when they did, when they came out of that blocky, glass-walled elevator, they had witnessed the garden of wisterias and lily pads, a small river that slid along the ornate floor pattern, that wrapped itself around the collection of violet colored trees. At the center, calling out for Annie, the dour face Old Woman rocked her chair and expunged a tear from the corner of her eye.


    "You can have this one," Apollo said.


    "Are you sure I should, though?" Dion asked. "He died recently, this woman must still be in shock."


    "You can''t be kind to these people," Apollo said. "You''ve got to be just as ruthless as the murderer. Truth does not care for feelings."


    "Don''t worry about that," Aenea stepped forward. "She isn''t as innocent as she looks."


    "Annie, please explain this." The Old Woman said.


    "These are the detectives sent to investigate Thomas''s murder."


    "He''s your father, not ''Thomas''!" She yelled back. Apollo''s leg moved backward instinctively, he looked over to Dion who had a face in between shock and foreboded frown.


    Annie walked with a strong stride, merciless even in her abruptness. The two followed, Apollo behind Dion as he waved past the ferns and observed the landscape. It was the very top of the pointed skyscraper, a little triangle of land that had plotted itself as a garden. He could smell honeysuckle, he certainly saw the wisterias and the feeling of fresh water gave a pleasant humidity to the air.


    In front of him, Dion walked, taking a deep breath. He straightened himself and sat. In his hands, the legal paper. Apollo kept somewhat close behind him, behind the seat and behind Aenea (Annie). He fiddled with the plants.


    "Don''t touch you brute! You''ll kill my Aloe Vera." The Old Woman screamed. His head moved slowly, like a moving statue in some distant temple, labored and excruciatingly slow.


    "Sorry," He said and put his hand in his pocket.


    Dion coughed. The Old Woman redirected herself.


    "Hello, ma''am," Dion said. "Our apologies for the intrusion but we need to ask some questions."


    "Intruding, destroying. Annie, who in the hell did you hire? I told you the Saxon''s were good enough!"


    "My name is Aenea, Salome." She said, harsh.


    "Don''t be spiteful, girl." Salome rocked. She put her head down and rubbed her wet eyes. "Don''t be spiteful to your mother, especially now that father is gone. Oh lord, oh lord..."


    She wiped her face.


    "You are not my mother, you know that. We have no blood flowing through us, no relationship but the man..." She said. "Thomas,"


    She mumbled off.


    The woman did not answer, she kept sobbing.


    "Are you sure?" Dion asked. "This is cruel."


    Apollo folded his arm.


    "Ma''am!" He repeated. More assertive, his voice had a booming quality like a malfunctioned air horn.


    The old woman looked up. She looked at the two boys, her face changing from a sagging, wet sadness, to a tight-lipped anger. Resentment almost.


    "How could she bring two heart-eaters?" She hissed. "To our house!"


    Dion sighed, in relief almost. For the woman still had a semblance of matriarchal brutality, of life in her. And that was reassuring, to know that she wasn''t as brittle as she appeared.


    "We''re here to ask you in regard to Thomas Wolfe Jr, the victim of the murder," Dion said.


    "You don''t have to tell me he was the victim, don''t be patronizing boy." She said.


    "I''ll try not to be, ma''am. I just need to know what you know of Thomas, any enemies. Any recent plans, anything that might lead to a motive and subsequently, a lead."


    "What I know about him?" She nearly laughed. "I was married to that man for twenty-five years. That''s older than you two tykes!"


    Dion extended his legs out, he spread them wide and leaned inwards to fill up the space in this new gap. He was breathing heavily. Concentrating, trying his best to mimic Apollo. And Apollo looked at him, curiously, Do I look that stupid?


    "You''ve known him a long time, haven''t you ma''am? That''s good," He said. "You know he was a big tycoon and that he had a lot of enemies. Do you have any idea who they might be? Who wanted him dead? Anything? Perhaps the means of which he was killed through."


    "The means of which he was killed - what? Isn''t that your job!" She hissed. Her rocking pace increased. Her fists were tight. "That god damn Annie''s brought two imbeciles to lead my husbands'' revenge. I could have hired thirty men, thirty different men who were stronger willed, brighter, kinder than you filthy heart-eaters."


    Apollo''s eye twitched. Aenea looked at him, glaring at him.


    "No offense ma''am," Dion said. "But we''re not interested in revenge, just the truth. Can you tell us about his enemies, or perhaps who Thomas Wolfe was?"


    She rocked and looked at Aenea.


    "You never knew much about him either, did you?" She asked. "Oh you wretched thing, you never wanted to get to know him. And now look? You never will. You''re a terrible daughter."


    Now she was twitching and now Apollo was glaring at her.


    Dion coughed again, drawing them all to him.


    "Aenea doesn''t know much about her father, she told us that much at least, so this whole business is as much a mystery to us as it is to her," Dion said. "So I was wondering if you could tell me what this meeting meant for you? I was informed it was just a retirement plan, but -"


    "It was more than that. It was the passing of the legacy. The money, the curse."


    "Say," Dion wrote in his notepad.


    "I can tell you more, I don''t mind. Why would I? Does anyone tire of hearing about great men? Find me the man who can''t appreciate the story of a king." She said. "And by the way you all speak, even Annie over here, I don''t think any of you have any idea of the man Thomas Wolfe Jr was. How good mannered, and assertive and kind and courageous my husband was. It''s no surprise that such a man had enemies. Great men tend to because great men stir the rotten earth. Clean it, cure it."


    He did not speak. None of them did, they left room for her melodramatic-gestured oration.


    "I met him in the spring of ''85," she said. "When he was still a young man. He had nothing to his name, did you know that? Nothing but strong will and a clear goal, both guided by principal. A principal born through God. He was a Protestant, after all. We spent our youth trying to fix up the downtrodden lodge left by his father, after he died. Boy those days were good..." Her eyes trailed off. "It was a lot of work, a lodge in a desert. A small motel in a city that didn''t have much. He almost sold this place, twice, did you know that? And he said both times, don''t worry, God has plans for us yet. He''s left us this paradise, hid it underneath this desert. All we have to do is dig, dig. Dig." Her voice trailed off. "Like a diamond in a sandbox. That''s what he said..."If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "From a lodge to an oil tycoon, to a casino."


    "It happened by accident, or at least that''s what I said," Salome said. "But he always had faith, and one day, after saving some money, had determined himself to dig a hole right down this damn desert. I told him he was foolish, oh do I regret saying such, I told him all the oil wells have been mined decades ago, that it was stupid to go in this late into the game. Oh, how I wish to take it back, oh."


    She began to weep and took out a white handkerchief to wipe the tears at the edges of her eyes.


    "It wasn''t a lot, the oil. But it was enough to buy property, to grow the land, the only way a desert could be grown and nurtured. He made a kingdom. A kingdom of heaven, a place where everyone could be king. Boy did he love saying that, always telling me, ''I know what it is to be poor. To be unwanted. To never win. I wouldn''t wish that on anyone, I wouldn''t.'' He built this city, slowly. By sheer will. It attracted people, or maybe he attracted people and before long he had made the casino what it was. Growing it, slowly, never waiting, always tired. He was no perfect man, as no man is, but he was a fine Christian. A hard-working, good-willed Christian. Oh yes, he was."


    "Must have hard being a Christian when you sold your soul to the devil." Apollo interrupted. He could feel his face contorted, he could feel his own hostile aura. Menacing, slowly creeping, quiet.


    "There was no contract, heart-eater. He inherited the curse from his father. Perhaps you ought to read up on history. Not all witches are willful. Not all pacts, gifts. He was forced into the role and did his best to do right by God with his power." She said in her spiteful, coarse voice. "He always considered it a burden, a cross to carry as he said himself. Something to be shamed, something to be feared. He was very careful when and how and why he used his gifts. Which is more than what your church can say. It seems you''re willing to use your heavy hand for every small thing imaginable."


    "Let''s get back to Thomas, ma''am." He could tell he hit a nerve, for her thin arms shook and the chair rocked like an impatient pendulum. She looked like a turkey, with the hanging skin on her neck and biceps.


    "So he established a casino in what was once a place of nothing. Seems like his parents didn''t have as much business sense as him."


    "Thomas Wolfe Sr, God bless his soul, was just never interested in business not like my husband that is. All he inherited from him was the bottle - " She lowered her face and thought. Apollo meant to press this, but she seemed agitated enough. Dion kept writing. "Never mind that, it doesn''t matter. He drunk every now and then, but like I said, he was no saint. And for the most part, he was moral and industrious. As God intended, for sloth is one of the greatest sins of man."


    "Who were his enemies?"


    "Who wasn''t?" She asked. "We''re not that far from Las Vegas, so you got the whole city coming down our throats every other day. You have people who want to compete, to buy real estate right across from us. After we! We!" She repeated expecting a reaction. "Spent all our time building this city. There''s no shortage of two-time crooks trying to reap our fruits of labor. This city is ours, we made it, we earned it. Ain''t no one have the right to stomp their feet in our home, to claim it their own. Ain''t no one."


    "I''m guessing they''ll be harassing you soon, now that he''s dead?" He asked.


    "They can ask all they want. I will continue his legacy."


    "Does everyone in the company agree with that sentiment?"


    Her face morphed completely. Her lips quivered, her face turned, for the first time.


    "No,"


    "Who doesn''t agree with Thomas Wolfe''s monopoly?"


    "The damn board of directors, if you ask me. My family owns most of the stocks, but I''m afraid they might find a way to hedge a few percentages more and then..."


    Apollo and Dion smelled it. It was in the air like the honeysuckle, or the Wisterias or the clean pure water. It was the blood of murder, the trail of rust-tasting blood.


    "If your family owns most of the stock, how would they ever be able to get a majority hold? Who''d be willing to sell?" Apollo approached. Aenea looked, curious for once, her eyes narrowed at the mother.


    "You two aren''t really business savvy, are you?" She asked. "I''m not surprised. I hear you heart-eaters are a bit poor and uncultured, that you all eat mud like the savages you are. Just a step above the common demon."


    "Answer the question," Dion repeated, as harsh as Apollo. Both of them, for once, unified. If only because of the insult, the crassness of the old lady. She turned her head methodologically.


    "I''ll say this: not all of Thomas''s children agreed with him, I''ll say that." She said. "And I''ll also have you know it doesn''t matter because the business is being left to my eldest. Thomas Wolfe the third, he''ll never let those bastards have it...never."


    "Junior? Junior''s getting the business?" Aenea sprung alive, walking with extreme fervor.


    "Do you have a problem with that?"


    "No," She said. "Do whatever you want, none of this belongs to me and I don''t belong to none of this. I''m just surprised is all. Junior?"


    "Yes, Junior has it. Don''t ask anymore, girl." Salome said.


    "Alright, alright, let''s bring it back." Dion scratched on the paper. "He might have been backstabbed by his business partners. Tell me, was this, ''Junior'', always destined for the casino?"


    "Yes,"


    "It probably wasn''t him then," Apollo nodded his head in disappointment.


    Dion scratched out the name on his notepad with a horizontal line drawn through.


    "Is there any other child, son, that would have wanted the casino?"


    "None of mine!" She said. The words escaped her as if they had just ignored all the language processes in her brain. Like a flinch, a reaction of motor skills. A trained denial. "My kids? Never. But that other whore''s..."


    "You better not be talking about my mother." Aenea gripped her hand.


    "Not you, Annie. Jesus, have a higher opinion of me, girl." She said. "I''m talking about the first wife."


    Saying ''first'' seemed like a painful thing, her teeth grated against each other as she forced it out.


    "There was one who was up in arms about getting the casino, only briefly. Richter, the youngest son of the other whore woman." She nodded her head. "I doubt it was him though. He seems like a nice boy," She turned again, in doubt. "But we can never be so sure. The power of a demon, of wealth, is enticing, isn''t it? And he is a trained witch, so I hear."


    Richter. Dion wrote it down on his pad.


    "Are there any more trained witches?"


    "No, none of my kids have done the dowry. I repeat though, my kids." Dion wrote it down. Apollo narrowed his eyes. Salome had twitched, her right arm. She gripped her long skirt, her blouse. That was a new movement, a quirk. It''s just a nudge, that''s all it was. He scratched his nose. It couldn''t mean anything, could it?


    "Dowry?" Apollo asked. "Like a marriage gift?"


    "That''s what they call the process of their covenant," Dion said. "Pacts with devils procure the strongest abilities we know of, as such, they require a heavy price. These prices vary based on demons. I''ve heard of men who give up their kidneys, quite literally, for power. Others who have offered children...so on and so forth..." Dion said. Shotgunned it at Apollo.


    "Has Richter made a pact?"


    "I don''t know much about him or his brother. Like I said, they''re from the other whore." She said. "They don''t speak much to my children and we don''t speak much to them."


    "Do they live here?"


    "They visited for the passing of the rite, my husband''s gift onto Junior. I wouldn''t be surprised if they had it in them to kill him." She got livelier, her fist in the air. "If you ask me, you should be questioning them. Spare an old woman like me your rudeness."


    "That''s just speculation, ma''am," Dion said. "But we''ll keep it in mind. Is Richter here at the moment?"


    "No, he went out. He''ll be back, that''s what he said." Salome said. "But I don''t trust him. He might never be back. That''s why I sent the two after him. If he even tries to run, they''ll - They''ll!"


    "You sent the Saxons after him?" Aenea asked.


    "Only to watch him, that''s it."


    And he has a brother. Apollo felt his phantom limb going off again, a pain, and another voice. Loud. Brother, brother. Screaming. A Brother like us.


    "Can we talk to your children?" Dion asked.


    "No," She said, firmly. "I know what kind of insanity you''re trying to point at and you won''t find it here. My children are good and honest people, who don''t have it in them to kill anyone. Most of all their father. They were raised better than that. They''re Christians, for God''s sake. What kind of Christian kills?"


    "It''s like you said. Demons and wealth entice," Apollo said.


    He felt Dion''s hand slap his thigh. He held back.


    "We''re trying to get all options out on the table, is all," Dion said. "Our strongest bet right now is the board of directors scheming something. Perhaps Richter too. Or maybe it was the competition trying to get foot ground in this city. I''m sure Aenea can help us with those things,"


    "Can you, Annie?" Salome asked. "I thought you didn''t want anything to do with the family business."


    "I still don''t." She said. "But burying Thomas is more important now, so I''ll look into our accounting papers if I have to."


    She grinned. Some of her teeth were missing, she had some gold molars. They looked bright in the filtered light of the greenhouse.


    "Get on with it then, detectives, before my boys beat you to it."


    Dion nodded, said goodbye and stood.


    Apollo felt his limb hurt again, the stump. His throat was dry. The taste of vinegar was strong like acid almost, rotting his teeth.


    It''s wrong, you know it.


    He shook his head and looked back at Salome, still sitting. Aenea and Dion had already walked away.


    "If you don''t mind me asking, ma''am. How many children did Thomas have in total? Across all women?"


    "Eight."


    "That''s going to be a lot of people to get through," Apollo said.


    "You''ll find my children to be the most well-civilized. I don''t think you''ll have any problems with them, which marks off half the list if I do say so."


    "If you say so," Apollo said. She looked down, rocking, holding her handkerchief, silent.


    "One more thing, ma''am."


    "What?" She said.


    "Where are you from?"


    "I''m a Louisiana girl, of course." She said. "Couldn''t you tell by the southern hospitality?"

 hg. 5

    They passed by the main hallway, Aenea stood there, her heels against a lion statue. She was talking to someone, with that stern voice before she passed them a glance.


    "The others are busy, or gone away." She said.


    "Busy? You''d think they''d make time for your father''s death to answer some questions." Dion said.


    "My siblings don''t trust you. Especially now that Salome''s had time to spread her rumors. God knows what lies she''s told about you two."


    "It doesn''t matter, we''ll talk to them eventually. Is there anyone available?" Apollo asked.


    She looked down for a while. Her head shaking left and right, nodding, arguing with herself it seemed.


    "One of my step-brothers, the oldest son. Yeah, he''s available. I don''t know what you''ll get out of him."


    "Was he here during the murder?" Dion asked.


    "Yes,"


    "Then he''s a suspect," Apollo said.


    "Alright," She gestured towards a hall, towards a door, an elevator and the floor to take. "He''s a bit of an eccentric though."


    She had told them too late, when they were already inside the glass elevator, with the button pressed to the drop. It felt like fate, as they came down a few floors and their stomachs felt the harsh gravity. This is what destiny feels like. The doors dinged, went open and the lights dimmed from within, in the corners of the elevator. I want to vomit.


    They walked to what appeared to be a simple room, with nothing to it but a few ferns and couches. But beyond the walls, the parchment-colored walls, was the swelling and booming of noise. There was a door frame, pictures of impressionist art, life-like statues, all nudist portrayals. Two silk drapes hung from the door frame, they shook from the noise, vibrated. Both of them vibrated.


    Dion was the first to walk. Apollo followed him into darkness.


    What looked immediately like absolute darkness was a deceit. Apollo felt the lights of a disco ball drag across his face. It was warm. The whole room was filled with this warmness, with the wild light and coloration like a Jackson Pollock. Stars, everywhere, among the darkness, erratic and blurry.


    He felt his eyes go lazy. Mesmerized. Dion stumbled. Apollo shook out of the hypnotism and went further inside, tables were set everywhere. There was a bar, lit with blue LEDs, displaying a wide assortment of tonics. Whiskey and tequila, mostly. They saw their reflections mirror each other into an endless dimension. It was a house of mirrors and horrors and all they could do was follow the noise, and approaching closer to the bar, follow the discreet laughter and conversation. They saw the back of someone''s head, sitting on an L shaped sofa. They neared and turned to face the man sitting down. It was a reflection. The man was behind him.


    He moved. Apollo ducked. His eyes, blinded. He saw the black spots, like grainy film. His hand cut the light in front of his face. And the man, once sitting down, stood laughing. They had followed the reflection, only to be blindsided by the fool.


    "Turnus Wolfe." Apollo groaned. Dion was still rubbing his eyes. Turnus Wolfe, like Aenea had explained, was the eldest of the sons. He came from the first wife of Thomas Wolfe Jr. which made him peculiar, as being the true runner-up to the legacy and being the person who knew Thomas Wolfe Jr. the best.


    Turnus stood, letting the picture develop in his camera. A square photo spat out from his instant-camera. He waved it in the air like a flag and shot it at Apollo. Apollo caught it, looked at it. It was a picture of Dion and Apollo shocked and wide-eyed like an elk.


    He stuck it in his pocket and faced the man. He was supposed to be in his late thirties, but he looked young. Extremely. He looked their age, a young twenty year old. Acted like it too, with his flailing and dancing and lax stance. He wore a blazer with nothing underneath, he had in his front breast-pocket a card. A lucky Seven of cloves, face out towards the world. A piercing on his nose, a small ring.


    Behind him, a stripper - a transsexual girl who looked solemn, whose pale complexion made her appear a ghost in the dim room.


    He took another picture. This one was for himself, and this time they were prepared.


    ¡°There''s no beauty in you two,¡± he sat and leaned back to a roundtable-style couch. A pole was laid in front, where the stripper spun and danced and flashed herself. Not as trashy as Apollo expected, more burlesque, with hints of novice choreography in the movements.


    ¡°Turnus Wolfe,¡± Apollo repeated opposite Turnus, who sitting down, appeared short. His whole body sunk into the seat.


    ¡°Hello. Hello,¡± Turnus waved, though there wasn¡¯t much of a distance between them. ¡°You¡¯re the detectives sent to look for my father''s murderer, I¡¯m guessing?¡±


    ¡°Yes. We¡¯re just trying to get by and figure this thing out.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great. The death has been quite a shake and I expect it to worsen as the days go on. Like a bad earthquake." He snapped at the girl. "I¡¯d like to be nothing but helpful, if not to save myself from the howling bitch.¡±


    "Salome?" Apollo asked.


    "So you''ve met her." He set the camera down. The stripper climbed down, disappointed almost, and walked towards the bar to fix drinks.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t she lovely?¡± Turnus observed her stride with an unhinged fetishism. Though not exactly a lewd look, Apollo couldn¡¯t find a hint of lust in his stare. It was more of a curious stare, like naturalist observation. His forehead forward, his fingers on his chin, his eyes narrowed.


    ¡°I can''t call anyone lovely whom I''ve never even truly met," Apollo said. "She seems nice, though."


    ¡°Yes, she is nice. I met her, or rather, the man that would become her a year or two back, on the side of the road down the wide stretch of the I-94 in North Dakota.¡± he tapped the table like a piano. ¡°She came from one of those Christian, nuclear homes, and it was so that she was destined to be born an existence too great for God. Her father was not kind to her...tastes. Being, soul. Whatever you''d like to call it. I, however, was more open-minded. Or perhaps she was just too seductive that day. Whichever, however, we''ve been together ever since. Which is good, I get bored easily and she still manages to make good conversation. " He turned to Apollo, sly and wry. "And even better sex.¡±


    Dion sat away, taking notes, as Apollo instructed. And he tried hard to avoid eye contact with anyone.


    ¡°It sounds like you¡¯ve been grooming her.¡± Apollo folded his legs. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t call that a healthy relationship.¡±


    ¡°Groom? We''re all groomed by some higher power. Nature or nurture, only fools believe otherwise. To be honest, I was a little easier on her than God. I gave her the room to mold herself, money can buy that kind of freedom."


    "Does she think of it that way?" He asked.


    "Yes, yes she does. I expedited the woman she was always going to be. God can be awfully slow with destiny, sometimes He needs a helping hand.¡± The stripper came around with three small glasses filled with a concoction that smelled of smoky bitters and cherry. ¡°Thank you, Dorothy.¡±


    He brushed his hand against hers, smiling. The glass slid across. Another was aimed at Dion, who declined. Apollo took his share and combined them into one glass.


    "Alright, let''s talk about your father," Apollo said.


    ¡°My father!" He raised his glass to clank. No one but Dorothy did so.


    Turnus nodded his head and leaned back.


    Apollo sniffed. Coughed. Remembered.


    ¡°Your father died two days ago in between the hours of eleven forty-three in the morning to twelve fifteen. There was a blackout, the murderer is suspected to have killed him during that blackout, which happened at exactly eleven fifty-nine, right before and during the clock strike. Where were you at that time?¡±


    ¡°I was on the casino floor, flaunting my woman.¡± Dorothy sat near him, he brushed her shoulder. ¡°Then we hit the roulette tables... We lost a lot, to be honest.¡±


    ¡°Did you visit your father before that?¡± He wanted to check whether he was telling the truth. Apollo and Dion had both visited the camera feed booth. They had both seen the main hall camera (leading to the office and place of death) and had witnessed Turnus visiting his father. It was unfortunate that these were the only cameras available on that hall, it seemed like the kids really loved their privacy.


    ¡°Yes, I did.¡±


    Telling the truth, huh.


    ¡°About what? If you don¡¯t mind me asking?¡±


    Turnus breathed deep and took a sip. He scratched his bony knuckled against the table.


    ¡°He told me what he always tells me; that he could no longer sanction my buffoonery. That I was a mockery, a poor strutting son.¡±


    ¡°And you said?¡±


    ¡°I told him to fuck off.¡± He drank again. ¡°I never liked him.¡±


    He really is honest.


    He could tell by the tweaks in his body, or rather, the lack of tweaks. Not a pinch, not a twitch, not a single nervous itch.


    ¡°You never liked your father?¡±


    ¡°Not for a single moment one. Hell, I''d say, I hated him.¡± He said, proud. ¡°And I don¡¯t mourn him. And. And! I¡¯m pretty glad he¡¯s dead, to be honest.¡±


    ¡°Are you aware that you''re nearly incriminating yourself?¡± Dion said, leaning further into their table from his little chair.


    ¡°What do I have to hide? I did not kill him.¡± He set the glass down. ¡°I wish I did though,"


    They both felt cold. The scratching of pencil ceased. Dion stopped jotting and looked up. The candid words were too strange for the page, Apollo understood, but they still needed to be written. He nudged Dion, who shrugged his shoulders and kept writing.


    ¡°If I may ask, why did you feel this strongly about him? Where¡¯s that hostility stem from?¡±


    ¡°Where does it come from? A level of consciousness I''m not even aware of.¡± He smiled. ¡°It''s something that''s built up over the years and now I''m glad it''s done. The man is dead, I''m happy.¡±


    Apollo shook his head.


    I need to redirect this before I lose track.


    ¡°You¡¯re the oldest, correct.¡±


    He looked down, to think almost. His voice sobered.


    ¡°Yes. Yes, I am. Richter and I were born to the first wife of my father, Elaine. Elaine Wolfe.¡± He said. ¡°We were his first experiments. His first mistakes, even."


    "He called you that, a mistake?"


    "Yes,"


    ¡°Have you always had a rocky relationship with your father?"


    "He was a drunk and I was his biggest failure. You do the math."


    "Who''s to say you didn''t hire someone from killing him by sheer spite? Do you have anything in your defense?"


    ¡°Don''t you have the camera footage? I can show you bank statements too, no expenses were taken out of any of my accounts. I was not there to kill him, and I paid no one to do it either. Like I said, if I was going to do it, I would have done it with my own hands. My darling, Dorothy, will attest to this,¡±


    Her nod was weak. Like a slave girl, like a mute. Apollo looked at him, the glass was nearly empty and he was wobbling in his seat.


    God fucking damnit. It''s trash now.


    ¡°Alright, alright. I believe you.¡± Apollo said, drinking himself. ¡°Do you have any idea who might have done it?¡±


    Turnus giggled. He leaned forward.


    ¡°Everyone.¡± He said. ¡°Everyone wanted to kill him.¡±


    ¡°That isn¡¯t helpful, I need someone specific, besides you.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t understand detective? Heart-eater?¡± He said. ¡°We¡¯re witches, mages, pact-bearers. Whichever name fancies you best. And we''re greedy people, with greedy ambitions. Who wouldn''t want my father''s power? He could move mountains, you know?¡± Turnus drank again. "He could level everything into flat sands. He controlled the earth itself."


    "That''s why your kind is vilified," Dion mumbled. "That obscene power and wretched soul. To sell yourself to the devil, any devil...that''s damnable."


    "We''re all damned," Turnus faced him. "What''s your name again? Both of yours."


    "Don¡¯t you know? We''re all damned," Turnus faced him. Apollo snorted, Dion penned.


    "What''s your name again? Both of yours."


    ¡°I¡¯m Dion.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Apollo, don¡¯t sidetrack. Why¡¯d you say everyone wanted to kill him?¡±


    ¡°Want is a strange word. My father and I never got along and we despised each other, that was my source of contempt. But the others? Some of them downright worshiped him, and even with that, I still think they might have killed him. Because however much they loved father, they loved what they stood to gain from him even more..¡± He said. ¡°The meeting that day, the day he died, we were coming together to discuss the next in line to inherit the company. The heir, so to speak and more than that, the curse and the richest and this high, lofty tower."


    "We''ve heard of your pact."


    ¡°Oh?¡± He asked. "Yes, our deal with Mammon. Who sits atop the golden mountain, hoarder of wealth. Of course, I''ve never met him, none of us have save for father. It was a deal made long before any of us were born. Apparently, during the civil war but I question that. All I know is that it''s always circled us, been around us, that pact."


    Apollo felt his neck go cold and rubbed it.


    Was that the thing I saw, that time through the portal in Hell? It must have been. That gross, flabby, hungry thing?


    ¡°Ezekial Wolfe!¡± He laughed and clanked with Dorothy and drank. "My great, great, great, great useless grandfather. Damned us all. Well, shit,"


    ¡°I''m not good with this magic stuff," Apollo said. "But I can understand if it''s so great and so versatile that someone might kill for it. Do you have any idea who?"


    "You''re not good with magic? With Arcana? What are you, a monkey?" He said. "I thought you were a heart-eater, aren''t all of you trained for this kind of stuff."


    "I prefer to get in close. Arcana never suit me."


    "Huh," He scratched his neck. "That doesn''t mean you can run away from it. You see, we''re all born under a star, each and every single one of us. And we all are favorites amongst those evil beings below. I''m sure you''re someones favorite. As all of us are. Princes of Hell can be such petty and fickle beings, you know."


    He felt itchy. He kept remembering the Hyena, he kept remembering the feeling of smallness. Of manipulation, of the strings of the puppeteer.


    ¡°All of us? Every man and woman?¡±


    ¡°Since Adam and Eve made their stupid mistake, yes.¡± He said. ¡°The witches or magicians or monks all have different names. We call it the umbilical cord, that strange connection between man and devil. Some people have a better standing than others. Some people speak to their prince. I''ve even heard of some people fucking them, ridiculous, ain''t it?¡±


    He laughed alone.


    ¡°Yes. Arcane comes from the circle and the prince and as such is geographical in nature. And the price for that power, from whichever debase plane of Hell, demands a high price. A large quote that might take generations to sate. Lord knows we''re still paying...¡±


    ¡°What¡¯d you pay and what are your powers?¡± Dion asked. He put his pencil down to glare.


    ¡°Me? None. I have no powers. No interest in them too, power demands responsibility and responsibility demands power. You really can''t have one without the other.¡± He lifted his glass. His finger rubbed against it. One of the lights shone through, pink. He finished, then picked up his girlfriend''s glass.


    Another gulp.


    ¡°Responsibility, legacy, I hate all that shit. Too annoying. Who would want that kind of stuff?" He asked. "Insane people, that''s who. It takes a certain narcissist to want the strength to push other people around."


    Dion sighed, relieved almost. He kept writing.


    ¡°Too bad, too often witches end at the deep end of a long asylum hall. Witches are a different breed, I''m sure you know that. They live for the forbidden and hazard everything, sanity most of all.¡±


    "They? It seems you really want to distance yourself from these people. You''re one step above from joining them, though, you certainly have the aptitude for it. I sensed it coming in."


    "You sensed wrong, I despise them and I want nothing more but to rid myself of this curse."


    ¡°Is that why you hate your step-mother? Is she a witch? She really didn''t speak much to that and it''s not like I can trust anything she said anyway.¡±


    ¡°Salome? That old bitch?¡± He twirled a spherical ice ball in his glass. "I''m not sure if she''s a witch. If she isn''t though, then I can''t explain her insanity. She''s got a nasty obsession with father."


    ¡°What about Aenea?¡±


    ¡°Aenea?¡± He looked surprised almost. "She''s still around? I thought she''d be gone by now."


    ¡°Why''s that?"


    ¡°She just seemed bored of the whole charade. I don''t blame her." He said. "She didn''t even come for the passing of the pact. She came for the corpse, like a damn coroner."


    ¡°Why didn''t she want to come to the ritual, I thought it was important."


    His cropped teeth flashed white against the polka dot lights of red and blue and violet. The disco ball, propped on the high ceiling, came to a halt.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you ask her?¡± He said. ¡°She¡¯s the one who hates us, not the other way around. I quite like her presence. She''s rigid. Reliable.¡±


    Dion had enough and displayed it as much. His notepad shut loudly. The slurred words were grating against his ears.


    "What''s his problem? Turnus hiccuped. He spilled a bit of his drink and laid back into his chair, before letting his body fall on its abdomen, length-wise across the sofa as if to pose for a painter. Apollo and Dion stood abruptly. Apollo looked back, Dion was already walking towards the door. He ran up to him, following him out.


    "What''s wrong?" He asked. "We''re not here."


    ¡°I don''t trust him,¡± Dion said. ¡°And I don''t know why we''re not bashing his head in. He basically admitted to murdering his father.¡±


    ¡°He admitted to hating him. Besides, I don''t think he killed him. He doesn''t have the strength for that kind of murder, I think.¡± Apollo said. ¡°It''s not like we can take him seriously anyway. His breath was absolutely horrible. A wasted shmuck.¡±


    In the background, Turnus laughed. The stripper kept mixing drinks, the glasses kept clanked. And the music, low and smooth, kept humming along.


    ¡°What are we going to do then? Throw it all out?¡±


    ¡°No, we¡¯re going to look around and see how much of what he said is true. We¡¯ll see what truth we can filter from the idiot.¡±


    ¡°Still¡­he gives me the creeps. He says he''s not a witch but he''s the most degenerate person I''ve had the displeasure of meeting. Gives me the creeps, and the way he treats that girl...it''s gross.¡± Dion sighed. He waited a bit in the hall before going towards the elevator, almost inviting Apollo. But Apollo kept still and silent, feeling the slow burn of the disco light in the back of his head.


    The velvet curtains rubbed against Apollo, they fell behind him and behind Dion. Back into the Egyptian harem camp, out in the middle of this desert.


    Turnus hollered.


    ¡°Detective!¡± He shouted from across the room. Dorothy nurtured his body on her thighs, rubbing his now naked chest. ¡°Detective!" He screamed out again. Apollo sighed and gave him his ear. "Have you ever heard of the dark star? Detective?¡±


    Apollo shook his head, feeling both his time wasted and annoyed that he had to obligate him anyway.


    ¡°Yeah, I have. Some call it the black sun, right? Neo-Nazis use it here and there for imagery. Though it''s a bit archaic even for them.¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°That¡¯s right. But do you know where it comes from?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not a Nazi historian, so no, I don¡¯t know.¡± He crossed his arms, none of this was worth the space on the notepad. Let alone the space in his brain.


    ¡°It''s a myth. Or a truth, perhaps. That our lonely son once had a younger brother, did you know that? Millenniums ago, one sun was formed while the weaker, dwarf star was sent out, far away from this galaxy. To roam the empty space, to be cold. A dead, dark sun. The dark star, the heavy, envious dark star who waits and bides and hurls calamity upon us.¡± He grabbed hold of Dorothy''s hand and gripped it tight. ¡°The zealots from Dunwich have told me what I''m telling you now. That the great ancient reptiles before us died when the dark star willed it. That we will die, too, when it wills it. What a sight that''ll be, when it sends its meteors and it''s cosmic angst at us once again. When do you think the dark star will come for us? Do you think we deserve it?¡±


    He wasn''t laughing. He was not wanton, shooting off his mouth. He was very serious, very focused, very narrowed on Apollo.


    Apollo stood, crossed arm. With nothing to say, nothing to add but to glare and try and understand the slurring words of the drunk. Is it a clue then? A brother? He thought. And what does he know if it is a clue?


    ¡°Would you believe me if I told you that I don''t believe in superstitions? It might seem strange, I''m a demon hunter after all. But there''s a danger in believing everything paranormal. If you have your eyes set on one obsessive myth, it might blind you from the truth. So no, I don''t believe in this dark star. There are enough strange, true things for me to worry about." He said. "The cultists of Dunwich lied to you, like any other zealot would. They live to lie, after all and lie to live. Take away their faith and they break up, like glass."


    "You didn''t answer the question, Detective." He rose. "Do we deserve it? Death?"


    "Hmm," He felt his arm tingle. "Any species that can not survive and adapt deserves to die, yes. And will die, yes. That''s as much a law as gravity, or two plus two is four."


    ¡°A practical man then? You''ll find out," He mumbled, frantic-like. "You''ll see, there are some things reason can''t figure. Some things that the eyes can''t process. Some things that reduce brain to simple red-matter, Detective. You''d trust your logic like a God and believe me when I say, he''ll disappoint you like one too."


    No further words were necessary.


    The elevator dinged. Apollo once more went through those velvet doors. He entered the elevator. Dion looked impatient, looking at his watch and tapping on his journal. Apollo looked past him, past the glass walls of that cylinder elevator, past everything and into the sun-fallen corrugated plateaus afar. It looked like a serrated blade, with each pointy mountaintop.


    A cold feeling swept across underneath his head, like a ghosts breath. He breathed deeply, and rubbed his neck.


    "Who''s next on the list?" Apollo asked.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

 hg. 6

    "Thanks, Annie," Apollo smiled.


    Her face fell at the name, Annie. Augh-Nie.


    Remind you of mom? Good.


    She threw the keys at him. But handed them to Dion. Annie, what her step-mother had called her, what seemed to annoy her. And he didn''t care, he actually enjoyed her tight face when he called the name A-nnie. Because annoying her, be honest, was the only fun thing about this detective work. The splitting-hair work, the constant-worrying work. So if he could be snide, he was.


    And if he could get relax, he did.


    The keys rattled and she pointed and said in a quick, low voice, the directions. He went to the main hall as directed and down the rightmost hall, as directed and went down the staircase (because elevators seemed to cause him anxiety, for some reason) to the lower floor below. He found a room, which creaked at a light tug, which had the giant six hundred and four written at the top. He looked back to Dion and began to open the door, slightly, just enough to stick his eye inside.


    "Is it supposed to be open?" Dion asked.


    Apollo, too tired, too annoyed. Did not care. He simply walked through and with arms braced on his hips looked around. There was no one. Maybe they bugged it? Who knew.


    He didn''t care. His eyes were drowsy. His brain, a little rattled.


    "Are you sure we should stay here? Someone might be listening," Dion said.


    "Let them listen, maybe they''ll learn a thing or two." Apollo laid down. "It''s not an issue, really."


    "Are you sure?"


    "No, but I want you to relax anyway."


    "Relax? How? Nothing''s got me more wired up than sleeping in this joint. Didn''t you hear that psycho earlier? What was his name, Turst?"


    "Turnus," Apollo sat on the bed and removed his shoes.


    "Yeah, Turnus." Dion paced. "A family full of devil worshipers, he said it himself."


    "They''re Christians Protestants who carry the burden of a curse of a devil. Not actually devil worshipers,"


    "That doesn''t make it better." Dion inspected the room, looking in the drawers and shutting off the widescreen television that had buzzed with static since they came through. The air carried a dead-silent quality to itself. Not even the generator or the air conditioner seemed to function.


    "Our job isn''t to settle this curse or pact or whatever. That''s their problem and one the Vatican doesn''t care for. So I''m inclined to believe they have it under control," Apollo said. "No. We''re here to figure out what happened to the man with the manhole on his god damn chest."


    "Oh, you think the witches won''t be a problem, huh? You''re saying that now," Dion laid down, shoes on the bed which annoyed Apollo as the dirt and sand began to form a stain on the blankets. "You know our kind won''t get along with theirs. Always killing each other. It''s only a matter of time, let me tell you."


    "You should be a more forgiving Catholic,"


    "I am," Dion said. "When they can be forgiven."


    "And what the hell are you going to do? Crucify the heathens?" Apollo said.


    "No. But I''ll defend myself if I have to."


    "Can you even shoot? You can''t move your arms without fumbling."


    Dion stayed quiet. He idled, sitting down with a strained leaned over stance. Then, with a quick, nervous hand, worked on his clothes. Apollo could tell by the light sweat collecting on Dion''s forehead that he had struck something. He almost felt bad about it.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Who do you thinks done it?" Apollo said, breaking silence.


    "I don''t know. It''s not good to make accusations, you''ll get caught in the imagination and start suffering confirmation bias."


    "Oh, where''d you learn that?" Apollo asked.


    "Your books. You leave them in the car and I get bored sometimes." He looked up, to Apollo. "But you''re the one with the instinct. So who do you thinks done it?"


    "I can''t tell. There''s a degree of scorn and respect most of them have for the man, some more than others." He said. "They all love and hate him and it''s hard to tell who wanted him dead, or alive, the most."


    Dion laid down. He closed his eyes and moved around in his bed. There were two, and opposite of them were the two ferns, and the two desks and the single television. An automatic curtain mosied along its pole and closed the dusk light. Apollo''s stomach was nauseous. The taste of sour still hadn''t left his mouth and laying down, it got worse. Almost came up, like acid hitting the back of his teeth. He went for the bathroom. To drink from the faucet, to look for a brush and toothpaste, somewhere behind the mirrored cabinet. He closed it on him after finding the brush and noticed the posh room. The sensitive light, the granite with texture below his soles, the parchment-colored walls and golden-silver lined porcelain. And somewhere, not hidden really, rather displayed on the glass panel of the shower box, was a note. His stomach grumbled worse. He brushed harder. He scraped the harsh taste of the day out of his mouth and walked, curious, to the note. Wet, old, probably placed in the morning of the day. He ripped it from its tape and came out of the bathroom holding it, still brushing.


    "A warm welcome." He threw it at Dion, who read it, who sighed and closed his eyes and rolled on his side.


    ''Get the fuck away,'' the note read, cut up with individual letters from magazines and books, like letter-soup, a scrapbook of calligraphy.


    "Who do you think put this here?"


    "Someone who knew they wouldn''t get caught. Or doesn''t care."


    "That doesn''t help."


    Apollo threw his arms up.


    "Maybe the killer left it here. Or maybe it''s a person who knows the killer. Doesn''t matter." He went back to the bathroom, to spit. "We''re getting under their skin. That''s what I''m reading from this note."


    Dion rolled in his bed again, he balled the note and threw it. Both of them silent in the little, gaudy room. A modernist bedroom, with two (short) beds and the small expressionist paintings across the walls giving it a sense of pretentiousness. There was no comfort. Especially after, dimming the lights there was no comfort. Especially, when Apollo laid down and closed his eyes.


    On separate beds they waited, both unable to sleep.


    "Are you still having nightmares?" Apollo asked, in a quiet voice.


    Nothing. A turn of the bed sheets. A dead silence, then a gasp.


    "No. Not anymore, it just takes a while longer to fall asleep, is all."


    "That''s an improvement."


    "What about you?"


    "Me?" Apollo asked, surprised even.


    "You talk in your sleep a lot. I''m guessing you''re having bad dreams?" He said. "Or great conversations, I can''t tell. You mumble."


    "Really? With who?"


    "Shouldn''t you know that?" Dion asked.


    "No." He looked up at the blank ceiling. There was a fan, spinning slowly. "I don''t remember a thing." He didn''t know why but his heart was beating as if it knew something the brain didn''t. Who was he talking to? Why did it even matter?


    You know it matters. Having a stranger in here is putting you on edge, isn''t it?


    He shook his head.


    No, It doesn''t matter.


    At least he told himself, over and over. Unnoticing of the clock or the ticking or of the snoring his partner made, unnoticing of the dreadful slowness of the night. His neck turned, to Dion who slept soundly after an hour of waiting his turn in line for sleep. And he felt stupid, asking about Dion''s nightmares. Stupid for being worried about him. Stupid, for ignoring his own symptoms. Stupid and scared and trembling. He had to press his hands down to keep them still and make an effort to close his eyelids, for they kept jumping up at every modest sound.


    Talking in his sleep? Of what? He didn''t want to admit it mattered. Or that he worried. And struggled in his bed. His feet hung by the edge, like a cliff drop, the air touching his toes. He turned. Hoping to forget tonight.


    And Apollo spoke, to himself, breathing heavily. Letting the droning snoring of Dion help him go under.


    "It''s alright, just go to bed."


    It came like a mumble, his words. Like the train of thought was finally losing friction on the track, into the hissing halt, and the noise finally dissipating into the tunnel of his dream-consciousness.


    "It''ll be alright." His eyes were heavy, like two brown curtains. The call. Then another voice, came to him. Something he felt he said (at least it came out of his mouth, with his voice) but something he felt was foreign. "It''s alright, we''ll be there soon."


    His heart - beating. His eyes - falling. A strange tired-anxiety.


    Apollo slept like that. Eye twitching, half-awake, half-asleep. The clock with its steady tick, counting down the steps to the astral plane. And he hoped, wherever he went, as his body sunk and fell deep and his spirit left him, he hoped that he would have the sense enough to forget whatever - wherever, he was going.

 hg. 7 (Bonus Scene)

    Upon the Venusian torment-scape, with the stormy and green noxious sky above, the lethargic wanderings of shell-capped creature grabbed his attention. It climbed the steep hill with small, tiny hands gripping the porous stones. All of this, to find a hole, a massive pitch black gap that it filled with its wholesome girth. This creature, this almost turtle-like creature, nestled itself on the hole opening. The gas, (acid in the air) burned at its back and scarred it in the direction of the wild movements of the wind.


    He himself crawled into a hole. One just for him. The light above, from the many holes of this cavern structure underneath the mountain, was green. Wasteland in tone and color. And he stopped himself from screaming or talking or even thinking, for at the distance he could see the turtle-creature still. From its stomach, like a birth, something emerged with outstretched arms and necks. Demons. Demons who climbed down, who steered away from the gaseous sulfur atmosphere and the stormy weather above and who walked deeper into the cavern. One of these demons (he wasn''t quite sure how many, not yet) produced a glass lantern from his being. He lit it (he heard the noise of the fire spark far before he saw it).


    "Lead, slave," The demon tossed the lantern at something, presumably, the victim. And this character, small and meek obliged with a shaky nod of his head. He ran ahead, with his candle light by hand, which was a curious invention. It wasn''t fire, only partly, and mostly composed of insects, glowing bugs in a glass cage. It''s design; angular and sharp and bony. Not designed for human hands or with a human heart.


    The tramp tripped, nearly breaking this construction. The demons followed close by, one of them smacked him in the back of the head as if a horse. He ran faster. Tripped less. His noisy foot steps lead them all through the winding path, his breathing and sighing echoed through the small cave. They came to the heart of the mountain. A deep cavern, a large space. The tramp was hunched over, low. The demons walked cautiously. It smelled of rancidity. It felt tingly, burning on his skin, as he watched the demons and the slave behind a pillar. Or stake. It was hard to tell with all the stalagmites decorating the ceiling. The fumes rode up to the wall, burning blue and yellow colored murals, like ocean waves. Further beyond, to a spot the demons were nearing, there was glistening. Sparkling. A mountain of coins wrapped around one side of the cave like a golden snake, tapering along the edges. Gold, minted coins. He picked one up to see what was etched on it. Latin, a strange figure, a strange symbol. He tried to put it in his pocket but it fell through. It made a noise. A large dink. He hid behind the pillar. The glares of the demons were obvious. Their sudden shush, frightening.


    Silence.


    It resumed.


    He peered through the edge of the stalagmite he hid behind.


    [i]What''s gold to a demon? Wealth to the wealth-less?


    Perhaps it was the aesthetics of the gold. The weight of the mound. The virtue of having something, when others did not.


    And he looked down, at his feet or where they should have been. And he looked at his hands, as to what he was. He looked up and around, a ghost in this sullen place.


    [i]Hell? Why back here? Why this far down?


    There was a gust of wind. He thought it was the winds above, storms. Then it came again, with sound too. A voice. The whole cave shook. The topaz encrusted walls quivered, the stones and gems interred into the earth fell like comets. Candy-colored stars. Then, as he looked closer at them, like meteor showers. Deadly.


    Three stood tall, the tramp was thin and shaking. All of them bent their knee.


    All of them had their heads low, in front of them, to the throne. The diamond, gold, platinum, silver throne. The rainbow amalgamation of all material things. Useless things.


    And the throne bearer, king, wriggled in that uncomfortable chair. Sat on his conceit, lived for it.


    Whatever [i]thing sat there. It was most certainly conscious, with a mouth so wide and wet that the very action of opening it created a suckling noise. A smacking sound.


    "It''s that time again." The throne sitter said. He lifted his finger, he wore rings on each one and chains that connected them all like a line of cuffed prisonners. He pointed beyond, to a green, spitting pond.


    "Screwhead," One of the demons urged the tramp. "Go grab the tallies."


    He nodded his head, in excitement this time, with an almost obscene desire to please with the wide grin on his head. There was more light in this star-lit room. The gems were still reflecting light. He could see the tramp for his full form, the thin and shambly clothes, the golden rings hanging by his neck and weighing it down, craning it like a vulture. Two wide ears, zebra colored skin.


    He ran across the cavern and into a pile of gold. If he had any bruises, they''d be lost in his natural pigment.


    The other three followed him with calm patience as they skirted past the mounds of gold. Screwhead, however, played in these mountains of gold like a ballpin, throwing and shoving coins into his pocket. One of the demons glared at him. His smiled died. He went on, to the center of the room where a large pool laid, the sickly fumes coming up to his face. It burned, it seemed, as Screwhead looked away. The tips of his dingy hair, dyed by the very presence of the fumes. In his pockets, he produced the golden sticks and extended them out. He crawled to the demons, now hanging by the edge of the pool. They were unfazed. Uncaring. They grabbed the tallies, each having one.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    "Well?" The man at the throne said. "Name your champion."


    "And of the Old Man? Had he not that grit of man, noble and cruel?" The shortest Demon asked.


    "Grit, mayhaps," He said. "Cruelty, certainly. Patience, too much. He''s since died, a victim of his own procrastination. When swift action was necessary, he failed. So now we''re picking a new champion."


    "Ah," One of the Demons approached the pool.


    "His name is Calabrina," He heard the voice behind him. At the sight of the face, he almost shouted.


    "Shh, don''t waste your time understanding it."


    He held his breath and returned to watching the demons. Calabrina, who had on him the two pointy shoes like a jester would, whose wide face highlighted the small features, nose, beady eyes. He was white-fleshed. Bleached.


    "My vote is for Floyd, a passionate man like that would make a great champion. A mighty curse bearer." He threw in his lot. The image of the boy flashed upon the pond, then the moving picture of his daily leisure. He was at a bed, speaking to a young woman. The image faded.


    Another demon came up.


    "Malacoda, the mute,"


    Malacoda, whose long and sharp face gave him the appearance of Nosferotu himself. Vampiric in stature, in fashion. He wore what appeared to be drapes, long sleeves of black that contained his whole, thin, body. He lived up to his name and said nothing. He threw the stick.


    A wide shouldered person appeared. He had a cane and a long sash across his forehead. His hair was slicked back. His face, rigid, wooden, imposing. And he prayed to a small altar, in a wooden shack. At least, that''s what the pond showed. It disappeared, fizzled out, after a while.


    "Last one? Teryon, you''ve been silent." The throne said.


    The third demon stood some distance from the pool, looking at something.


    [i]At me?


    He hid his face behind the stalagmite again. He reappeared after a while, at what he noticed was a crazed creature. Wide eyed, completely white, with two small pupils in his eyes. His head, large, comically so. He did not blink. He did not waste his movements. He had a small hat, red, at the top of his head.


    Teryon.


    He looked like a sultan, with the baggy-gaudy clothes puffing his body. His eyes dragged around like searchlights, moving pillar to pillar. He hid again.


    His heart beat (how did he have a heartbeat? He didn''t feel normal, concrete, physical).


    Teryon stopped at the pond. The stick plopped on the water. This signaled him to come from his hiding, to watch again as the pool rippled and faded. It turned and splashed and bubbled. The tally rose to the surface like a lost ship, then sunk.


    "My vote is for Aenea. Courageous and kind," Teryon said. "For it is only the truly kind person who can sin truly. All else is ignorance. She will win, she has that evil in her to win."


    And so it was, each with their tally, each going back to the king, each now with a look of suspicion and a passing glance at his hiding spot.


    "So it''s done then? When will the competitions be held for our champions?"


    "Later. Eventually. There are things that must occur first, that have not yet. That are delayed. But they will, Fate has claimed so much."


    "Delayed? Why''s that?" Teryon asked.


    "Heart-eaters," The man in the throne sighed. "Blights. Abortions of heaven and hell. There''s nothing sadder than people who fight against Fate."


    The mute, Malacoda, spat.


    "Yes, curious, aren''t they?" Calabrina said.


    Curious and annoying, they all repeated. And repeated. And repeated. Their words, echoing. Their voice, like the tracking sound of bats, sonar. Their heads wandered, they looked in all direction. The observer stood behind a pillar, the corner of his eye scanning for the demons. He felt their gaze, felt their words and their shame and felt them hot on him. Perhaps it was just him seeing this? Speculating? All of this was crazy enough as is and perhaps one of his blood rushed, nervous thoughts had deluded his thinking. So he thought, breathing, staring at the demons, watching them.


    [i]Careful, careful...


    He hid behind the pillar. And stupid, stupidly curious; reappeared.


    Malacoda flashed. Stood in front of him.


    He jumped back, the other two approached him. The cavern shook, and the rocks fell.


    "Who is it?!" The long, drawn out voice of the man in the throne said. "My sanctum, oh my dear, sweet home."


    The person in the throne cried.


    "Greedy, greedy!"


    It laughed. Laughed and cried.


    He walked back and tripped, his back hitting a wall, his heart beating so fast it might as well have been one consecutive sound-beat. He was to die. They all approached him. He was to die. They looked down at him, as he crawled on the floor.


    He was going to die.


    Malacoda extended his arm, his long sharp fingers reaching for the observer. They were inches from his face. Centimeters away.


    And something pull him. From behind.


    [i]They got me, it''s over.


    He felt his shoulder, his whole body turn. Again, he saw the face from earlier. Again, his heart stopped. He who had lead him, who had brought him, who was his shining, smiling guide.


    Astyanax grinned, wide.


    "I never thought you a voyeur." He said. "You should have left earlier ago, save yourself the stress. Now, look at you? You''ve gone and horrified yourself."


    Astyanax pulled Apollo, dragged him back, into the wall, into the darkness. And he (Apollo) felt it like a shock of thunder. A blunt hit against the temple of his head.


    He awoke in a pool of sweat. The bed sheets left the outline of his writhing sleep. He wiped his face, but his arms were full of it too. His body hair clung and stuck to everything like spider feelers.


    "What the fuck?" Apollo asked. Dion yawned to his rear, his head was face down onto the pillow.


    "What happened?" Apollo asked, to himself mostly. "It felt bad."


    [i]But I don''t remember.


    He looked at his shaking arm, rested it on his beating heart. He was afraid, though did not know why.


    Why?


    He laid his head down. He looked at the clock. It was midnight, still.


    He groaned and felt his chest, to the heart and lungs that raced.


    "I feel god fucking awful," He muttered. And he was sure, with a night of nightmares left, that he would continue to feel god fucking awful.


    For he was an amnesiac to horror, and as all amnesiacs, he was nostalgic for the pain.

 Episode 2: "Paradise"

    It should be noted that they did not want to be there, of course not. Even as the younger, Santana Saxon (by two minutes! Doctor said so) sat at ease with the woman, his stool tilted, his leg balancing himself in that confident, casual pose. Flirting. He always flirted.


    They didn''t want to be there, Michael Saxon had to remind them. Only that they had to, partly because Mrs. (It''s Ms now, isn''t it?) Salome had threatened to incarcerate them. Partly because there was a reward to be had, not at the capture of someone but at the finding of evidence of something or someone.


    "And what happened," Michael Santana said. A drunk snored to his rear, sleeping, with snot coming out of his nose. His head was left side down, his mouth slightly agape. An older gentleman, red nosed too. "We were caught stealing some cars. Right in the damn parking lot, they got a photograph of us, me with the bag of tools and my brother - that idiot over there," He pointed to the straw-hair colored man still talking with the young waitress. "With the damn wire-jigger right into the car window. He tried to run too. Which, I''m sure, made things worse,"


    "We were never lucky. Mom grandma guaranteed that. A couple conversations and deals with the devil sealed it. We were never going to be lucky," He spun a glass in his hand and looked up. "If you grew up like we did you wouldn''t criticize our choices though. It''s not like we took much anyways. A little zapping power for me, a tracer for Santana (the idiot). That''s it. And even this has been a nightmare the last four years."


    "Who would have thought," He leaned over to the drunk and shook him. The bartender stood at the opposite end, tired, rubbing liquid off a mug. "Stealing cars with magic isn''t that good of a profession. You should have told me, vices with the devil aren''t good at all. Look at where it''s brought us, after all,"


    They didn''t want to be in the bar with the unhinged tables, and the seedy looking patrons and the smoke of cigarettes about them like mist. They didn''t want to be there, flirting, talking to the barkeep and harassing the men.


    We''re better than this.


    Michael tipped over the stool.


    And if it wasn''t for the cool fifty K, I''d have ditched this shithole four days ago,


    They got caught with a shitty Volkswagen, of all things. It could have been something better, at least!


    But they were desperate, hungry, and it was the first car undefended that caught their eyes in that open-sky parking lot. And had it not been for Santana, he was sure, they''d be in a jail cell.


    The ability to find a person with nothing more than a picture was a good one. A utility Michael never appreciated from Santana until now, when they were to find this Richter fellow. Richter, who Ms. Salome thought was the murderer to the recently deceased Thomas Wolfe.


    Michael tapped Santana on the shoulder. He looked at him, groaned. From the pocket of his blazer, he hid a compass and flashed it underneath the table. It spun wildly. Santana focused, what looked like currents running through his fingers, that steadied the compass hand. South-West.


    He needed a recent picture. A strange requirement.


    "I don''t think he stopped here, and that means they probably don''t have video feed."


    "This is where the compass took us last, I''m sure we''ll find a clue about him. We just need to know where he''s at, that''s good enough." Michael walked over to the bartender.


    Yes, the compass, a small silver-colored, flower-etched device had led them here. Near the edge of Las Vegas, to the Azteca Bar, where the natives of that long lost civilization was caricatured as a leopard-skin wearing, tequila gulping cartoon.


    Michael walked to the bartender. He was cleaning the slop the drunk discharged.


    "Have you seen this man?"


    He flashed the picture of Richter, a small wallet-sized photo.


    "Me?"


    "Who else?" Michael laid the photo down. The bartender picked it. He adjusted his glasses.


    "What''s it to you if I have?"


    "You''re not good at this bartering thing, are you?" Michael shrugged. "It''s not what''s good for me, it''s whats good for you. How much for the information?"


    The bartender looked stunned. His eyes narrowed, his rates grew.


    "Five hundred bucks. That''s a nice tip."


    "I''ll tell ya'' for three hundred." The girl, flirting with Santana said. He looked across the table, impressed.


    "T-two fifty!" The bartender said.


    "I''d rather give my money to the pretty girl," Saxon said from afar. Michael turned. The bartender scrubbed a hole into the lacquered bar surface. The little white rings were everywhere, looking back, reflecting out like empty eyes.


    "You''ve seen this man?" Santana produced his own copy of the photograph.


    "Of course I have," she said. "I known that strange looking feller, hell I knew he was coming even before he came in. Before he even opened the door, you could tell he was here. The ground felt funny. Not shaky, earthquake-y-funny. More like, tilted, like you lost your balance because things went up and down like a broken scale."


    "What?"


    "It''s hard to explain. But he made everyone off balance. I guess. It usually happens like that when he comes,"If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "How often does he come here?"


    "Often enough. Once every two weeks maybe? He''s recent. But! He doesn''t come to drink if that''s what you''re thinking. No, he calls himself a ''principled'' man and he calls alcohol that Devil''s Piss. No, he visit one of the girls, takes her upstairs and...there''s not any police around, right?"


    She looked to her surroundings. Most men were unconscious, others were fighting outside and throwing bottles against the walls.


    Santana smiled.


    "No, but there might be some soon with us around."


    She smiled. Michael snapped his fingers. She came back to.


    "Well, you know. He does stuff with her?"


    "Fucks a whore?" Santana said. Smiling, almost. "That ain''t principled."


    "Do you know where he went?"


    "No, but I know the girl."


    "Take us to her," Michael said. She stopped him with an open palm, then turned it, waving her fingers towards herself.


    "Money first," She said. "This is the service industry after all."


    The brothers looked at each other, sighing.


    "I got this one," Santana said and they went off with her.


    ?


    They passed the moaning doors.


    They found the right one, with the Waitresses help. It wasn''t even too far from the bar. It was across the street, and the little walk made them feel stupid for ever paying her money in helping them. Now they stood in front of the door, a 405 number, waiting for the bed to stop creaking. Five minutes later, waiting for the lamps to come up. Two minutes later, waiting for the man, smiling, to come out. To see them, the three, and to walk at a quick pace to the parking lot.


    The neon light of a Motel Six shined down on them. They heard the air conditioners, and the leakage dribbling down rusted pipe and the bottoms of cloudy windows. It sounded like summer rain, like the currents of an artificial flood.


    The waitress waved at both of them, gesturing them towards the door. They walked in, expecting a kind of Hell, a decrepit room of despair. They found simplicity. Clean flower wallpapers, a warm light and a girl by the dresser fixing her long hair (it touched her butt, Michael had to force himself to look away). She wore a dress, or perhaps a gown was the better word for it. As it covered everything on her body, save her face. Everything, neck down, was hidden by the baby blue gown.


    "I''m not ready for customers yet," She told the Waitress.


    "They aren''t here for sex, honey," she said. "They want to talk about that weird feller from yesterday."


    She laid her hair comb down.


    "I don''t want to talk about him."


    "Listen, it''s important. There''s a lot at stake here," He wasn''t lying. Fifty thousand dollars was a lot for them. "We just want to know some details,"


    "Like?" She asked. "There''s customer confidentiality. I have my honor, you know,"


    "A prostitute with honor," Santana sat on the bed. It bent as he sat and he almost fell over. She smirked.


    "Yes, what''s wrong with that?"


    "I don''t think a woman willing to take any man, any time, has any honor left to have, is all," He lifted himself from the floor and shook off the dust from his pants.


    "Sex is what dishonors a person? Why?"


    Santana rolled his eyes.


    "Does my autonomy scare you?" She turned. "Does dividing pussy and dick to what they''re really worth scare you? It''s just flesh. Blood. Skin. All it''s ever been. And as far as I can tell, your dick ain''t worth much. Maybe that''s what you hate?"


    "You give me ten minutes alone and I''ll have you changing that bitchy voice. I''ll get you moaning, like the wh-"


    "Shut the fuck up, Santana," Michael said. He turned to the woman who was equally alarmed. "Listen, you don''t need to lecture us. We''re not good people. We''re bad people, very bad. We''re just trying to look for someone whose worse. Have you seen this man?"


    He flashed the picture.


    She looked at Santana, frowned at him, then back to the picture.


    "Two hundred."


    "What? Not one piece of you is worth two hundred!" Santana screamed.


    "Three hundred." She said.


    "Alright," This time, Michael offered it. And this time, they were in it for good because those three hundred was most of what they had left. Twenty-two dollars remained, and the passing of the bills seemed ceremonious.


    For both brothers looked at them, the dowry to this sunken queen. She pocketed the money, didn''t even need to count. She could tell by the weight, by the size of the small cluster.


    "Yeah, I''ve seen him. It''s kind of hard to forget a thing like him." She said. "And you''re right. He''s a worse man, than even this prick,"


    "Why''s that?"


    "Its...do you really need to know that? It''s not...illegal, what he does."


    "Not illegal? Then it doesn''t matter. Do you know where he is."


    "Sort of,"


    "Sort of?"


    "He said he was off to pray, to find forgiveness." She said.


    "Bitch, that was not worth three hundred dollar-"


    "So you don''t know his license plate or anything like that?"


    "No,"


    "Do you have a picture of him."


    She squirmed underneath the gown.


    "Bell?" The Waitress said from the door frame.


    "Yeah, kind of," Her face went wrong, horrific even. She put both arms in front of her and rubbed her palms. She stretched her head and pulled her hair and looked at them, then to the Waitress.


    "He likes when pictures are taken."


    "Perfect," Michael said. "Can we have one of his?"


    She could not hold a stable face. It edged between sadness, anger, shock. She went, deep into the dresser and uncovered a collection of photos. Polaroids.


    "He likes pictures of himself taken. Tells me to keep them, to remember," She rubbed her shoulders and dropped the collection in front of her.


    Michael picked one up and in his greedy pace, knocked a few over.


    They could all see it, all three (for Bell looked away) and all three stared curiously.


    They were pictures of Richter, sure. They were taken from a low angle. And they were taken at...evocative moments.


    There was one, showing Richter with a belt in his hand, raised high above his head. Another, with his backhand ready to slap.


    Another with his fist.


    Another grabbing. Another pulling. And so on and so on.


    Michael grabbed Bell''s hand and lifted her gown. She didn''t put up much of a fight. Across her flesh, riding all the way to her shoulder, were bruises and cuts and red stains of pain.


    She pulled away.


    "I don''t judge my customers," she said.


    "You should," Michael said. "You of all people should be judgmental. Why''d you let him do that to you?"


    "It''s good money, so what of it? I...I kind of like it too." She said.


    Neither said much. Both frowned. Bell too, perhaps knew she had not convinced them. Or herself.


    After a sullen silence, staring at the photos, they left. The Waitress stayed, to comfort Bell, perhaps. To plead, maybe.


    They didn''t stay long to hear the crying. Though Santana could feel it, swelling in his stomach. He looked down at the broken blacktop.


    "You depressed?" Michael asked. "I thought she was a bitch,"


    "She still is," He said. "Don''t mean she deserves it though."


    "Right,"


    They walked a bit to their car. Santana focused on the picture, the branches of Arcana flowed through him, blue, like electrical wiring.


    The compass re-adjusted. Just West.


    "Hey, Michael," Santana said.


    "Yeah?"


    "I don''t think this job is worth it,"


    "We''re broke, of course, it''s worth it. It''s everything."


    "No," He shook his head. Five times, to be exact. "I don''t think it''s worth what we''re going to pay. I think we should back off,"


    Michael looked at him, at his worried face. He looked down, below a cigarette butt was rubbed into the floor. In front of him, the car.


    He opened the door and slammed it. He held his head and looked out to the night road.


    "And that''s why you don''t do the planning," He said. "We''ll just catch this fucker in the act of doing some weird shit and call it a day. That''s all we are, paparazzi."


    "Paparazzi," Santana repeated.


    "Yeah, just snooping around."


    The brother jumped in. The engine did not start for two turns of the key. On the third, it sputtered on. A strange jalopy, that could barely turn and accelerate even worse.


    They rode it, into the virgin night, barely an hour past midnight, chasing after a tormentor with nothing but the silver hand of a compass to guide them through the cold leveled desert.

 p.2

    The casino had not been kind to Apollo¡¯s patience, he had wandered around, inspecting every worker there. He had interviewed the janitors and the maids, the technicians and the card dealers. He had gone up all fifty damn steps in search for the people who did not know anything or want anything. And when he came out of his giant chase, tired and drowsy, with fifty pages of worthless notes, he had decided finally that it was true: the murderer must have been someone on the VIP floors. Someone who could kill a witch. Then? If that was true, there were few suspects left.


    It must have been one of the family members.


    Dion and Apollo both walked into the main hall room of the VIP floor, with the sprawl of paths and stairs of labyrinth design in front of them. They walked up a fleet of stairs to the left, only to look down center of the room. Below them, a golden statue of a globe with Atlas below and the pain of burden clear on his permanent face.


    They came to a set of silver doors, opening slowly, as if in wait.


    [i]Fancy elevator.


    One elevator of many that had been organized in a stretch, all leading to different areas and all with their particular limitations. Dion flashed his onyx keycard with the sticky-note pasted on it it reading, ¡®To Lil¡¯ sis¡¯. The elevator turned on, the lights brought to life. The doors closed behind them. With the sun on their back, within this enclosure, they could feel the magnified heat. It made Apollo''s wrist cuffs sweaty.


    The elevator zoomed up. There were no stops or pauses or doors in between point a, the VIP floor and point B, the near rooftop of the casino.


    "What do you think she¡¯s like?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Hopefully? Sane.¡± He scratched his hands.


    ¡°What about Annie?¡±


    ¡°What about her?¡±


    ¡°Turnus told us that she¡¯s hiding something from us. About why she left the family business, and why she doesn¡¯t want to be associated and about why she avoids them all.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll get to her later,¡± Apollo said. ¡°We can¡¯t really piss her off just yet especially when she¡¯s so useful.¡±


    Dion nodded his head.


    Apollo smirked.


    ¡°Annie?¡± He said. ¡°That¡¯s cute. I thought you had a girlfriend waiting at home?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s...just what her mom called her. It¡¯s a lot easier to say than A-e-naya.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Apollo smiled, looking away from Dion, who coughed nervously into a balled up fist.


    The doors opened. A small tunnel. Paneled, green colored mesh lined the walls and ceilings. A greenhouse, humid. The sweat collected on the back of his neck.


    "If these fuckers really wanted to garden so badly, why''d they decide to live in a damn desert," Apollo said. "It really says something about a human being, to be so spiteful as to defile nature itself."


    Dion looked at him. Stared, really.


    ¡°They¡¯re just tulips¡­¡±


    He wiped his face with a rag in his pocket. The ceiling was slanted, the top of the skyscraper seemed sliced in half, leading to a pointy end. Only a floor was higher above this one, Salome¡¯s room. The tint of pink wisterias flashed in the distance. Apollo approached the greenhouse walls, he could see the floor. His stomach turned.


    Apollo rubbed his fingers along the glass of the building. It was sleek, wet from dew and the sprays of water mist that shot out from rubber hoses that ran along the floor. They made their way to the center, where large flower pots sat in a circle. Near a watering can and a white table, the woman sat on her stiff chair. Dion entertained himself, rubbing petals and stems. Apollo walked up to the woman. She breastfed a small child, her long and curly dark hair covered both her breast and the baby. It touched the grass.


    "Mrs. Luanne Wolfe?" Apollo asked. It felt like the primroses and honeysuckle flowers turned to glare at them. Open-eye''d, blossomed into hostility. But not just them, the baby and the mother too, everyone, turned to stare and gawk at him. His skin felt sensitive along his arms, his hairs rose.


    The girl turned, her thin eyes looking up to him lazily.


    "Yes?" She answered back in a tone that Apollo could only describe as, understanding and critical. She looked hostile, though tried to hide it behind a forced dullness. Her arm shook.


    His tongue made a complete round, lubricating his dry mouth. The air was thick with mist, the humidity made his clothes stick.


    "We''re here to discuss your father¡¯s death.¡±


    She said nothing, waited.


    ¡°I thought I¡¯d begin with how you feel about him. Or felt. I¡¯ve gotten a lot of mixed opinions about your father, I¡¯m just trying to figure out what kind of man he was. Was he a drunk? Militant? Reckless?¡± he folded his legs. ¡°Then we can move on to alibis and so on.¡±Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    "He was exactly how you''d expect a busy father to be. Companies don¡¯t build themselves, after all. He¡¯d say that all the time, at least." She said. ¡°I don¡¯t know what kind of man my siblings are talking about. But father has always been...distant. It¡¯s hard for me to believe anyone would hate him.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Because there was no man to hate. There was no man in our lives. How do you hate someone who you don¡¯t even know? I mean, honestly, hate them. Sincerely, hate them.¡±She said. ¡°Maybe if I got to him I would give you a better reason for the contempt others shared, but to me, dad was always just a stranger. Calling him dad, in itself, is rather strange.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d say that¡¯s a reason to hate him. The feeling of loss perhaps? Don¡¯t you think so?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± She said. ¡°I understood why he was gone, and I¡¯m thankful for what he gave me. If anything, all I am is thankful. He was a good man, a bad father. At least, to me.¡±


    Apollo took out his journal. He flipped through pages, going through the interviews. His lips opened to retaliate, question. But behind her, the weaning mother, there was movement. Luanne scrunched her eyes and looked back, shocked. Below, on Apollo¡¯s notes, the messy picture was drawn by Dion. Jezebel Wolfe. She matched the description. Short, freckled, bob cut, dirty blonde.


    "The sister. That¡¯s good, we can get you both now-" Apollo stood, hands out, pen limp in between his fingers.


    "I know who you are," Jezebel said. ¡°I could smell you two miles away, the dogs you are.¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s not kind.¡± Dion smiled. Apollo folded his hand into a fist.


    ¡°That¡¯s not kind? Are you deserving of kindness, do you think so? You¡¯ve got this whole family fucked up. Everyone blaming everyone. I¡¯ve heard you two, the accusations you¡¯ve made and the presumptions you¡¯ve convicted yourselves to. You¡¯ve got all my brothers blaming each other. Do you know that?¡±


    Luanne stroked her child, which seemed to whimper and murmur at the noise.


    "Absolutely. I wouldn¡¯t make an accusation if I wasn¡¯t positive and I am positive." Apollo said. ¡°One of you is a murderer. Maybe two, maybe three. You¡¯re all culpable in my eyes. If you have a problem with that, state your alibi so I can clear your name. Where were you at the time of Thomas Wolfe¡¯s murder?¡±


    There was a face of disgust across Luanne and Dion. There was a face of arrogance, smugness on Apollo.


    "I don¡¯t need to give you shit." She put her shoulder on the sitting mother. ¡°And neither do you, Luanne.¡±


    "Oh, you¡¯re giving me something, whether you realize it or not," Apollo said. "A dismissal, especially an angry one like yours, is enough of an answer for me."


    ¡°What are you getting at, dog?¡±


    ¡°A hunch. An itch. That¡¯s all.¡± He said. ¡°I have no further questions for you, Jezebel.¡±


    She looked at him, the short woman. She wore a jean jacket, long pants and white gloves around her hands. There were shades hanging by the neck of the black shirt underneath her jacket.


    ¡°Luanne, where were you -¡±


    ¡°Hey, I¡¯m not done here.¡± Jezebel walked forward, in between Luanne and Apollo now. Dion moved up, chess pieces coming into conflict. A collision, as if in empty space, with an eternal momentum forward. Within moments, Jezebel was standing centimeters away from Apollo.


    ¡°Ms. Luanne Wolfe,¡± Apollo whispered. ¡°I¡¯d appreciate it if you did not interfere with the investigation. We have no further questions for you.¡±


    ¡°My little brother is in sweats with your witch hunts, he can¡¯t sleep or eat. He says you¡¯re both the devil in disguise and I¡¯m inclined to believe.¡± She said. ¡°It¡¯s unfair of me but my opinion of me was already made, long before I even met you two: you¡¯re savages, here to destroy peace and order. Our father is dead and you¡¯re trying to split us up with nonsense accusations. That¡¯s treason, and I aim to punish that.¡±


    His heart throbbed. His arm hurt. Leaning in, his lips were held inches from her ear. His eyes, seemingly dead. Silence. A spray of mist. Dripping water.


    The baby sobbed. The mother cradled.


    ¡°If order and peace were built on a lie, were they ever meant to last?¡± he asked. ¡°I¡¯m sure your brother. No - your brothers - are afraid. I¡¯m sure they have nightmares. Good. Tell them I said that. Tell them that if they want to step up, that they should bring some heat.¡±


    She didn¡¯t afraid. Enflamed, was the better expression. Her lips were colored red, her fingers seem flexed to shoot, like a gunslinger, though she had no gun.


    ¡°Go on, run along to the pack. One wolf isn¡¯t enough. Not for the both us, at least.¡± He felt his heart racing, he felt the pleasure, the joy of the words as the promise escaped him. The thrill of a possible future. He did not know why, only that the second voice was happy, only that he felt ecstatic, as if having spoken a confession of love.


    He put his hand against her. She stepped aside.


    He looked at Luanne, then Dion, both of whom looked the worst of them all. They were sweating, rubbing it off their foreheads, scratching their necks like nervous addicts.


    ¡°Where were you at the time of the murder?¡±


    Even the child stopped suckling.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to!¡± Jezebel screamed. Luanne hesitated but looked back to Apollo.


    ¡°I..I was here, where I¡¯m always at. This garden, taking care of my plants.¡±


    ¡°Do you have any evidence? I noticed there weren¡¯t many cameras on this floor, let alone your rooms.¡±


    ¡°N-no. I don¡¯t let the workers handle my things. They¡¯re too rough.¡± She brought the infant closer to her chest. ¡°But you know, it would be hard of me to move from this garden to father¡¯s meeting. You took the elevator, you know how long it is.¡±


    ¡°Hmm¡­¡± Apollo said. Dion nudged him. ¡°But you¡¯re witches. H?xan¡¯s, what do I know of your capabilities? Unless, of course, you¡¯re not.¡±


    "I-I never gave myself up like my brothers did! I¡¯m innocent, look!¡± She undid her sleeve, recklessly. But they were clear, pale skin. Nothing but skin. No tattoo, no mark of the witch.


    ¡°We¡¯ll still need to cross-examine this alibi,¡± He said, kneeling and looking her over. The child made a sour face. ¡°But if it¡¯s true then I can take you off the list.¡±


    He stood. Jezebel was close behind.


    ¡°I¡¯m not showing you anything,¡± she said.


    ¡°Of course not,¡±


    ¡°Is this all you wanted?¡±


    ¡°Well, I wanted to talk about your father. But...¡±


    ¡°Leave,¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± He turned and grabbed Apollo¡¯s arm and pulled him towards the elevator.


    ¡°Well, we got nothing out of that,¡± Dion said. ¡°You should really let me talk next time.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine,¡±


    ¡°You look satisfied,¡±


    ¡°Do I?¡± He walked in a quick pace past the flowers, into the hall, and into the elevator.


    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re smiling like an idiot.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you hear her?¡± He spoke as if impersonating Luanne, which seemed like mockery. ¡°I never gave myself up, like my brothers.¡±


    Dion pressed the elevator, the ding, the fast momentum of the drop. Inspiration hit him like a hot, glowing light. Right into the stomach.


    ¡°She knows,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Yep. And she¡¯s the weakest of the bunch. Now I don¡¯t think she actually killed the man, I think she has an idea of who did. Or at least, who could have done it.¡±


    ¡°Don''t even think about terrorizing her. You are not. Not! Torturing her.¡±


    ¡°What do I look like? An animal?¡± He asked. ¡°Don''t worry. We''ll deal with her later, she¡¯ll be a valuable tool to cross verify information.¡±


    ¡°And she''s not a tool either. None of them are - well," he paused. "Most of them, at least. That doesn''t matter though. They''re all grieving. They''re hurt and they feel and fear like you and me.¡±


    ¡°I hope they''re afraid,¡± Apollo watched the elevator lights flash against him. ¡°That¡¯d only make our jobs easier. And that¡¯s all that matters, don¡¯t ever forget that.¡±

 p.3

    "How deep have you crawled, worm?" The man held Turnus by the neck.


    "I don''t know what you''re getting at,"


    "You ain''t got no fangs. You ain''t got no bite, no claws, no grit. Yet you manage. You survive and persevere and you''ve fucked us all. How? Why?"


    "If you''re going to make an accusation," the hand clenched harder. "You shouldn''t dance around it. It''s not good to hold on to things, get what I mean?"


    The man''s beady eye twitched. Turnus felt his cold grip, watched his arm and that tattoo etched upon his flesh, the mark of the witch, glow.


    "How did you do it? Who told you?"


    "Did what?" Turnus asked. He was lifted by the throat. His skin stretched and pulled, his feet dangled as they searched for stable ground. He shook, hoping to free himself. Then, realizing the futility of it, let it happen. Let himself be dragged up, without protest, with the accessibility of calm composure.


    "You killed dad the only way you knew how to, with words." He squeezed. Turnus coughed. "You always hated him and you finally did it. I knew I should have taken you out a long time ago, I knew your coming back was an omen. I knew it since I seen that wide grin on you, you fucking worm."


    He slammed his back against a pillar. The whole room seemed to quake and like a quake, grew in capacity. The tile below the offender shook, rattled, grew. Like an abnormal plan, a crystallized stem from marble tile, that wrapped and moved up Turnus''s leg, past his shoe, past his waistline.


    Turnus watched the tattoo on his brother''s arm. It glowed more intensely as the large vine of marble increased in speed. A green glow. A dark verdant hue, almost black. Turnus felt the light, he felt tingles on his back too as the marble block base column he was held against, grew out. Both now, from the solid wall behind him and the floor below, the marble stone grew out. They were little spikes, tickling him. Then, ripping into his clothes. He smiled.


    "I told him never to let you in, I told him to throw you out with your brother. The both of you." A tear in the corner of his eyes. "But he had to, you were his first two sons. He had to take you in, he had to tolerate the contempt in your eyes. Everyone knew! Everyone saw it. How much you hated him. The way you gave you snide remarks at him at dinner, taunted him at the office. At least your younger brother was well mannered, but you? You''d stab him if he had his back turned."


    "We both know stabbing him wouldn''t be enough, right?" He laughed.


    The man slapped him. The marble statue, too, as if in synchronization with the movement of his hand, slanted left. Such that, it seemed like clay, molded into a wave of water.


    "It wouldn''t be that bad killing you now," he said. "It''d only be half the sin. Lord knows you deserved it."


    "If death came fast to those who sinned, then you and Jezebel ought to have been killed years ago." He snorted. "It''s not good to hold onto things, Floyd. Hate will kill ya. Just ask dad."


    Floyd''s eyes widened. Turnus felt a cold on his shoulders and neck, though the hand still holding him was anything but that. It was hot and weak, and Floyd''s hips wobbled and his stance weakened. Marble rose from the ground to stabilize his stand.


    Don''t you wish you were as hard as that stone, aye Floyd?


    Floyd looked down at the floor. Turnus''s attention wandered, looking behind him, to the elevator coming down slowly and the little red number changing like a countdown to doomsday. His eyes came back to Floyd, who now looked up. And who now, with a stomp of his armored foot, conjured a bit of a stand. A round belly-shaped stone, from which a marble sword erected itself like a flower sprout. His head was sweating, his eyes focused on Turnus''s neck (or at least that''s what Turnus gathered from the intensity of his glare). Floyd reached for the sword and chucked it out. Rubble flew every-which-way, the rough-ended blade was raised high. It had no luster to it, no grace, no detail shape. It seemed more a stick at times, a pole. And Floyd stared at Turnus again, looking across his body for the place to cut. And from what angle. And to what depth.


    He didn''t think too hard. He chose the neck. No, rather, the choice was already made, a long time ago, hapless imaginings of a young man in a forbidden love in the fear and anxiety of having been caught.


    "I never thought you were the nervous kind, Floyd," Turnus said. The words shocked Floyd into awareness.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    "If you don''t have it in ya, fat cat, I wouldn''t bother." he made his eyes into thin slits. "And if you''re gonna go, do it fast. Like a quick fuck, ain''t that right, Floyd?"


    Floyd''s lips quivered. No one was here, as was ordered. No maid, no family, no anything. Nothing but a few curious whispers and happen-stance on what they believed was happening: gossip. That''s all there was to the meeting, gossip and no evidence. He was free to do it, he could do it, he was poised to do it, then what was left to fear? What sprained his courage?


    He breathed through his mouth, he blinked like an epileptic. His tongue could not find a place to rest.


    Turnus rolled his eyes.


    Don''t wait too long, or you''ll miss your chance.


    Floyd extended his arm out with the blade. He pointed it up, then aimed it down. Moved in, close. Muscles, terse.


    He could feel the saliva dripping down his mouth. His nose trickled mucus as if his body was exhausting weakness from him. He felt the adrenaline coursing through the wide vein on his throat. He could feel his heartbeat throbbing all up his neck.


    The blade approached flesh. He clipped clothes. He searched for blood.


    The elevator opened.


    They both looked back, Floyd with rabid eyes. Turnus, calmer.


    Ah, there goes the train, kiddo. It left the station. It left us all behind.


    Turnus smiled at the sight, the two Vicar''s coming down from the elevator shaft.


    "How''d they get clearance to come down here?" Floyd asked himself. Turnus shrugged and smiled.


    "A malfunction? Chance? Must be my lucky day. Maybe you shoulda done it a bit quicker?" He said. "But you do tend to take your time with these kinds of things, don''t you? Real slow to put it in. Ain''t that right, little brother?"


    The sword fell down. Floyd loosened his grip, Turnus bent his fingers off his neck.


    He looked at both Vicars, both with their arms extended out (well, one arm for the angry, shorter one) and their eyes focused on Floyd.


    "There''s no problem here, officers," Turnus said.


    "Who are you?" Apollo shouted at Floyd, across the plaza. Floyd looked around, to the closed doors, to stray eyes peeking from behind the slits of the cracked open doors. The people were beginning to enter freely, as if, with the coming of the Vicars, the signal had been cleared for their return.


    And none of them could understand what was happening.


    The ruined column, the marble growing out of it like wild roots, the green mark of the witch on Floyd glowing underneath his blazer jacket. Turnus observed his brother, the nervous twitches he made, the way he hid the glowing side of his body behind. There were bits of his arcana left behind on the floor, namely the cancerous growths of marble and a little foot that had been made created as a kind of armor for Floyd.


    "He''s Floyd, my brother. Say hello." Turnus said.


    Floyd faced him. His eyes trembled. He felt his left one twitch.


    "Yeah." He said. Not much of a hello.


    "We had a bit of a fight, didn''t we?" Turnus brushed the marble dust off him.


    "Yeah."


    "And we''re good now, aren''t we?"


    "Yeah.


    "Why don''t you ask the Detectives about their investigation?"


    Floyd''s neck stretched out. He looked annoyed, his teeth gnashed and his eyes hesitant to face the Vicars.


    "Have you found the killer?" He asked, looking at the floor as he asked.


    "No," Dion''s voice was deeper. Deeper than Turnus remembered at least. His arms, too, were still out like a crab. Apollo, however, had calmed. He had his hand hidden behind his back.


    "We''re still gathering more information. No accusation has been made yet." He said. "But Turnus seems innocent if you were worried."


    "Of course," The words were squeezed out of Floyd, coerced out of him. There was a strain, a breakage in his voice. It seemed like he was, in outrage, both screaming and laughing. "Of course Turnus didn''t kill him. Of course not, you''re absolutely right, Detectives."


    "Is that what the argument was about?" Apollo pointed to the ruined building. The morphed floor and column, the marble crystalline-like permutation coming off the side of the statue.


    "Yes, and I''m glad you''ve settled it for us, Detectives."


    Dion eased at last. It was a curious observation, one Turnus made as he climbed up the stairs.


    "I''m glad then, it''s all settled. None of us did anything wrong, right Floyd? It was just a misunderstanding. Right? Sometimes words and ideas and...passions get lost in translation." Turnus said. "Empathy is a very important tool to avoid these misunderstandings. Don''t you agree, Floyd? We should try and understand each other more, right?"


    Floyd looked up. His shaky head twitching as it turned to Turnus.


    "Yes," He said, in a breath so short it might have gone unheard and minute it might have gone unheard, were they all not high on that natural Adderall, adrenaline.


    Turnus walked up the steps. He felt Apollo''s glare, who was less exciting than Floyd. Whose glare seemed more analytic, and thus, dangerous. Suddenly, he felt the hot zone of a searchlight. Though it was only a feeling, and only one he got when he looked back at Apollo.


    He hated that kind of scrutiny, always, at school, at the family house, at the daily dealings of the casino floor. For the scrutiny he felt from Apollo was not one of understanding, empathy, but one of hostile hounding.


    "So should I blame for you a botched interview?" Apollo asked. "I don''t think your brother is equipped for it now, after all.


    "Are you sure? Why don''t you ask him?"


    "He can barely talk, so I''m asking you."


    Turnus laughed.


    "I thought you were smart." He smiled. "I mean, if you''re asking if he''s fit for an interview, and if you''re telling me he can''t talk. Well, god damn, didn''t you answer your own question then?"


    Apollo closed his mouth. His eyes focused on Turnus who stared back from above.


    Floyd paced away. No one bothered to stop him, he seemed to desperate and injured, the kind of combination that would make him dangerous. No one wanted to stop him, no one did.


    "You let him go," Turnus said. "He might have done it. Go catch up with him."


    Apollo kept his mouth shut. Dion tapped his foot along the floor.


    "What?" Turnus asked. "Have I said something wrong? I don''t think so."

 p.4

    "Miss Salome, I''ve come to tell you that I''m quitting." Ms. DeVorne said in a tone both absolute and frightened. Her hands were to her sides, scrunched up and her posture was struggling to maintain its straightforward, stubborn grit.


    Salome looked at her. One glance, top to bottom, looked instead to the direction of screaming and childish suffering and said, ¡°We¡¯ll talk about this later.¡±


    She went up the stairs, through the halls, past portraits of long-dead Wolfe¡¯s and the small lights igniting them with a warm glow from below, the color palette orange and glaring, like Halloween ornaments painted on the walls. The maid followed, closely behind, mumbling words.


    "Miss Sa-Salome," She said. "I need a severance package. I¡¯m moving, you see."


    "I told you, we''ll talk about this later. My son needs me." The screaming beckoned Ms. Salome¡¯s fast pace. She rushed now, on her bent and struggling heels. She touched the handles of twin white marble doors.


    The maid put her arm in front of the handles of the door. Salome stared at her, and particularly to her freckled skin that bled down her neck. It made her skin appear dry and old, though she was thirty-two. Still young, still full of possibility. Salome knew it. Both of them did.


    It was youth that gave her courage to hold stern to those doors. Courage, stupidity.


    "You¡¯re interrupting me, DeVorne," Salome said. ¡°My son is frustrated, you know what that means, right?¡±


    "I¡¯ve been trying to speak to you for ages. I¡¯m not waiting anymore, I want my severance package."


    Salome breathed deeply and closed her eyes. It was that calm composure perhaps, that made DeVorne remove her hand. Though she still mumbled desires, even as Salome ignored her and walked through into the doors.


    Junior needed to be taken care of. Both of them knew how difficult that was. DeVorne, most of all, who stopped at the door frame.


    Junior, Thomas Wolfe III, sat there in his king sized bed, with the little dinosaur blanket laid atop his moving body, he was bundled underneath the dinosaur blanket, coddling himself with the light stimulation of a rocking body. In front of him, center of the room were train tracks coiling around the room and a miniature gold and black freight toy whistling through the tracks. And Junior, in his bed, the big, burly boy (now in his thirties, though being a man and being a boy is more a result of attitude and temperament, of which Junior had neither). No, Junior was a child in a man''s body, an autistic child as DeVorne had found out ten years ago on her first job when she cleaned up his ¡®dinner mess¡¯ off the bathroom walls (and bedroom carpet)''.


    She had found out that day, for better or worse, how uncontrollable Junior was. That was the first time she had taken care of him and -


    ¡°I¡¯m not helping you with him anymore, you hear me?¡± DeVorne said. Salome looked at her, she flashed her fake teeth with the little cracks running through and turned to face her ¡®poor child¡¯. She ran at him and grabbed him, wrapping her arms around his head and cradling him close to her by the edge of the bed.


    "They know, they know they know they kn-kn-kn-kn-ow" His words deteriorated with his thoughts. He shook in his mother¡¯s hands. Salome held him, the more he shook, the tighter she gripped until his whole face was sucked into the netting that was Salome¡¯s turtleneck sweater.


    DeVorne held the door. She knew it was coming, as Junior cried. She calmed her breath and waited, watching the mother and soon. It didn¡¯t take long. The earth shook, perhaps only this floor shook. But the building, certainly, was made to fear Junior. As he slammed his fists down, crying, afraid, so too did the walls and floors slam down. DeVorne held the handle of the door. The chandeliers fell behind her. She yelped like habit had taught her. It only made the next wave that much worse.


    Junior pushed himself off his mother and slammed his head on the bed frame. This one is going to be big.


    It was. She fell. She got into a ball and hoped and screamed and begged that the glass would not fall on her, that the doors would not slam themselves shut on her.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    She was still screaming as it ended. Salome shushed her,


    ¡°Be quiet, you¡¯re scaring him!¡± She held her son from behind, stopping him from slamming down again on the wooden bed frame. She looked at the two, Salome noticed, from the corner of her eyes as she held her son and kissed him on his cheek. The thirty-odd-year-old man, with the rough beard and the messy, wavy hair that fell down to his face was being held like an infant.


    Junior. This was their heir. The resident autist, diagnosed at a young age at the age of six when she noticed him staring into the corner of the wall with little, colored building blocks laid out to the rainbow-order of a crayon set. Nothing much changed since then, only his obscene strength. His obscene talent for arcana. And the roller coaster of emotions the savant existence came with, a topsy-turvy freight train with all the erratic momentum the wild turns brought. Through every mountain and forest, into any lake or ocean. A true journey. One (DeVorne realized as she stood and pat her knees from dirt and glass) that had to end.


    Long drawn-out bouts of catatonic lifelessness, bouts of extreme manic depressive thrashes and self-harming was enough for her. Ten years of it was enough for her.


    DeVorne walked into the room, hugging the wall as she did so. She was spotted by Junior who looked up, drool and bloody nose running down to his chin.


    "Give me kiss, Vicky. (DeVorne)." He cried.


    "No," DeVorne did her best to smile, her teeth were sensitive and dislodged though. Her head hurt. "No more kisses for you, sorry sweetheart.¡±


    "Yo-you''re what?" he had his hands to the temples of his head.


    "I¡¯m beginning to think you don¡¯t have a brain," Salome said. ¡°Because you really can¡¯t imagine problems, can you? Or maybe you just don¡¯t care about how badly your words hurt.¡±


    "This isn¡¯t my fault.¡± She said. Junior teetered in between shock and anger. ¡°What¡¯s got him upset?¡±


    "Two heart-eaters with too much tenacity in their bodies.¡± She rubbed Junior¡¯s head. ¡°They¡¯ve traumatized my poor son.¡±


    "Well, that''s unfortunate.¡± She walked up, stepping over a track. The set had been collapsed. The plastic passengers, if any in those ruined toy trains, were dead. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re more than capable of handling him on your own.¡±


    Salome put her hand on the man-child''s cheeks and rubbed him. For in her the fear grew, and the contempt too. And the annoyance, too. And the earth shook as the manchild slammed down both hands on the floor. The three floors below and above shook, the lights would not stop quivering.


    "Tell him to stop," DeVorne shouted.


    "You know he can''t." She screamed. "Come. Entertain him, before he kills us all."


    She wobbled through the growing earthquakes. Judging by the lack of screaming or calls or worry from the intercom, it must not have traveled far to the floor. It was a concentrated earthquake, perhaps only terrorizing her and Salome.


    She fell. Then crawled, hand on top of her head. She went for the child and on her knees started hugging and kissing him, and quenching that absurd rage of his. He fell, curled and pulled his head back in preparation to slam it down again.


    ¡°D-d-don¡¯t l-l-leave me.¡± He said.


    She lied.


    ¡°I¡¯m not, I swear I¡¯m not.¡± DeVorne held him. She held him, closed her eyes and hugged him. His heart brushed against her face. She heard Salome walk and close the doors.


    When Junior settled and was ready to sit back onto the bed, she walked up and towards Salome who guarded the doors out.


    ¡°Okay, fuck the severance package. I¡¯m getting out, okay?¡± She said.


    ¡°But why? Haven¡¯t we been going? Don¡¯t you love Junior.¡±


    ¡°I do.¡± She said. ¡°But I¡¯ve also realized that this family can¡¯t be saved. That old man¡¯s death has got you all confused and insane. I can¡¯t help you. I don¡¯t want to. I can only save myself. So I am, good day.¡±


    She tried reaching for the door handle. Salome turned her body towards it.


    ¡°Those heart-eaters have him scared,¡± She looked passed DeVorne, to her child crying on his bed. ¡°They¡¯re going to get him, that¡¯s what my son says. Do you believe that?¡±


    ¡°Let me out.¡± DeVorne tried pulling on the door. ¡°I don¡¯t know or care about any of this anymore. Let me out.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re going to kill him, gut him. They¡¯re going to reach into his chest and rip his heart out, like crows.¡±


    ¡°Let me out!¡± DeVorne shouted. Junior stared at her.


    ¡°They¡¯re ruining everything. Aren¡¯t they? They¡¯ll take my boy away and I can¡¯t have that.¡± She said. ¡°You understand that. You¡¯re a mother, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Salome,¡± DeVorne¡¯s voice quivered. ¡°Salome, please.¡±


    ¡°This family will survive into my new generation. My son will be calmed, will be crowned, will be well-treated and well-meaning.¡±


    Salome turned, to the manchild suckling on a handkerchief. She ran towards him, holding onto him. He seemed mesmerized.


    Salome walked forward, her body eerily thin. Her shadow, eerily wife.


    ¡°I can¡¯t have my son frustrated. I have to protect him, all of them. Or they¡¯ll catch him. They really will.¡±


    ¡°Madam!¡± DeVorne shouted. She hugged Junior who hugged her back though did not seem to know why, his face looked stupified. He stared emptily, blood coming down from his face, marks of red on his forehead.


    ¡°Can anyone call love evil?¡± She asked. ¡°Can anyone call the things done in love, evil?¡±


    DeVorne¡¯s face fell. Her eyes widened. Her jaw slacked.


    "You ain''t leaving," she said, holding something behind her back. "And you will be useful. I just know it,"


    Salome approached, with the calm composure only a queen could have. With conviction in her eyes, only she dared follow through.


    But this was Salome, not just any woman, but the mother of Wolfe¡¯s.

 p.5

    A sacrifice. A pact. A body. A mother willing to do it all. Conviction. That¡¯s all it took. Conviction.


    They weren¡¯t even aware of it, either Vicar. If they had been, if they knew what crept and waited and stalked their room, perhaps they never would have taken the elevator.


    They came back from dinner, a hasty buffet that had annoyed the chefs Though Apollo had decided to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and chew full bottles worth of sour aspirin throughout.


    The meal was satisfactory. The patrons, impressed. They rode the private elevator up and to their floor. Not a word was spoken, both were tired. Apollo stood against rails, Dion put his hands behind his back and dozed off as the numbers rose. Apollo felt wired. He tasted ash. He scratched his arm and turned away from the moonlight outlined mountainside. He looked up to the number rising above the elevator door. His hair stood on its end. There was something in him, though he could not think it through, it was just a feeling after all. A cold feeling.


    ¡°I¡¯m ready to pass out,¡± Dion yawned.


    The door opened. There was an obscene silence. Ferns in small pots shivered as they walked by. Dion extended his arms and yawned, the warm light against his face. Apollo scratched himself. He did notice he dug into his flesh. They both kept to the left side and towards their dormitory.


    The silence grew like an ever-expanding wasteland, a sonic landscape devoid of all things joyous or exciting. Apollo felt the cold on his cheeks now.


    ¡°Whats the number to our suite, again?¡±


    ¡°Shut up,¡± Apollo said. He stood still and turned his head counterclockwise. Then clockwise. Then he lost track as he tried to follow the vibrations. For it was feeling that came first, feeling before the sound.


    The vibrations rose up his feet. Dion turned. He must have figured it out by then. So now they both stood edgy and waiting, tense and flexed for combustive movement.


    Something was been lugged, dragged in the room. It sounded rough, like metal, for it scratched the floor with a horrible creaking.


    ¡°Somethings wrong.¡± Apollo faced the sound coming from around the corner. A plant fell. The dirt bled out onto the floor, the aloe vera rolled some few inches before stopping.


    ¡°You think?¡± Dion put his back against a wall.


    The lights shattered. Or shut off. It was hard to tell in the pace of things.


    ¡°Shh.¡± Apollo put his finger to his lips. They looked up, back, below, around, for the noise meandered about and came from all walls and all depths and their hearts were pounding, and their eyes were in rigid unrest. The mini-vibration made their bodies ready. Apollo dug into his coat instinctively. There was no portal there, no weapon either. He crushed a pack of cigarettes he found in a pocket and sucked in his lips.


    "What''s that noise?" Dion asked. Apollo shushed him again, between Dion and his throbbing heart it was hard to tell where the sound wandered and stopped.


    He turned his head once more, behind him this time. For the sound came from the other hallway corner. A roundabout of cacophony.


    It was going in circles. Apollo¡¯s eyes widened.


    Apollo knocked on the individual doors of rooms.


    "What, you''re going to ask for help?" Dion asked. "I thought we were the help."


    "Don''t you get it?" He smacked a door that read 602. "We''re alone. Always were. It¡¯s a setup."


    "Well, what do we do now?" Dion¡¯s voice quivered.


    "I thought you liked these kinds of things?¡± Apollo clenched his chest. ¡°I thought you liked the thrill. Where¡¯s that enthusiasm when I need it?¡±


    No answer. There was no time to answer. The noise approached. They put their backs against each other. The picture frames on the walls were falling, the glass was shattering, the plants and the lights and every dingy thing in this hall quaked with reasoned fear. And the scratching approached, the crackle of the floor.


    They were in a linear hall, with only two corners. One was silent, the other was obvious. They turned their heads.


    The scabbed and blackened feet were the first to show.


    Like scorched earth.


    "Apollo," Dion grabbed him by the shoulder.


    His whole body turned to face the noise, the figure, with its lazy approach. It pulled against the corner of the wall and crumbled it as it came around, such that its two hands were the first things to be seen. And it slogged, like a dragged, wet corpse.


    Apollo¡¯s eyes widened. The monster was in full view, tall yet hunched for the low ceiling. One arm was hypertrophied, swollen with round growths all around - this arm grabbed the anchor that dragged the rug, that made the sound, that caused the shaky fear in his (Apollo¡¯s) heart. His neck showed, though there was no head attached, only empty large shoulders. And his second hand was extended out, open grip, palm forward. There was an eye. Yellow, zip-zagging across each corner before settling and focusing on the Vicars.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    His stomach turned. He looked over to his partner. Dion almost knelt over, his legs shook.


    The demon mumbled, pained. The anchor dropped to the floor. It screamed, all three of them. The chain dangled.


    ¡°Get ready.¡± He faced the monstrosity. Dion was sized. His limbs looked inhibited, as paralyzed.


    ¡°Move!¡± Apollo shouted. Dion¡¯s neck strained to even look at him. The locomotion of the monster was beginning. The chains shingled. The demon ran.


    ¡°Fuck.¡± Apollo pushed Dion against the wall, flat. He himself went to the opposite wall, flat. The monster came in between them and then passed them and twisted his ankle with a full rotation to turn around. The bone was snapped, sticking out from its scorched feet. It didn''t seem to matter, twisted ankle or not as the healing process had already begun, the cells already regrew and the torn ligaments, re-bonded.


    ¡°I''m scared too,¡± Apollo clenched his chest as if to confirm it himself. ¡°But we got to put up a fight. There is no choice for evacuation or help or escape. There never was.¡±


    Perhaps he had gone deaf, for his face did not show any life to it. Maybe he was braindead, for his body did not move, not even as the monster approached again. Looking at the broken partner, who hugged the wall and who slowly fell to his knees, Apollo felt disgusted. He felt it in his gut, a churning feeling. And knew he was alone, worse, that he was babysitting.


    He met the monster midway. The anchor came up, dragging and ripping wires from the ceiling, then back down on him, he dodged. Electrical wire spat sparks. He punched the abdomen of the creature. His body hit flesh, though the impact seemed dissipated against his tight muscles. He retracted his hand, looked at it and smiled. It was broken.


    He stepped back. His hand regenerated, muscles and skin and all. The new flesh had a lighter tone of brown to it.


    He looked to Dion. His heart would not stop racing, his rage and fear and sadness all came at him like competing floods. Each current swallowing the other. Each, fulfilled by the two prominent voices in his head.


    Get rid of him. No, he can fight. get rid of him. he¡¯ll hold us back. no. yes. kill him. no yes get it over with no yes let him no yes no no yes no


    ¡°Dion, I need you to fight!¡± Apollo screamed.


    The demon approached, eyeball spinning as his hand extended out. It propped its anchor again, above his shoulders, to crash it down on Apollo. He dodged again, barely. The anchor struck the floor. The floor burst. The splinters shot up, embedding themselves on the ceiling and into Apollo.


    Dion crawled away from the smoke, the smoke of which Apollo inhabited. He was taking stakes out of his chest, spitting blood. And with his other hand, clearing the air and looking for the monster. Perhaps, that¡¯s why he smiled, when he was shocked to find out that such a large creature could hide in such thin smokescreen. Laughing, smiling, a curious development. Enjoyable, even.


    It hid. Somewhere, deep within dust and wreckage. The pipes from the burst hole were opened, water leaked. The monster moved up. The floor cracked, all that held the hall together seemed to be a thin layer of wood with the tactile strength of cardboard.


    The wounds left by the daggers of wood were healing. He raised his hands up.


    He felt danger in the wind. Sweeping death, as the chain holding the anchor, spun and dangled and extended out. Apollo crossed his arms in front of him.


    And it hit. Hard. He heard (heard before felt) the concussive sound of all his rib cage breaking.


    His body flew. Both arms, instantly broken. His limbs knocked over every lamp and standing picture as his body flew across the hall. He bounced a couple times on the floor, the carpet rode up as his face ground itself against it. Like the flesh had been peeled off of him for a skin graft.


    He struggled to stand. His body struggled to heal. Yet he inched forward.


    Everyone is unreliable today, aren¡¯t they? He shook his head. You most of all. The man who killed me, keeling over.


    He bled from the top of his face, somewhere along the forehead. He could tell by the streak of blood blinding his left eye and the test preoccupying the right side of his mouth.


    Dion was in front of him, shaking, with clenched fists at the monster who came forward, spinning his anchor. The sound it made - the low swooping sound, like a dying helicopter wing.


    Apollo took a step forward. He felt four different wounds open at once, blood spilled out of his mouth.


    Angry, afraid. He looked to Dion who did nothing, who shivered and waited.


    ¡°Fight!¡± Apollo coughed. ¡°Fight, right now,¡±


    Dion looked back. Forward. Back. Forward.


    The anchor spun faster. Apollo realized it, foresaw it: Dion would die.


    He ran, his ankles bled out as his weight compressed them. He gained momentum. The creature too, gaining momentum. Speeding up.


    It was a race, Dion at the center.


    He screamed all the way down the hall.


    The anchor shot out. It went for Dion. Apollo pushed him away and braced for it. Hugging it, almost, he clenched it close to his chest. His feet dragged wood and steel up as he was pushed back, to the end of the hall. He hit the wall, his body dug deep into metal and wood.


    The demon paused, surprised almost. He began pulling the chain of his anchor, slowly, methodically. The rattling links went on like an endless rust-colored snake, Dion watched it as such, his back against the wall, his legs about to give in.


    But the anchor stopped. Five yards in, it came to a complete halt. The demon tugged at it.


    It would not leave from that cloud of smoke left at the wall, where he had sent Apollo.


    He yanked a little harder. Nothing. No, worse. He was getting pulled. He wrapped the chain around his arm and thought to tug it out, in his stupid mind (or lack thereof one).


    The stupid, lacking shoulders of the simple monster who only wanted to push and pull and beat and kill. He flashed his eyes to see at the cloud of smoke, at the man contesting him.


    It was like a newborn awakening. This new sensation of its very brief life. The demon paused. As two red eyes stared out from the smoke. Crimson, deep maroon.


    He felt the strength of this creature, what he thought was a broken man, Apollo. The dominant strength of this red-eyed thing hidden in the crater and dust where he had shot the weak man (what he thought at least, was a weak man), as it pulled, hard on his chain. Yanking, drawing him closer. A pause, a tie between the two. Only briefly. The force of the pull came back again, at its strongest and the demon was sent towards the puller, the smoke, and the red eyes.


    It came to its natural end then and there. A fist had knocked it down, with a fist that punched it down towards the floor.


    It did not break flesh! No, Apollo knew that. He only sought to move the beast to a docile position. In that smoke, in the haze, he had pocketed himself the anchor. Apollo raised it above his head and slammed it down straight through the chest of the demon.


    It was the time of firsts for the demon. As it slept without consent. As it felt the long fingers of someone crawling into its chest.


    As the fingers inspected and prodded and found that cancerous, red stone. The philosophers stone, plucked away.


    The defiant limbs of the monsters lashed out against its offender. It never hit his mark though, only air and drag.


    Apollo looked down at the beast, with the anchor through its chest. He squeezed the philosophers stone and looked through it.


    Eat it. You need it.


    He squeezed it.


    Eat it, it¡¯s ours.


    It shattered in his hands and fell to the ground. Both the red dust, and himself.

 Episode 3: "Only Fools Follow the Blind"

    They had followed that magical compass with blind faith, the little black hand that pointed north-west at times and north-east and sometimes north. They had gone to every stop along the way, to realize that the man they followed had made no stops. They eventually hit a gasoline station and the clerk behind the counter who said he remembered seeing someone strange. A blind man with a white cane, who wore black shades and who demanded the gasoline station owner to help.


    He told them, about this fellow (who they were sure was Richter), accordingly; ¡°Well, the sucker was blind as blind can be and he drove like hell. Speeding, turning, real quick like and agile. Wanted to come in as quick as he got out, which was no time at all. Why, that feller gave me a hundred bucks and told me to shut up and to fill up.¡±


    ¡°Why are you telling us this then?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s a blind fella, how¡¯s he gonna find me?¡± The toothless old man had said, not with joy but with a sort of discreet anxiety. His eyes were shifting to their sides. The night was dark, only the glow of neon dared shine. ¡°¡¯Sides, he had a shady look, one I''ve seen on men before, mean men. He¡¯s got the look of a damn tornado. Of a killer. Of a real, right, bad person. And when you¡¯re dealing with bad people, I think the last thing you should do is keep your mouth shut. Nothing good about it, I know. Why , I known a neighbor back when I lived in New Mexico who didn¡¯t say lip about the feller next door to him, a cartel member!¡± he mused. ¡°Always a quiet person, who watered his little cactuses outside his porch, who fed his dog scraps of pork bones. With a smell like guajillo chilis and of beer. Well, my neighbor done thought he was a silent type, that his killings could go on blind-sided. And my neighbor thought his silence meant anything. Well, he got a surprise when he came back home to his ranch one day. Whole family, dead, swept. The house, swept. A Glock, the cops called it, killed his life. All of that, for a thousand cash. Well, that cartel member was never found. What a vicious fellow. But partly to blame on the neighbor as well, ¡®cuz if he had just said any damn word to the police, I¡¯m sure all of it could have been avoided. So here I am, to confess, so that the Lord don¡¯t hold my soul accountable for any bad doing that that man is up to.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like you¡¯re feeling guilty, old man,¡± Michael said.


    ¡°I did then, and I do now.¡± He said. ¡°Don¡¯t trust the blind man. He ain¡¯t no cripple, trust me.¡±


    He gave them a brief description of the car. That was good enough. Santana began drawing it in a small notebook. Some names too, phrases that he thought would help. All of it seemed to empower the compass to further accuracy.


    Half a day later, they found it. After taking the long road of a mid-desert freeway into the open plains of the desert, they had trekked off track for hours. Then, with dust painting their spoilers and wheels and bumpers, with the cloud flowing gently and the earth disturbed by the screeching half of their metal death machine, they stopped.


    It was supposed to be a ranch. There were wooden stakes all across the perimeter, but the wire was ruined and rusted and curled as if in pain. They raised their legs and stepped over the short barb wire. It was an open plain, far too, and wide. The house was a quarter mile from the fence, dead center. There were some rocks, some creosote, and some Joshua trees. They had decided to lay behind a boulder, with binoculars. They saw the car parked in front of the shack, it matched the description.


    "We''re here, now what?" Santana asked.


    "Have that camera?¡± Michael asked. Santana produced it from underneath his arms.


    ¡°Great, now we¡¯ll wait to see what¡¯s he¡¯s doing. We¡¯ll come up close and videotape it, maybe leave a bug or two. Got the microphones too?¡± Santana nodded, and like the stowaway bunny of a magician, they too appeared. Small, black things that looked quite literally, like oversized beetles.


    Michael pushed some goggles onto his brother and pointed his finger on where to focus.


    "I can''t see shit," Santana said. There were no lights outside, let alone in the building. There wasn''t anything, not even a telephone pole or an electricity generator anywhere near them. As if the stars, as if humanity had decided unanimously to build it¡¯s glory up and around this little dark patch. An exile, by the heavens themselves.


    A cold wind blew, Santana felt the sting of the freezing night on his flesh. The rock was iced. He rubbed his hands together, stopping only for a brief moment. And in doing so, lost the shadow.


    Michael slapped his hands.


    ¡°Look!¡± he pointed to the window. Santana adjusted himself, belly down and cozy and staring into the windows, following the dragging shadow. What an impossible task, looking for a shadow in the dark canvas of the night. Candlelight! It flashed. For a moment so brief.


    "What happened?" Santana asked.


    "How am I supposed to know? He just vanished."


    "I don¡¯t feel good about this. Let¡¯s just wait it out till¡¯ morning. We can catch him later."


    ¡°Tell me? Who the hell contrives himself to sin in the morning? If you¡¯re going to find evidence on his guilty-ness, you¡¯ll do it here and now, late into the night.¡±


    "Let¡¯s not," Santana said. "Let¡¯s pick ourselves up and leave. I knew this plan was a shit show the minute we were caught. I knew that old bitch had something terrible planned. I knew it, and you should have listened."


    ¡°We need the money.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t need shit,¡± He said. ¡°We¡¯ll get by just fine like we always have.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll get fucked.¡±


    ¡°Better to get arrested than be here,¡± Santana said.


    ¡°What¡¯s the point, huh?¡± Michael screamed, in a hushed, low way. ¡°To run around like decapitated chickens. What the fuck? Aren¡¯t you sick of it? Don¡¯t you want to live another life? Isn¡¯t this shit just plain boring? Miserable? Come on! This is our chance, and all we need to do is take a little picture or two, film for a second or two. What¡¯s hard about that?¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°What¡¯s hard?¡± Santana said. ¡°The fucking psycho in the god damn haunted house, that¡¯s what¡¯s hard.¡±


    "What are you afraid of? The car''s nearby, we can make a break for it if he gets too close."


    "He¡¯s a Wolfe,¡± Santana said. ¡°He¡¯s a god, damn witch. Not like us, like the real deal. Devil kids. You know the stories, don¡¯t cha?"


    "He ain''t shit," Michael said. He crept up to the house, low, though there was no reason to low. Quiet, though he was far enough. Though there was darkness and space enough for him. Saxon came close behind, tugging at his arms, looking for his brother and often shouting "Michael! Michael!" only to hear the harsh shush of his brother. The moon was hidden. Clouds drifted like high-flying ghosts.


    ¡°What kind of evidence we looking f-f-for?¡± Santana asked.


    ¡°Anything that tells us he¡¯s a murderer. A confession? Maybe, some bizarre. We just need to satisfy the old bitch, who cares what we find as long as its enough for her?¡±


    ¡°Why?¡± Santana asked.


    ¡°Because she thinks he killed her damn husband. His own father.¡± Michael turned, smiling like a bastard. ¡°Funny, ain¡¯t it?¡±


    Santana audible squeaked.


    They came to the window. There was a crack. Black gunk grew along the edges, that upon the touch made Michael wave off the grime from his hand. They peeked inside with the thin light of the camera flash, to see for any footsteps or any signs of life from the shack. Floorboards hung at angles hazardous, the nails, bent and pointy. They saw two beige L-shaped sofas, an old style furnace (with fresh coals?), and plastic wrapped along all the furniture. Some family pictures, with films of dust so thick that it looked like a layer of parchment wrapped around the photos.


    "He left. So should we." Saxon said. "Let''s bolt."


    "Where''s your courage, lover boy?"


    "In the god damn car. Let''s leave Michael!"


    "I''m not going anywhere, I want this fifty grand, and you need to shut up." He said. "I''ll be damned if I die a gutter rat. I want more of life. Why don''t you?¡±


    "What''s cash without a life.¡± Santana tugged at his brother. ¡°Get a grip."


    They heard a creaking noise. The shaky flashlight of the camera pointed up, towards the sound. There was a stairway, the handrail hung by the edge, broken and sharp.


    "What the fuck are we going to do anyway?"


    "We plant the bugs, maybe hide the camera in his den. He¡¯s blind anyway, he won¡¯t see the flashlight." Michael nodded in agreement with himself, ignoring his brother. "Yeah, we''ll put it in his room on auto and let it record.¡±


    Michael lifted the window. Santana grabbed onto his pants, he shook him off with his heel.


    "Come on, at least reconsider."


    "I¡¯m done reconsidering," He said. "I don¡¯t have fun, Santana. Driving coast to coast is not fun. Watching you play lover boy and every ditch and rat hole is not fun. Fuck fun. I want a farm and some peace."


    He came into the window and lowered the flashlight. Too warm. He tip-toed through the building, putting his back against the wall. Santana followed, close behind.


    "I thought you weren''t coming?" Michael asked.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to.¡± He flashed his compass, which pointed up to the second floor.


    The door creaked at every movement. It would not stop crying or whining or croaking. It felt like they were stepping on corpses, on the after-field of a long drawn war, where the bodies were still freshly dying, and them, the lone fools dancing and prowling and walking around and on top the dead. So, the house cried, like a dying man.


    They went through the first rooms. With their hands in front of them like sensors in the darkness. The light funnel was too small for them to catch every detail, most of their maneuvering was careful. They felt the wobbly urns and pictures frames and paused, each and every time they almost tripped up.


    What room was it? Santana smelled something, hot. Stew. Cooking and brewing small bubbles on a calm flame.


    Another noise. A bubble pop? No. Steps.


    The compass immediately turned, it dragged up as if pulling Santana¡¯s arm. It pointed high up, to the second floor, quivering as it pointed.


    "Let''s just leave our shit here. We''ll ditch."


    "What do you expect to do? Catch a murderer making dinner? We need him in the act."


    Michael slithered through. Santana shook his head, moaning, suckling on his tongue. They investigated the bottom floor which consisted of the following: a boiler room, a living room, a kitchen and a restroom (that had been unkempt, mind you). And all that remained - besides a little under-room below the staircase - was the top floor. Whatever was up there. Whoever was up there.


    Feet shuffled. The compass moved a little to the left. Santana yelped. Michael held his mouth, and they both listened. More fumbling. Something was being dragged about the floor above. Michael came up each step, with deliberation, with a clenched fist, with fear. He removed his shoes and laid them and walked with his socked feet. Micahel put his weight on his dexterous leg, his right, with his heart pounding and his eyes dancing and his nape sensitive to the shifts in the air. He had his arm out, his tattoo glowed. A bolt of blue electricity zapped at the ready, a taser for the ¡®sonofuhbitch¡¯. The clouds split for a second. Less than a second, a sliver in time and space. Moonlight broke and shined through the window into the abode. It nearly blinded Santana, whose eyes were blurred and who covered his face with an open palm. The light cut straight center to the staircase, separating him and his brother. His brother, half of which was in darkness and half of which was out, into the light.


    They approached, nearer, closer to the top and to the noise that kept growing louder. Metal banged.


    It sounded like a foundry of metal and flesh. A foundry rundown and working its dying self, divorced from civilization and the hands of man, lonely machinery. So the noise went. Tap - smack - crack. And the man worked.


    And upon the last step, as carefully as Santana tried, he made a noise. A low creak. They both froze. No, no. All three of them froze, for the sounds stopped.


    The shuffling footsteps ceased, Santana held the guardrail, his back turned to run. He pulled Michael by the elbow, trying to fish him back out, into the moonlight and out the door. A door opened. His footsteps approaching.


    Michael waited, hesitantly. The noise kept coming. Louder. Louder. Close! The breathing was near. Michael¡¯s feet turned. Then, silence. Immediate silence, as if the noise had been snuffed like candlelight, with a pinch or a blow of wind.


    "Michael?" Santana pulled. "Let''s get the fuck out."


    "Michael!" He squinted and focused on his brother, half of which was in moonlight, the other (chest and up) was in the darkness.


    "Michael!" He whimpered.


    He yanked hard. Pulled on him. Tore his shirt and jacket, tore the sleeve, tore the man. There was a sudden smack. The sound of breaking bone, a confused groan, stuck in between crying and anger, like the moaning of a touched, simple man. The moan of the stupid.


    His heart stopped.


    Michael moved back, in confusion, in a pirouette. His body, stuck in the conflict of his confusion. An arm swung. A leg ran.


    Santana screamed.


    There was a dent in his brothers head. A crater, near the left temple. It was caved in, his eye was pushed out and hanging by the string of his nerves. A bloody cane tapped along the guardrail.


    Santana screamed as his brother fell, twitching at the stairs.


    Santana screamed as he ran out the window. The glass breaking behind him. Towards the car, the engine started. Crying. Moving the wheel. Screeching the tires. Crying.


    Driving.


    He looked behind him through the rear side mirror. He looked, because he had to, because that¡¯s where his brother was. He saw the shadow of the man.


    The shadow looked on from that broken window. Richter Wolfe''s cold black eyes, shining only briefly. His face and gaze, tailing the car that zoomed out and disappeared into the horizon.

 offtb. 2

    ¡°Who the fuck do you think you are to say what goes on and who does what in my god damn casino?¡± A stout man shouted. The balls of roulette stopped to inertia, the crowd of guests looked over to Aenea and the small man. She was looking not at him, not at the bright bald spot at the top of his head, or the goatee he managed with fine deliberation (as opposed to how he managed the casino), she was looking at his tag. A gold pin sitting atop his vest.


    She stripped him of it. Stuck to it, bits of the cotton fiber of the suit.


    ¡°You¡¯re fired.¡± She threw the pin onto the floor and kicked it to the side. ¡°Your incompetence is disgusting. A lack of surveillance, a lack of security, a lack of proper managerial duties has rendered you worthless.¡±


    ¡°Where do you get off?¡± He stomped. Security came, black-suited and confused, undecided on what to do with the man they once called ''boss.'' They grabbed his arm but hesitated to pull when he resisted.


    ¡°I am Aenea Wolfe and as of yesterday, your supervisor.¡± She said. ¡°Here I am then, to supervise. You¡¯re fired. Get out.¡±


    She looked to the two men standing behind the manager.


    ¡°Choose carefully. What do you love more?¡± She said to the two brutes. ¡°Loyalty or a damn job.¡±


    They snapped into fear, or common sense (whatever safeguarded their egos better) and plucked the man from where he stood and took him far, into the crowd of people and out to the front door. The people stared until Aenea turned and unanimously, they all faced down as she turned to face them.


    She didn¡¯t know why she decided to take on the position. She didn¡¯t understand why she cared. She argued that she needed to keep herself entertained, after all, she¡¯d be here for as long as it took to solve the murder, to the dismay of her investors back at the pharmaceutical company. And she argued, that if she were to stay, she should at least entertain herself. It only made sense then, that a business mogul like her would do the thing she liked best, business. After one look at the ¡®books¡¯ of the casino, she figured she might as well start here, on the floor.


    With cigarette smoke rising up into the gold locks of her hair and the smell of burning alcohol giving her a perpetual, bitter face.


    The only thing that annoyed her about it all was how easy Salome had given her power. It was a thought that muddled in her brain.


    She spent most of her time here, on the floor, hanging by the ledge and looking down at everyone. The workers seemed to work harder with her around. The players seemed to be more daring while she was around. Things just went better as she hoped. And the day seemed easy, at least the first few hours into the day.


    Then Dion showed up.


    A bit low hanging with arms dangled and a neck bent over, like a withered tree which had uprooted himself to trudge along the loud and colorful stacked carpet. And this sentient, dead tree came towards her, grabbing the back of his neck and in a position, she could only associate with those about to keel over or vomit.


    ¡°We¡¯re not doing good.¡± He rubbed his neck. A sense of resentment? Bitterness?


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°This is the fifth day I¡¯ve had to clean Apollo¡¯s sheets.¡±


    ¡°Have you referred him to a toilet?¡± She shook her head.


    ¡°He¡¯s been bleeding.¡± He looked up. ¡°Didn¡¯t you know that? We got into a big fight with a supernatural entity - Demon - on our floor. The whole floor is broken. We¡¯re broken. Apollo was nearly killed, he¡¯s been trying to get his strength back this whole time.¡±This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    ¡°What?¡± She snapped her whole body towards him and kept it stiff. By the small twitches along Dion¡¯s face, she could tell he was honest. Because no dishonest man is that fearful. No dishonest man would have those tired eyes or sickly complexion.


    ¡°A demon attacked us. We¡¯re almost dead. We need help.¡±


    She scratched her chin. Of course she didn¡¯t tell me. Of course, she¡¯d let me waste my time here. But still. I didn¡¯t think it¡¯d get this bad. That she''d take this this far?


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you handle yourselves better?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t victim blame. We¡¯re doing our best with what we have. We¡¯ve got nothing but hands and legs. It¡¯s not our fault you never secured us our weapons, especially with the job as it is.¡±


    ¡°This job was never supposed to be that violent.¡± She said.


    ¡°What in God¡¯s name did you expect?¡± He sprung up. ¡°We¡¯re chasing a murderer, and you thought it wouldn¡¯t get violent?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think it¡¯d get violent enough for one of you to almost be dead.¡±


    ¡°Well it did, and now I need you to pull your weight,¡±


    ¡°If I need to help you more than you can help me, what¡¯s the point of even hiring you?¡±


    He walked up closer. Aenea stood her ground.


    ¡°Because you owe it to him now. My friend is up in his room, screaming and complaining, nearly dead.¡± He said. ¡°You¡¯re going to help him,¡±


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°The same way you got in touch with us in the first place, through the Leper.¡± He said. ¡°Tell him we need our guns and that we need them now and if he complains, tell him to bend the rules.¡±


    ¡°This is turning out to be a mess,¡± She rubbed her forehead. ¡°You two aren¡¯t helping either.¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡± He said. ¡°We tend to bring messes with us.¡±


    He was sarcastic. Aenea was not.


    ¡°I¡¯ve inherited a mess. The old man was never good in life, and he seems worse in death,¡± She said. ¡°No one asked me if I wanted any of this. Not my mom, not my dad, not Salome or my brothers. No one.¡±


    ¡°Your little problems are second to my friends. Get us some weapons and get him some food.¡±


    ¡°What else does he want? A handjob?¡±


    ¡°Ten thousand calories. That¡¯s what Apollo told me,¡± Dion said. ¡°He said, ¡®fuck off and get me something to eat and make it big.¡¯ Ten-thousand-calories-big.¡±


    ¡°A personal chef, weapons. Resource after resource. Why shouldn¡¯t I fire you?¡±


    ¡°Because you¡¯re not figuring anything out without us. How could you? You''re dead the minute we disappear. They''re probably already thinking of a way to get rid of you. Whoever ,they, is.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve thought about that, how couldn¡¯t I?¡± She asked. ¡°But if I stay on it, I¡¯ll ruminate. If I ruminate, I get slow. If I¡¯m slow, I¡¯ll die.¡±


    ¡°Good, we¡¯re on the same page.¡± He said. ¡°We need to get back on task as quickly as possible.¡±


    His hand was shaking as he said it.


    ¡°I¡¯ll try. Do you have any ideas on who could have tried to kill you?¡±


    ¡°Apollo does.¡± He said. ¡°That¡¯s probably why they tried killing him.¡±


    ¡°Names?¡±


    ¡°None, he says, it¡¯s just ¡®a feeling.¡¯¡± He shrugged. ¡°Or sometimes he just stares out and says ¡®I can feel him in the psychosphere.¡¯¡±


    ¡°What the fuck.¡± She was still. Calm. Controlled. Though in her mind, the desire to grab a glass and slam it across Dion''s face was increasing. She had to steady her voice, had to calm herself and breath before she could resolve to speak. Her voice came out duller, more contrived in the flat delivery. Forced. ¡°Can you tell your partner to stop being so lazy, would you kindly say that? Or would you rather I say it?"


    Dion stood in front of him, hand still shivering, but face filled with contained anger. His cheeks were shaking now, and a bit red.


    ¡°He¡¯s sleeping. Let him rest.¡±


    ¡°What else does he want? Just get it all out why don¡¯t you!¡± She screamed. ¡°Here I am, having to deal with the company and the family that runs it. Here I am trying to juggle someone else''s pride, someone who I despise. All to entertain you two idiots into coming up with a simple answer. And what are my efforts worth? Worthless expressions that aren¡¯t worth putting in a god damn fortune cookie. What the fuck does psychosphere mean? What does he taste or feel?¡±


    She rubbed her face. The same two brutes came from before, looking to grab Dion. She paused them.


    ¡°What else? Get it all out? What else do you two need?¡±


    ¡°An invitation to the big party. The coronary ceremony that¡¯s coming up. We can¡¯t just be around the perimeter, we need to be a part of it.¡±


    ¡°A party,¡± She rubbed the wrinkles off her forehead. ¡°He wants to go to a party.¡±


    ¡°To catch a murderer who might be there.¡± He corrected himself and straightened his glare at her. ¡°No - to a murderer who definitely will be there. As will we. Prepared. Armed. Right?¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± She closed her eyes and nodded. Right.


    She looked out to the casino floor, and the mess of design on the carpet floors, the bright colored rainbows and dice and theme-less colors and figures (unless chaos itself was a design) and she sighed.


    his is what he left me, she exhaled from her mouth, long winded like the tired breath of a stallion. A casino built from lies and lived with cheats.

 offtb. 3

    The empty packs of cigarettes fell down onto the floor as Apollo put his hand against the table and stood. He heard his bones pop. His hair was outgrown, as hair typically does for a Vicar at the precipice of death, with his healing factor desperate to keep up. His beard had appeared, almost a few inches worth across his chin.


    It was only a week. Which might not appear long to you, reader, especially considering the wounds (a few broken ribs, hemorrhaging, perforated lungs) but was exceptionally long for a Vicar.


    His legs wobbled as he stood. His calves were weak or at least felt weak.


    ¡°Come on, let me stand you.¡± Dion came up to him.


    ¡°You¡¯re a little too late to help, buddy.¡± Apollo brought his face up. He had a dull annoyance across his face, made obvious by the frown. Or at least he hoped it was obvious. He wanted nothing, not a word from Dion, as they walked through the halls at a cripples pace, down the elevator and out to the garage.


    He wanted just one thing. A promised thing. Something he had sent Dion to talk to Aenea about.


    He wanted his sword back.


    They drove with leisure through the swaths of hungry and stupid guests congesting at the front of the casino. People ran across the street with an almost psychopathic ecstasy. Groups of baby boomers people with their floral-pattern shirts and wide shades walked past them, their walking canes an afterthought in the wind above them as they rushed the doors with their quarter filled pockets.


    ¡°Well, if they¡¯re not going to use it, they can hand it to me.¡± Apollo pointed to a particular old person, who waved his walking stick like propellers.


    They gained traction on the road, especially after they cleared. Apollo dragged his face to the front of the casino, to a sign that read: ¡®JackPot increase, 100 million up for grabs today. Someone. Will. Win.¡¯


    He couldn¡¯t help but smoke.


    ¡°Are you still mad at me?¡± Dion asked. ¡°I said I¡¯m sorry, I couldn¡¯t help it.¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not mad anymore.¡±


    ¡°You sound mad.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re getting me mad.¡± He lit. He exhausted the smoke from a little gap he made from lowering the car window. ¡°I¡¯ve accepted that the low-brow sentience that is your existence is one of limited capacity. The gullibility of your instincts to the external world have lead you to be more of a cripple than even I, with this ruined body, could ever be. What has changed, after all? Between the man at Havenbrook who fought, because he could not help himself to the man now who freezes, because he can not help himself? Nothing. The truth is, you never had the constitution to circumvent trauma. You never had it in you to be more than your passions, however mild or severe. That was my misjudgment, not yours.¡±


    Dion sighed. A bit annoyed, a bit depressed.


    ¡°Nothing has changed, and it was my mistake for expecting anything more. Your programming, recursive and adaptive, has merely taken to your new state. But you were always a hapless child.¡±


    ¡°Do you know how hard it is being your partner?¡± Dion swerved the wheel before they missed the turn.


    ¡°As difficult as it is being yours.¡± Apollo huffed. He tried to hold it in but coughed. His lungs, now broken, would not allow the toxic fumes. He could feel the residual scarring across his lungs burn. It felt like a fire in his throat.


    ¡°Why can¡¯t you be helpful for once?¡± Dion turned again. Apollo felt his whole body push to the right. His face touched the glass, but he was not in any way, moved. He carried that dull expression into silence, a silence that lasted an hour. Dion tried talking to him throughout, but he just blew out smoke, as if the clouds and the breathing and the technique of his exhalations was another kind of language.


    ¡°Well?¡± Dion finished his third rant. ¡°Just say it¡¯s my fault, just say you hate me.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re here.¡± Apollo slapped the dashboard. The car screeched and stopped. The momentum jerked Apollo and Dion forward before they settled.


    ¡°Where is it?¡± Dion asked. They stood in an empty parking lot behind a Chinese restaurant or what remained of it. The tagging was across the walls, and cheap panels of wood covered the shattered holes across the glass windows. Across from them, a little white van waited. It had a termite at the top of the van, dead and upside down with X¡¯s for eyes and a sign on the rear that read ¡®Hermanos sin Paciencia: Fast Bug Relief Now.¡¯


    They looked at each.


    "We¡¯ll talk later," Apollo said.


    Dion shook his head, and they both exited the vehicle.


    "This looks stupid." looked into the bright sheen across the width of the van.


    "Projection is a nasty trait for any kind of detective to have."


    Dion mumbled a complaint. Apollo knocked on the van. Three times, on the third, making sure to delay it.


    There was no movement for a while. For a while. Apollo readied his hand again for a fourth knock, but it moved. It shook and rattled. Someone walked within the front and then back of the van. Two eyes peered from within from the little windows by the side. His shadow dragged back and forth, to the end of the van, where finally, there was another pause.


    "Hold on please," the voice from within said. "I''m putting on a shirt."


    So it went on, the van shaking and rattling and the suspension rising and falling.


    The doors opened. A low creak, only an inch.


    "Hello?" The man behind said. A youth, with glasses crooked on his face and stains of uneven colored skin on him. Some bleached, some dark.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Apollo stuck his hands into the door and nearly pried them open. He walked into the van. The suspension fell halfway to the floor. Dion came in next. The car touched the floor.


    "Oh, no," the man said. "You¡¯re both too fat. Too fat."


    The youth waved both hands to wave them away. Apollo found a carton to sit on.


    "We¡¯re here for our gear."


    ¡°You can get it outside. Outside, please!¡± the youth said, lips sucked in.


    "Hello, I¡¯m Dion."


    He gave up trying to talk sense to them after that. He sighed and closed the doors.


    ¡°You must be Apollo then if he¡¯s Dion.¡±


    They were both hunched over inside the van, Dion sat on a waterbed sprawled in the corner of the van. It barely fit. Apollo looked across, to the gear, the lighting, the waterbed and the paraphilia of 80¡¯s monuments. A few action figures, a lava lamp, some posters of old bands long dead. A fetishism, reminiscent of a porn set. He rubbed his feet below. It was a pink fur carpet, below his feet.


    "They sent me immediately." the youth drank from a small thermos. It smelled like coffee. ¡°They never send me immediately, unless its bad.¡±


    "Yeah, we ran into a lot of fucking trouble." Apollo lifted his shirt (only the one, he left his coat at home). There was a scar, like a smile, across his ribs. It seemed barely together, like one finger would be all it took to pry it open. The youth, however, did not seem fazed, or even disgusted. More so, was curious at the wound, staring intently like a surgeon before the nip-and-tuck, and swirled his coffee in the lid-cup of the thermos before Apollo put down his shirt. He looked up to face Apollo.


    "You sure did, didn''t you?" Thaddeus said.


    Dion was surprisingly quiet. He rubbed his hands together and did not look at anyone in the face. He kept to the floor.


    "The Leper told me as much. Didn¡¯t believe it. Now I do." He said. "You know, we¡¯re breaking tradition doing this whole thing this way. You should be getting your stuff through a sanctioned church, through the procedure -"


    ¡°Fuck procedure.¡± He said. ¡°The bureaucracy of a corrupt state is of little relevance to me. Especially when it is the same state wishing for my death. Let me have my weapons so I may fight for my life.¡±


    ¡°He told me you¡¯d say something like that too.¡±


    Apollo flexed his hand. The bones popped.


    ¡°Do you have it or not?¡±


    ¡°Of course I do, I¡¯m Thaddeus.¡± He said. ¡°Lead armament engineer of the Hospitallers.¡±


    "Lead? Who sanctioned that?" Dion asked.


    "No one did, or rather, no one wanted to,¡± Thaddeus said. He seemed eager. ¡°But genius, especially mine, inspires. I earned my keep.¡±


    "I don¡¯t mind a little elitism. I might even like it, in a way.¡± Apollo said. ¡°But where¡¯s our shit?¡±


    "Don''t be so hasty, please,"


    There was an air of authority by this person. Also one of fear. He didn''t look like a Vicar, instead, he seemed remarkably human. And his eyes were not changed, and he did not carry that stench of the guilty and violent that Vicars did. The air of death.


    "You¡¯ve got a pair, especially when you¡¯re a civilian.¡±


    "Yes, I am a hundred percent, untainted."


    "Untainted," Dion repeated. ¡°Untainted¡­¡±


    ¡°And I¡¯m supposed to believe you found your way into Soloman¡¯s Keep?¡± He asked. ¡°You don¡¯t got the make of an adventurer. I¡¯m guessing you didn¡¯t choose to join them. What¡¯s your story?¡±


    "A long one. A long history of mistakes that I don¡¯t feel like remembering right now," Thaddeus looked underneath the bed to a suitcase, one as half as large as the bed itself that took some obvious effort for him to move. ¡°And you¡¯re in a rush anyway, so I won¡¯t waste the thoughts on you.¡±


    ¡°Well, alright.¡± Apollo looked at the case. ¡°I appreciate curtness too.¡±


    A smaller case got pulled out afterward. Thaddeus looked at them both, his hands rested above the dials and locked.


    "I hope you two realize how out of bounds this whole thing is. We''re really breaking the rules,"


    "Our existence is a game as is, that aims to swallow both players and prize whole. What''re a couple more broken rules going to do to worsen this state?" Apollo knelt over and kicked the lid open of the more prominent case. Two things were there, both behind a layer of black foam.


    It was his sword. Somewhat. It was leaner, sharper, uncracked. It had a clean sheen of silver.


    "Do you like it?"


    Apollo felt the weight of the handle, but could not lift it entirely without puncturing the car. He looked down the side, inspecting the bevel.


    "This used to be my friend''s sword," he tried with his other hand now. ¡°You changed it.¡±


    "Is that a problem?"


    He felt the blade. He looked, particularly, to three holes near the hilt of the sword, along the base. They looked like exhausts and pressing his hand tighter along the grip, focusing that arcana through the network of his arms, he saw the fire rise and expunge itself from all three holes and wrap around, for a moment, around the blade.


    "This isn''t a problem at all." He said.


    "No, no, no, no," Thaddeus said. ¡°Don¡¯t do that. There¡¯s still a couple of kinks left un-fixed.¡±


    The flames ceased.


    ¡°Like what?¡±


    ¡°The kinds of mistakes that could light us all on fire, those kinds.¡± He said. ¡°You need to be careful that you¡¯re pointing, far, far away from yourself when you light that sucker. Oh, and that the wind isn¡¯t blowing back towards you, okay?¡±


    ¡°The fire doesn¡¯t stay on the sword?¡±


    ¡°And it doesn¡¯t get snuffed out either. So make sure, if it gets blown off, that it doesn¡¯t get blown off on you.¡±


    Apollo extinguished it with another focus of arcana. He played with the handle and flicked a switch.


    "How many different ways can I say it? Don¡¯t. Fucking. Kill. Us." Thaddeus said.


    "Hmm?"


    "Don¡¯t play with this button." He backed away from the blade. "It''ll disengage the lock on the shell. It¡¯ll late you release the blade. You know, the hot rod inside."


    "The harmonic blade."


    ¡°That¡¯s what you call it?¡± Thaddeus said. ¡°Hot rod is a better name. A-Anyways. Please, don¡¯t test that out in here. Please.¡±


    Apollo looked to Dion who had his body slumped down, staring at his case.


    "What do you have for him?¡± Apollo asked.


    Dion¡¯s hands shook.


    "Look" Thaddeus opened the box. In it, both revolvers, gleaming, shining with a kind of lust. Above them, samples of rounds. Three different bullets, all like tiny meteors. "You''ve got standard ammunition, hollow points and my favorite..."


    He lifted the last bullet, which had a strange red coloration to it.


    "Explosive rounds. Very dangerous, very big. This isn''t a canon on your hand anymore, it''s a damn nuke. Here, feel it. I messed around with the balance of the gun, tell me how it is."


    He lifted the gun and handed it to Dion. His hand fumbled with the handle, and it slipped out. The ringing of metal was hollow, a lava lamp off in the corner of the room blubbed.


    Thaddeus put the gun back in his hand. Again it slipped.


    ¡°Did I mess something up?¡± Thaddeus asked.


    "That''s all we needed, thanks," Apollo said.


    "Is he alright?" Thaddeus asked.


    "Yeah, you can leave now."


    "Leave? You¡¯re talking to the greatest genius this half of the planet. Where¡¯s my thanks? Appreciation?"


    Apollo grabbed him on the shoulder.


    "Thanks, you can leave now."


    His eyes said it all, their low and beady glare, the stillness of his stare, the concentrated intensity of it. Thaddeus stood from his seat, opened the door and found a cool spot in the shade of the girth of the van.


    ¡°We¡¯ve withheld the talk long enough. You had a lot of enthusiasm in the car, too.¡± Apollo said. ¡°One look at the gun has got you all fucked up, though. Well, shit.¡±


    Dion exhaled.


    "He asked a good question, you know that?¡± Apollo looked across to Dion. ¡°Are you going to be alright?"


    "Yeah." Dion''s head was low, almost at knee length. His voice was somehow, even lower.


    "Why don''t I believe you then?" Apollo asked.


    "Who do you believe in?"


    "Good point," They sat cramped and leaning close to each other, necks bent. "I¡¯m not good with sympathy. And I won¡¯t be the man to tell you how to live your life, I¡¯ve lectured you enough and know enough that it does nothing. All I can do is tell you the causal chain of your cowardice. If you continue like this, moping and dreadful, you will certainly die. And if you don¡¯t expect change within yourself, do us a favor, just leave the damn game. Let me do this on my own, I can save your ass and mine just as well by myself."


    Dion made no protest. He stared down at his guns. Apollo sighed and stood, he felt the back of his head tap the ceiling of the van.


    He jumped out.


    ¡°How long is he going to stay in there?¡± Thaddeus asked. ¡°That¡¯s my house, you know?¡±


    But Dion would not leave, not from his little seat atop the waterbed, staring down at the guns with his shaking hands.

 offtb. 4

    "I''m surprised you could make it, detectives. I heard you ran into trouble." Salome said.


    Apollo swallowed spit. Dion put a hand on his shoulder, to hold him back.


    "At least..." His voice was passive. "At least they invited us to dinner?"


    Dinner. Right. Dinner.


    It had already gone underway long before they arrived. The mess was all along the white linen cloths.


    The set dinner plates and drinks trembled with the rumblings of first blood. Floyd pointed his fork at Aenea, Salome had asked Jezebel to relax, and Turnus sat, feet up, with a glass of wine in his hand.


    The cold food tasted strange in his mouth. Apollo chewed, quietly. He was parceling the different ingredients, what seemed like steak au poivre with a side of roasted potatoes and broccoli. He was separating garlic slices, parsley, all rather unsuccessfully. The sauce was split, lacked gloss and looked like puss all across the meat. Looking to his rear, to Dion''s and Aenea''s plate, he realized it was his alone that was in ruin.


    He turned. He spotted Junior staring at him, with glad curiosity. He put his head down and smiled, stained teeth flashing for a moment.


    "He eats like me," He said. Salome rubbed his head.


    "He''s funny like me." He slapped his hands together. "He''s like me, like us. You said he wasn''t though? You said...you said..."


    "Shh," Salome rubbed his scalp.


    Apollo put his hand on his right leg and pushed it along, to cross with his left. He felt a bruised bone and winced.


    "Ahem," Salome sniffed. She stuffed a slice of steak in her mouth.


    "We''ve been thinking about where to bury your father," She cut a piece off her plate, it screeched as the knife hit porcelain. "We were thinking of building a small park behind the casino. Something pleasant, perhaps a garden that will connect to the left and right wings we plan to expand on."


    "I didn''t know two wings were even in the works. Let alone a garden. Or park, or whatever." She drank wine.


    "We believe this is what Thomas would have wanted, expansion."


    She chewed, with wide strokes, like the predator maw on a knob of bone and marrow.


    "Well, who cares what he wants? He''s dead now. And if he wanted honor in death, he should have given it in life." She said. "He won''t be buried here. He''ll be buried in his old house. With a little oak tree planted on him to weight the coffin down."


    "And why''s that? Because you say so?"


    "Because he deserves to go back to where he came from, in an old shabby shack, poor and lonely in the desert." She said. "Away from everyone else. A nameless grave."


    "You mean to dishonor your father? Are you insane?"


    "I mean to honor my mother''s wishes," She drank the whole glass and got another. "Which may or may not have been to dishonor father."


    "And who cares about you or your mother?" Floyd pointed his dinner knife at her. "You''re a bastard, and I don''t care for your revenge, girl. So that''s two marks against you, my respect and patience."


    "That''s the only reason I''m here. The only reason I came to meet with father when he called on me." She said. "To talk about the mother he left alone, to get an answer why. But he''s dead now, so all I can have is a little peace, and nothing would make me happier than to bury him in a nameless grave."This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    "I like how she thinks!" Turnus toasted, though no one tapped his glass. Jezebel sat idle, Floyd had his hand on her thigh. Luanne rocked her baby. Perhaps she was trying to comfort them all, for Apollo noticed, as his face dragged wide across the table, the disgruntled looks on all their faces. He came around finally, to Dion, who nodded his head.


    "He will not die a tramp, buried in obscurity," Salome said.


    "Did he make any arrangements when he was alive?" Turnus asked. Salome made an audible growl, hoarse and dry like the desert itself. "No? Then it''s up to us then, right? And I agree with Aenea. Let father rest lonely, let him disappear. It suits him fine."


    "Be quiet, Turnus," Salome said.


    "Well, shi-e-t. The old bitch finally got a mouth? Now I know why the old man slapped you around. You can get loud, can''t you?"


    Apollo turned to Floyd, to spectate his reaction, how he squeezed on Jezebel''s leg and used it to stand. The fury in his eyes, the redness in his face, the way he turned and got closer to his mother. Junior began to mope. They all passed him a glance, a cautionary one, a frightened one.


    Aenea stood, and it seemed like one by one they were all coming awake. The food jiggled and vibrated, Apollo picked up his glass of wine. Every other goblet fell, stems shattered across the table.


    The wide table, nearly the width of their (old) room, was on the verge of collapse as each dinner guest came around to shake it and push it and pull it to the rhythm of their emotional strings, the music of rage and growing hostility. Aenea had both hands against the table top.


    Apollo would have stood. If he could. He pushed his chair back, grabbed his plate and dissected it again, with subdued chewing, with careful observations as he looked at everyone''s faces.


    "I have seen this family die nearly once. I will not let it happen again."


    "You''re not our mother," Aenea said.


    "I am the surrogate matriarch. I am whatever I say I am." She said. "Your childish angst means nothing to me."


    "You never knew the man he was," Aenea said. "You''re a beaten wife with Stockholm syndrome. Open your eyes, Thomas was terrible."


    "How terrible must he be that you hold this much against him even after death? Don''t you have any compassion? Let him rest." Luanne added. The baby, Junior, both cried in synchronized distress.


    "Oh, come on," Turnus said. "Just let her have it. What''s the big deal? It''s not like you liked him any more than us,"


    He had a bottle in his hand (was it a magnetic force at will? For he seemed to attract alcohol).


    "I loved him."


    "No, you admired him. But admiration isn''t love, sweetheart." Turnus smiled. "From what Luanne told me, is that you couldn''t love him, right? Not in the way you wished. That really cuts deep into your delusion nuclear family image, doesn''t it?"


    Salome turned to Luanne, to the first-born daughter of her own womb, who had her grandson to her chest. Her mouth was cracked open into the shape of a small O. Her glare bordered tears. No spoken words were made between the two. No grunts, no sounds. Salome turned away almost immediately, dismissively like a commanding officer reading the letter, giving the dishonorable discharge.


    "Turnus," Floyd stepped forward. Apollo felt an urge at once to leave, to take Aenea and Dion out, away from them. He stood. Stopped. Apollo felt his legs ache, his back burn as he leaned closer.


    Jesus, couldn''t they save the brawl for later. Fuck.


    He tried to stand himself but fell back on his seat. He turned to face Dion, who with pursed lips was practicing deep breathing, clenching at his own thighs as if a strong wind was threatening to rip them off.


    "What the fuck is this, roll call? Yes, my name is Turnus," He chugged. "Turnus Wolfe. What do you want, boy?"


    He walked towards Turnus, knocking over a chair. Turnus turned to Apollo, smiling.


    I can''t help you like this, retard.


    His legs failed him once again.


    "You''re looking tight, aren''t cha?" Turnus broke the bottle against the table. "All of this for a fucking corpse."


    "You know what this is for." Floyd raised his sleeves.


    "Yeah, but do they? Do you want to let them in? I thought we had a nice little secret going on, like a fraternity. Really made us feel close, didn''t it?"


    They were near each other, feet away. Turnus held the broken bottle, Salome was tending to the boy, Aenea was walking forward (to split them up? To eat the corpse?). It was hard to tell what she was, dove or vulture.


    Again, he looked and again, felt more hopeless. Dion was quaking quietly, as was the infant and the man-child Junior. Jezebel was cheering. Luanne''s eyes drifted left and right, hostility and paranoia across her face.


    Does everyone have Parkinson''s here? What the fuck.


    Apollo wished to write their faces down, to write the sour taste in his mouth he got when he looked at them as if his synesthesia was a kind of living soothsayer.


    He felt his knees pop as he stood. He flinched and inched closer to the group. He was about to get hold of Aenea, to pull her back.


    But the doors opened, and all their faces turned to face them. All but Dion''s and Apollo, who were last in the rotation.


    And beyond the doors, Apollo could hear it, the light tapping of a stick, of rolling thunder.

 offtb. 5

    The car broke down at the worst time. Only a quarter mile away from the gas station, whose light was barely visible. He pressed down on the petal. It rumbled. He turned it. The pole? Where did it come from? Sputtered smog shot from the exhaust wrapped around the curvature of the ruined bumper. The tessellated car hood teetered, crumpled to the side of the car. The pole, interred through the front, like an exit wound. It hung at an angle, slanted.


    He had driven hours, perhaps, minutes (time is a fickle increment in the rush of things) to a small town nearing the casino El Rey. He dragged his body out of the car. Using his left hand hurt him, so he put it near his hips and let it dangle in bloody ruin, with bone protruding and tapping against his belt every so often. He could not even wince, could not also focus on his pain. His legs trembled as he stood, to the north, El Rey Casino, to the south, Las Vegas. Both with that halo of light about them. And strangely enough, there was something holy about Las Vegas, the gamblers paradise.


    But most things are holy when death rears its head.


    In front of him, a small little abode. To his rear, cars zoomed by every so often, not even so much as pausing to look at the wreckage. He looked behind himself, his eyes wide. He limped to the street, to the gasoline station. A windshield wiper drifted back and forth behind, against the shattered glass of his front windshield. He felt a shard drive up his big toe. He stumbled, found his way, and limped again.


    He ran instead toward the little city, which was nothing more than a collection of truck stops and poor-handled motels. There was a bar hidden somewhere that took upon itself the name of this half-way spot, The Lindenburg. As he approached, the first thing to strike him was the pervasive smell of urine and alcohol, of which he could not distinguish between fresh and old.


    The neon lights came second to his senses. It looked like the mapped electro-neuron brain of a patient. With electricity shooting at every which way, with all thought sporadic and unfocused. So it was. So he was.


    He searched his pockets and pinched his cellphone out (he had three broken fingers in his right hand). The din screen flashed, then disappeared.


    He cursed. Coughed.


    He tasted blood in his mouth, a tooth dislodged. He felt too, the falling blood from his forehead and the gash growing. His bruises burned all along his abdomen and running felt like a rusty nail shoved down his heels.


    He went to the gas station first.


    "Hello, sir?" he met a man behind bulletproof glass whose dead eyes had a kind of reflective quality to them. They were vast and dark, and he saw himself in them, muddied in black.


    ¡°Shit, kid. Are you alright?¡± The bald man said. His voice had no distinct quality of danger or concern, though he did act speedily. ¡°Hold on. I¡¯ll call someone.¡±


    He dialed a corded phone stuck to the side of the wall. It gave a hostile no-signal beep. Like tapping. Like tapping.


    He tried his cell phone. But upon flashing the screen, it too seemed to die.


    Shit, kid, you look like hell. Hold on. I¡¯ll go run and get some help.¡± He opened the back door and ran to the alley, screaming for help. Then his voice was heard no more. Snuffed, disappearing into the darkness.


    And he heard the tap of a cane once more. Against the hard asphalt of the cold-struck night, a tinge, an abrasive tune. A tap. It stopped. Santana turned his head. And as he went to look at the direction of the first few sounds, it returned, behind him now, where the old man had run to. Moving, now. Closer, now. Tap tap tap.


    He limped away, opposite the old man, towards the little streets. Crossing and wandering aimless and desperate, his eyes wide and the sweat dripping like grease off his face. He couldn¡¯t but feel burned. His foot snagged onto something. A little Patriots-themed blanket, a bum was sleeping along the edge of the street. Many were, their feet dangling into the gutters as if in cliffside leisure. He didn¡¯t bother asking them for help. What would do against him, with their broken beer bottles and their drunk stupors?


    He couldn¡¯t even imagine a fight.


    Michael was the fighter.


    His eyes swelled. Sadness caught him before Ritcher did.


    Michael was the fighter.


    He repeated, in a monotonous sullen tone inside his head. Michael was a lot of things to him in life. And perhaps now that he was dead, he was even more things than Santana realized. He sighed. The tears and the sweat mixing well. They both tasted salty, and the burden of them made him slant against a paint-chipped wall of a motel six.


    The air conditioners blasted exhaust from above. The water from them flowed down from emergency ladders onto Santana''s back. He felt it crawl underneath his clothes like small creatures. Each incremental inch of water-drag, invoking that feeling of bug-crawl. A centipede, finding its way into his body, going in and out with reckless abandon. He scratched himself. He shivered.


    He wiped his face of tears and turned to a sound, four bums were groaning and one vomited onto the floor next to a rusted green, dumpster.


    "Do you know where I can find the police station?" His voice broke every so often.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    The bum fell face first into his vomit. Two others ground and went to sleep atop cardboard and weathered blankets. One came along to urinate into a trash-can fire and fill the air with the ammonia-scented smoke.


    He limped towards the vacancy symbols. Though there were no employees to offer him a room. They were all gone, gone from their little glass rooms or their small houses just outside the aforementioned apartments


    He bumped into a crack and felt the pain of his ruined foot all along his thighs, up to his hip and into his abdomen. He had to rest against a wall. The streets had been getting smaller, closing in on him. He walked along one such claustrophobic enclosure. It must have been only two shoulders wide, a stream of dirty gutter water ran center. He looked up for stars, perhaps to navigate himself like the ancient mariners.


    Nothing. Cloudy. And what little slivers of space were there were strangled by the light of the casino El Rey until it all was nothing more than blackness. Purebred darkness.


    He heard water splashing behind him. He turned.


    There were no bums, not this far deep.


    "Who''s there?" He said to that darkness.


    "Who''s there!" He screamed.


    He limped along, both hands pressed against the walls, propelling him forward.


    His eyes fretted between looking forward and back. He scanned for safety, found none.


    The alley exited into the wider street and to creeping overhead shadow of skinny apartment complexes with their crows perched above. The light posts buzzed. The gutter oil and grime receded into the sewers, and for a moment, as he stared at down current of grime, he thought about it; to open the manhole and to just allow himself to fall. That would have been the fastest way to safety, the fastest escape. He limped to the manhole and looked at his hand to remind himself which fingers worked. He stuck his index and ring finger inside a crack in the manhole but could not lift it, not with his muscles or his stamina. The manhole went one inch off the floor and crushed a finger. He screamed but that was instinct, reaction. He was not, if you questioned him, actually surprised. Or really, concerned at all, his hand was ruined already. He suckled on the swelled finger and heard it and though it was language, it felt like a shock. Right through his brain.


    ¡°Come, little thief.¡± The voice said. ¡°Join me in ceremony. Admit to it.¡±


    His eyes almost rolled up towards his skull. He ran (limped) back onto the street. Looking at windows. Looking at the light. Fragmented, small, coming through rustling curtains. He waved. He jumped. He hissed.


    "Come on!" He yelled at the moving curtains. "Anyone here? Help. Help, please!"


    The motels did not answer. The shops did not respond. The people did not answer. They all turned off their lights. Only automation remained alive, vending machines and signs that blinked gasoline prices. He was a tumbleweed, thrown and thrashed about without concern, from wind to wind, not of volition (for what choice was there? He had to run away from the voice. From the tap tap tap), but out of fear.


    He looked for an entry ramp or indeed any sound at all. There was none. In desperation, he found the nearest car and tried to break the glass with his elbow. It was his career up until now, but at this moment, he felt like a novice. And his elbow was too weak and too pained and too broken to shatter glass. He was worse than glass, simply dust, blown out from the desert. Fractured and weak. Dust.


    Tap tap tap.


    He shot for the center of the street. A car passed by with flashing lights, he waved his hands. The car zoomed by.


    ¡°Fuck you.¡± He cried, trying to hold tears back with a yell.


    The high walls looked down at him. The streets desolate, like dried arroyos. The sound of cars disappeared in the distance. He had strayed too far from the freeway.


    Where am I then?


    He turned around a corner and stopped. He fell on his ass. The phone in his back pocket popped and shattered. He found a dripping pipe to lift himself off of. He turned. Though shouldn¡¯t, for death in surprise would have been better, for at a distance, beyond the neon lights and half-working night posts, he could see the figure, tall and gloomy. He could see the shadows across his face and the small, few strands of slicked hair and the apathetic, dark eyes. He could see the scarred mouth, from nose to chin. He could see death.


    He ran, at last, as if pain was as much an accessory as his clothes or his shoes.


    He ran with one foot dragging the others, pushing himself off and silver-cans. He shouted and threw objects at windows. An audience, any audience, was better than death.


    No one answered, wind whistled through the holes of broken glass.


    ¡°Why are you running, little thief?¡± The voice said, almost tenderly. ¡°No, no. Not that way, left. Come left, little thief.¡±


    He took out his compass (a brilliant idea!) and set it in front of him. He watched it, monitored it and went opposite where it pointed. First north. No! South. West? It moved along, he moved along. He went alley to alley eying the little compass, letting it fall where it fell, letting fate lead where it lead.


    And at last, he came to, the idiot, having trusted the machine, the arcana over instinct.


    He found himself stuck in an alley. A smooth, graffiti-riddled brick wall in front of him. The compass twirled in circles. It went rapid moving into full loops. He could not hear much but must have known he was coming. He looked to his rear, a few doors leading into the back of stores. One had a simple lock, a butcher shop. This one.


    He took out two rusted lock picks from his pocket (part of a set he always carried). He went over to the doorknob and worked it and felt his hand fiddle and must have dropped his tools ten times. His eyes glanced from door to street, his legs shook. He hoped the alarm would go off.


    The doorknob popped. A beeping noise went off. He sighed and opened.


    The doorway was dark, and his eyes were calm and easy. He took a step.


    Both of them did.


    And Richter¡¯s face appeared from that darkness, a bandage over his eyes.


    "No!" Santana screamed. The arms wrapped around his body. "No! No! No!"


    ¡°Little thief, why are you surprised? Quid pro quo.¡± He felt his arms break and crack from the grasp. Was he being thrown? Dragged? Crushed? Strangled? ¡°A secret of mine for a secret of yours, what is inside your skull?¡±


    He shouted, for as long as he could.


    The door closed and nothing remained. The sound of screaming replaced, in that slow and methodical way, with sounds of bone-crushing, with sounds of gargling, with sounds of flesh-slopping along the floor.


    And Richter whispered, the sound low and brief, small enough only to fit through the keyhole. Richter whispered:


    "Don''t you worry," He said. "Daylight won''t find us. So don''t you don''t you worry, it''s fine to sleep here."


    ?


    The door opened once more. Richter''s walking cane went ahead of him, tapping tapping tapping along the floor.


    He fitted his gloves on his wet hands and approached the voices (for what else do blind men do but follow?). They stopped talking at his approach.


    His hand searched out in that darkness before him, feeling for something solid. He found the table and then the arm of the chair and sat, with his chin against his cane and his back hunched over in the small chair.


    ¡°Have I missed dinner?¡± No one responded. ¡°I apologize. I was lost in prayer.¡±

 offtb. 6

    ¡°Have I spoiled the mood, Salome?¡± Ritcher asked. ¡°You were vigorous only moments ago, why are you so quiet?¡±


    ¡°I¡­¡±She settled into her seat, adjacent to him. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect you to come back. I thought you -¡±


    ¡°Ran?¡± He asked. ¡°From what?¡±


    She opened her mouth but closed it quickly. Every in the room was quiet, even Turnus who resolved an urge to speak by drinking cup after cup of wine until his throat was flooded and his eyes bloodshot in a drunken stupor. They a sheen to them, as he glossed over the guests.


    ¡°What would I run from?¡± He asked. ¡°Certainly not the murderer who killed father, he¡¯s the person I¡¯ve been looking for most. Certainly not from you, for you are no threat. I ran from nothing. I went home, to pray for father¡¯s soul. Lord knows he¡¯ll need it. People like us¡­get harsh treatment from the lord. As you know.¡±


    Apollo stared at her, Salome, who for once was silent and pursed. Richter dragged his arm across the table, looking for instruments. He found a fork and the edge of the plate and worked together a portion to fit in his meal.


    ¡°Is this beef?¡± He asked.


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Good, my lent demands it.¡± He ate. Chewed. A large man with a large throat, with a charcoal-grey suit that could barely contain him. A suit, that as he sat, stretched itself at his shoulder and waist. He rested his cane against the table.


    ¡°We were discussing father,¡± Turnus said. Opposite from Richter, both seated at the ends of the long-width table. Apollo leaned back. He was sweating and dried it off with a napkin as his eyes skidded from corner to corner. And he was not alone, as he observed across all their faces.


    ¡°Oh? It¡¯s good to reminisce.¡± He said. ¡°Memories are loyal, aren¡¯t they?¡±


    ¡°We were talking about where we would have him buried. Salome wants a backyard to stuff him in, Aenea wants him buried at the old home.¡±


    ¡°Burn him,¡± He said. ¡°Spread his ashes into the desert. It would suit him fine, he never liked being in one place after all.¡±


    ¡°Well, you¡¯ve just added another option. I don¡¯t think either party would like that though, Richter.¡±


    ¡°What do I care what the second-rate mother and her family want? Or the bastard.¡± He said. ¡°We¡¯re his first born, we are the people with authority.¡±


    The rumblings of a disgruntled people began on the other side from Apollo. Aenea was oddly cold, silent. She kept her eyes on Richter.


    ¡°You two like making demands in other people¡¯s houses, don¡¯t you?¡± She clenched her chest. Floyd came around with a bottle of pills and laid them out, two red round pills, in front of her. ¡°You have no shame you peasant boy. No shame!¡±


    ¡°Mother¡­¡± Floyd kept trying to put the pills in her hand. She shook too wildly, they slipped between her fingers.


    ¡°What she screaming about, brother?¡± He asked. ¡°Strangers?¡±


    ¡°Father didn¡¯t leave much in his will for us. He didn¡¯t leave a will, to be honest.¡± He said. ¡°The presumption is that the boy, Junior, will be acquiring most of his assets. Which means we¡¯re left with nothing.¡±Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    ¡°Oh.¡± He said.


    ¡°Disappointed?¡± Apollo asked. He stretched out his legs and felt the pain throbbing in his legs.


    ¡°Who are you? I¡¯ve never heard your voice.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m Apollo, here to investigate your father¡¯s murder.¡±


    ¡°And what have you found?¡±


    Apollo¡¯s eyes narrowed. He leaned in closer to the blind man.


    ¡°Nothing substantial. Do you know anything?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a pity, detective,¡± Richter said. ¡°But no, sorry, I don¡¯t know much.¡±


    Richter turned, though he was blind, to face Turnus. As if he knew, by fifth instinct, where his brother was. He raised his head high, his ears twitching to every sound; every scoff, every nervous cough, every bitter laugh or subdued growl. But he was not concerned, not with anything but his brother.


    ¡°Junior will be receiving everything then?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Everything.¡± He said. ¡°But the corpse. Like I said, we¡¯re deciding where to bury him. I was thinking of a vote, maybe we can settle it democratically.¡±


    ¡°This is no democracy.¡± He stood. His food, half-finished on the plate. ¡°You should know that. We had a king, and now he¡¯s dead. Let Junior decide then, where father is buried.¡±


    ¡°He hasn¡¯t risen yet. That¡¯s next week,¡± Turnus said.


    ¡°Is it then? What¡¯s there to argue then?¡± He asked. ¡°We tradition. And what does tradition entail? That the word of the head is the word of law. No filial hierarchy matters before the feet of the throne of the king. So let the next king decide where the old one dies. Junior, where is he?¡±


    ¡°Here,¡± Junior said, rather slow and meek. He had raised his hand, which Jezebel had lowered. Richter turned his head left and right. Junior repeated it, louder this time. Richter locked onto his form, though his eyes (behind the black band covering them) saw past Junior. Eyes that stared off into an imaginary horizon, which felt eerie to Apollo, that kind of forward-looking.


    ¡°You will be able to decide, won¡¯t you Junior?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t answer him,¡± Salome mumbled.


    ¡°I trust you to do best by father, and father alone.¡±


    ¡°O-okay,¡± Junior said, daft and slow and loud.


    ¡°Then this dinner has been good for something at least. I¡¯ll be coming around next week then, for the ascension.¡± He turned to go back through the door he had materialized from.


    ¡°Wait.¡± Apollo walked towards him. ¡°Answer a question.¡±


    ¡°Crude invitations won¡¯t do you any good, detective.¡±


    ¡°How about an accusation then?¡± He asked. ¡°Where were you the day your father left, approximately twenty minutes before he died? There¡¯s no feed on you or any knowledge to your whereabouts.¡±


    There was a triumphant silence amongst Salome and her ilk, who for once, seemed to root for Apollo even if just by process of elimination.


    ¡°I had left early in the morning. I did not plan to go to the meeting, it seemed frivolous.¡±


    ¡°That sounds funny from someone who was so adamant about obeying the king,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Father and I had already exchanged words before the meeting for I had something, more important, to attend. An event father sanctioned for me and one we were going to discuss had he not been murdered. I¡¯m sure you could figure that out, it must have been written by his secretary.¡±


    It was. He had gone through every file in the past month.


    ¡°What was the meeting about?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not at liberty to discuss that,¡± Richter said. ¡°And I never will. Father is dead, after all.¡±


    Apollo stepped forward with his hand out. A jolt of pain shot through his hips that carried itself up his chest and into his neck. His leg limped.


    ¡°Wa -¡±


    ¡°Sorry, detective. I¡¯m busy. We can talk later though if you¡¯d like.¡±


    He tasted it again. Bitterness, ash. He felt dread, a profound sensation like the sudden freeze and expanse of his veins. And he heard it, in his head, that voice that said kill him now. But he could not move. Let alone act, or fight. He stood against the table and watched Richter leave, with his cane out before him, smacking the floor at even intervals.


    ¡°By the way detective,¡± Richter said, half-way through the door. ¡°You should get your legs checked.¡±


    And he was out. The massive behemoth, large as two men, whose shadow seemed to cover the horizon. Whose awful, tapping noise, preceded him.


    [i]Richter Wolfe.


    Salome ate two pills and finished them down with wine. Turnus kept drinking. Dion wrote notes. Aenea tapped against the floor and the other children, stared.


    Apollo looked back. He limped to his seat and sat.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to see him ever again,¡± Apollo said. Dion nodded in agreement.

 Episode 4: "Hit Me."

    ¡°Aw dangit, I lost him.¡± Dion spoke into the receiver on his suit cuffs. He looked up, past the heads of the giant crowd before him, looking east to west for Richter. He was gone, into the crowd, dissolved like a bad drug. And he left no taste, no aura, no shadow. He looked up to the floor above (there were three in total, he was in the middle). Nothing there.


    Down below, even worse.


    The sound of rolling roulette wheel balls diffused amongst the endless chatter of the guests. To them, after all, today was nothing more than another ball party, an excuse to play dress up and play on those superficial things we call network connections.


    Today was to be the celebration of the new owner of the Casino, Thomas Wolfe Jr (Junior, for short). And they all sat in the ballroom, a grand three-story tall room that led to the rest of the casino. It was in some way, a heart with three channels. A heart, beating and dancing with the wild blood of the wild guests. There were tables set up of course, for poker and craps and roulette and blackjack and any game and any bargain worth its weight in money. On these tables, towering stacks of chips that shared and changed hands with as much attitude as a lazy hand flick. It seemed as though people did not care what wealth was lost, it seemed like they were excited just to play.


    Dion sat back, head hunched over onto a stool near the guardrail on the edge of the floor.


    ¡°Well, fuck me, Dion. How the hell is he hard to lose track of? He looks like a god damn quarterback from hell.¡±


    The queries began. Insults, parsed in between questions. Dion zoned out. His eyes closed and he took out the small, corded earpiece. It dangled on his shoulder.


    ¡°Look for Turnus, at least!¡± It screamed, at last. Turnus was below, talking to Salome. That much he knew and that much he kept in his periphery.


    He looked back, to the crowd, in defeat. Richter was lost amongst the sea of anonymous faces.


    Everyone wore masks. They came, small and fitting and exotic with waves of golden thread. The theme, ¡®Modern Renaissance.¡¯ Dion however, had decided to wear his own mask. The Vicar mask. With, in his black suit, made him look a bit like a black crow amongst the herd of peacocks.


    A woman flashed her board of snacks and treats and little martini glasses. Dangled them really, like a pet toy. She walked in front of him and flashed a bit more than just drinks.


    Legs. He looked up. Hips.


    "How''s it going, sweetheart?" She asked.


    Sweetheart. His mouth dried up as he thought of his crippled love in Germany. The very utterance of the word sweetheart made his chest throb and pain. Dion stood, nearly ran past her. He slapped himself and wandered around, looking for the rest of the Wolfe family. A family that was amongst - what must have been three hundred guests in the flower patterned carpet floors.


    His eyes were scattered, his thoughts more so. He felt weak, brittle to temptation and to his own fears. It seemed that, by looking at each glass and each happy couple, seemed to make him want. The wanting of women and of pleasures made him guilty. Guilt made him weak. And so he was stuck in that loop, walking, and standing, and staring and shaming, like a malfunctioning mechanical golem. One unable to watch, one unable to guard, one unable to act.


    He stared west. He should have been staring east. He bumped someone''s shoulder. Glass broke.


    A man, drunk (he smelled drunk at least, like nail polish) came up to him and grabbed his coat.


    ¡°What the fuck are you on about?¡± He burped and pulled Dion left and right. Dion shook both hands but said nothing. He looked (shouldn¡¯t have) at a young woman next to the man. The gaze of which, the drunk became aware of.


    He pushed Dion a foot back.


    ¡°You¡¯re looking at my girl too?¡± He paused, almost vomiting. ¡°You think you¡¯re a hardass, fuckface?¡±


    He readied his fist but found it¡­still. Stuck in perpetual shaking. An inertia of the heart and of the body. The drunk acted on this fear. He slapped Dion across the mask. It made Dion think, as his head turned forcibly, why was even concerned of the stranger''s hand? Why couldn¡¯t he fight? And he went back and forth thinking that, as the man slapped his mask around and as the woman he was with, tugged at him to stop. Dion raised his arm to grab the drunk but found himself¡­still.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    So it went, him getting slapped around. Hurting more in his pride than on his face. Hurt by the shame of the group of people drinking and watching the little scuffle.


    Someone grabbed the drunk by the back of his neck and threw him. He could tell who, by her voice and demeanor. The forward gait, the efficient movement. Aenea¡¯s fingers snapped, guards came around to drag him away and to scare off the group of voyeurs.


    ¡°You can¡¯t shake a drunk off?¡± She said. ¡°I took you for a detective, not a defective. Go do your job.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Dion turned around. Turnus was missing. He hissed. ¡°I get caught up easily.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have any conviction. Do you?¡± She looked him up and down. ¡°Of course not, I can see it in the way you walk and breath. You¡¯re carrying weights on your back. I can¡¯t have that right now, not when the job is this important.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you worry,¡± Dion said. ¡°I won¡¯t hold us back. I can watch people, I can do that much at least.¡±


    She took from a passing server, a small glass of tequila and drunk it quietly.


    ¡°You¡¯re a little touched in your head, aren¡¯t you?¡± She banged the glass by the guardrail. ¡°You and your partner both. I caught him arguing with himself yesterday. Nearly screaming. Hysterics. I don¡¯t know how either of you function in society.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear this.¡± He mumbled, hoping it¡¯d die within the crowd.


    ¡°What was that?¡± She asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear this from a corpse obsessed witch.¡±


    ¡°Me? Corpse obsessed? Why I don¡¯t care what happens to that damn bag of flesh. Whether the worms eat it or the sun rots it, or if the sand renders it to dust.¡± She took another glass and another drink. ¡°My mother was obsessed. But I don¡¯t need to answer to you. That¡¯s not my job, my job is to make sure I¡¯m ready when you give me a proper accusation.¡±


    ¡°Really? I thought your job is to withhold information and to nearly get us killed.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not my fault you can¡¯t handle yourselves.¡±


    ¡°Apollo almost died.¡± He added.


    ¡°Maybe you should have helped him then.¡± There was a strange silence between the two of them as if every sound of the crowd before him had been rendered null and all there was was movement. Movement without sound, as both looked at each other. Both, masked. ¡°But ss that my fault too?¡± She added.


    He felt his hand clench again, and his nails dig deep. A cold sweat formed around his brow that dripped to the side of his head, outside the ends of his mask.


    ¡°I thought this mission wasn¡¯t supposed to get that violent.¡± He said. ¡°You could have warned us. We would have been prepared.¡±


    ¡°I know just as much about this family as you do, which is to say I know it less now than I did before.¡± She said. ¡°I¡¯ve got curiosity and questions, and I don¡¯t like that. Before this whole mess, they were just extended strangers. But now? Now I¡¯ve got to know. Because they¡¯re dangerous and knowing knowledge. Information. That stuff will save you.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯ve made strides to gain information, haven¡¯t you? All I see you do all day is walk around the casino floor bossing people around, entertaining yourself.¡± He clenched the guardrail. ¡°We¡¯re doing the heavy lifting. You could lend us a hand, you know.¡±


    ¡°If I need to help you, what was the point in ever hiring you two idiots?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Why are you chasing after a body?¡±


    She gulped another shot of courage. Her breath smelled of it entirely now, her eyes were glossy and cheeks, rosy.


    ¡°I¡¯m doing a fool''s errand.¡± She said. ¡°My mother¡¯s will, a blood oath perhaps. Something that means more than the material garbage my half-siblings are chasing after. Something that means more than this damn casino. I don¡¯t need anything else besides the corpse, I¡¯ve made due by myself. I don¡¯t need anything but closure from both of them¡­¡± Her voice wandered. Drifted into a memory, lost in a lost time. Then it returned, coming back from that tunnel, with great furor. ¡°I need to settle something with my parents. That¡¯s as much as I¡¯m inclined to tell you. And that should be more than enough that you need to do your fucking job-¡±


    The lights went out. The crowd spoke in that frightened here-say tone. Rumors, gossip.


    The pillars that held every floor shook. The ground next. People tripped onto the floor, flat and wide-spread. The screaming was louder.


    And each shake was followed by subsequent silence and fear and distressed murmurings and it shook again and no one spoke before the lights returned with flickering hope.


    Dion fumbled for his earpiece. Aenea was holding herself by the guardrail, kneeling on the floor. He pressed down on his earpiece. It gave off static.


    He ran up the stairs and went through twin, red doors.


    There was sound. A midrange voice, tired and shaking. Shaking? From Apollo?


    ¡°Come to Salome¡¯s bedroom.¡± He said. ¡°And you have to trust me, I didn¡¯t do it.¡±


    He said it, Apollo. And Dion ran to that room, his heart beating. He zoomed past the stairs, reaching for the place where a small crowd collected behind a closed door. He pushed them aside and walked in, closing the doors behind him.


    His eyes widened, and he took off his mask, the streaks of blood ran past him and in between his legs, like parted rivers.


    Dion turned. But the image was ingrained. He looked back, nervously, to Apollo who knelt over the corpse.


    The other family members approached (their voices were unique, for they were both angry and nervous and as they approached, cautioned too by the silence both Vicars emanated from behind the closed doors).


    And Apollo turned, saying, looking with tired eyes (for he wore no mask to hide behind), pleading; ¡°You¡¯ve got to believe me. I found him like this.¡±


    Junior¡¯s body sat against the bed. His guts torn out of a wound on his belly. His head, purple and bleeding. His life, long since dead. For any moment, second or hour or year, after the final heartbeat was an eternities worth to the dead.


    And Dion looking back, as the doors opened and as the gasps of the Wolfe¡¯s filled the room, Dion saying; ¡°What happened?¡± Screaming, with the rest of the Wolfe¡¯s. ¡°What the hell happened?¡±

 Hit me. 2

    They dressed him like a mannequin, a fashion piece to be left in the front of a window sill, to be gawked over by the passer biers. To be envied. They put his pants on first, then his undershirt, then his coat and the green sash that went over it. A thin, braided green sash, decorated with small pins of emerald and diamond. It went shoulder to waist and it inhibited his movement. But Junior did not care. He was watching television, going through the channels with a drooling mouth.


    Golf. Anime. Film noir. News. A cycle, on and on, as the dressers powdered his face and fixed it with a bright red blushing agent.


    He looked like a doll. A thirty year old boy, sitting in a pow-wow position, with the dressers around him, on his bed watching television.


    It was his big day. He was to inherit the company, whatever that meant. He was to bear the mark of the beast, whatever that meant (Mammon never said it like they said it). He took his big spoon and took a giant scoop of cereal to stuff into his shaved mouth.


    Stuffed animals were set all around him, in a ring on his bed. Some were set against each other, to give the impression that the toys were speaking to one on another. Some were laid on their back, staring with black beads into the ceiling. More toys were to his rear, for this was his room after all. A train track that moved without rest across the roller coaster of set pieces; caves and forests and lakes, all part of the set.


    He was about to stop at a channel, a program on the Discovery channel, one of sharks. He heard his mother, her clacking rather. The doors burst open. She allowed herself in and with a snap, dismissed everyone but Junior, who sat, staring.


    ¡°Junior.¡± She said. ¡°Junior! Oh, Junior,¡±


    She walked over and took the controller from his hand. She threw it, somewhere, against a bear. She took the spoon, then the bowl, and set it to the rear.


    Salome sat by his bedside now, with his hands in her hands. She had a strong grip.


    ¡°Today is your big day, Junior. You know that, right?¡± She rubbed him. ¡°You¡¯re going to be a good boy today, right Junior?¡±


    He waved up and down, eyes shifting between her and the television set. She must have noticed, because she looked at him disgusted-like. With two fingers she placed upon his chin, she closed his mouth and forced her face to gaze upon her. Her nails felt sharp against his chin, like a razor blade. He saw clearly, what kind of woman Salome was: the wide sun hate with the black ribbon, the small veil surrounding the circumference of the hat that covered her pallid skin. She had a suit on with a puffed shirt, a long skirt too nearly fell to her ankles.


    ¡°Junior, I need you to listen to mommy, okay?¡± She asked. His mouth opened again like a malfunctioning toy. He felt the drool down to his shirt and she took out a napkin to fix it. The face she had on her made him want to cry. A gross-looking, desperate, sad face.


    Why mommy mad.


    ¡°Junior,¡± She said. ¡°Please, for daddy, and for me please do this right.¡±


    ¡°O-okay.¡± He shook his head, child-like, with devout excitement.


    ¡°Today is the big day, and I need to know that you know what you¡¯re doing.¡± She said. ¡°Do you remember what mommy taught you, yes sweetheart?¡±


    ¡°Drink from the fountain.¡± He smiled and flashed his bucked teeth. The topmost row more pronounced than the lower, which explained his off-set chin (that looked like a chili pepper, by his own admission). Though it looked more like a light bulb, especially with his oversized skull and his Neanderthal-like brow.


    ¡°Drink the water, like a juice box.¡± He repeated, waving his hands and searching for an action figure to fit in them. She beat him to it and grabbed a little Batman figurine that she clasped in her hand like a monster. Squeezing, pulling, disjointing. The things she did made him want to cry and he glared at her.


    Let go.


    ¡°There¡¯s more Junior, what are the words. Tell me them, now.¡± She said, ¡°You can play when you¡¯re done.¡±


    ¡°The words.¡± He repeated. His mouth moved, and his lips released that audible, discomforted noise, like a pained groan. He closed his eyes in thought, his tattoo wrapped around his wrist glowing from the concentration. Salome grabbed him. Fast, clenching his wrist. She was sweating, nervous. He opened his eyes to see his mother anxious. The fear she showed made him want to cry. His lips quivered.


    ¡°They¡¯re just words, okay?¡± She rubbed his head and hugged him, perhaps seeing his emotional explosion incoming. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, they¡¯re just words. Words don¡¯t hurt. They don¡¯t kill. Okay?¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡± He rocked back in forth, his face on her bosom. ¡°Okay.¡±If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°You¡¯re a big boy aren¡¯t you? What is a big boy like you going to do at the fountain?¡± Clutching him, holding him close.


    ¡°Mammoth¡­¡±He mumbled. His tongue was caught in the m¡¯s and stumbling down the stairway of phonetics, tripping and hitting every step along the way. ¡°M-m-m-m. Ma-mamama.¡±


    ¡°Mammon.¡± She said. ¡°Good boy.¡±


    ¡°I need to say thank you to Mammon. Thank you, Mammon.¡± He waved his hands to gesture a Hello, though there was no one here but the mother. He waved anyway, to the corner of the room. ¡°Thank you, Mammon. Thank you!¡±


    His mother looked to see, empty. She laughed a bit.


    ¡°That¡¯s right, Mammon.¡± She said. ¡°It¡¯s important you do that. You don¡¯t have to say it loud, as long as you mean it and He can hear it.¡±


    ¡°Mammon.¡± He repeated. Looking emptily into the corner of the room, an inconspicuous space whose only furniture of note was a small cupboard and a vase of water.


    He clapped his hands in glee, in reverie, as he shouted incomprehensible inanities.


    ¡°Mammon.¡± He parsed in between. ¡°Mammon.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good, that¡¯s good.¡± She said.


    He looked away from the corner and back to her. His joy somewhat disappearing and the cold growing air receding back. It felt as if the grip of cool weather had loosened, had retreated underneath the door frame and ran far away.


    Once again, they heard the people talking, laughing and screaming. The thick layers of walls could not contain them, not so much as hide them.


    ¡°Is the tall man going to be there?¡± He asked. ¡°At the party.¡±


    ¡°Tall man-? What?¡± She turned her head. ¡°The animals?¡±


    He shook his head up and down.


    ¡°The funny walking person.¡±


    ¡°Apollo? Don¡¯t worry about him or his little tramp friend, they won¡¯t be anywhere near you. I made sure of that. They''re banned from the recession, they¡¯re only allowed into the ball and outside the ball.¡±


    ¡°So he¡¯s not going to be there?¡± His face drooped. ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°Because he¡¯s part of that savage order, Junior.¡± She said. ¡°Bad men like him kill good people like us. It¡¯s their job.¡±


    ¡°Kill me?¡±


    ¡°Kill you, yes.¡± She gestured up and down.


    ¡°But he seems nice.¡± He picked up a toy to hold in his lap. His massive, hairy arms, his pronounced skull, his hands nimbly working at the toy. It was a soldier and he, an ape. Unrefined, unrestrained, unthinking. An ape trying to learn of civilization, a primal being whose affluence and antenna aligned to higher beings.


    ¡°Apollo''s like me.¡± He said.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°He sees what I see. I see what he sees. It''s easy, mama.¡± He put the toy down. ¡°I want to be his friend. He''s not bad. Not bad at all.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t need you to think or want anything, Junior.¡± She caressed his cheeks. They felt soft, but as she moved, he could feel her pluck and scratch against his fuzzy chin. He had not been shaved well.


    ¡°Mama is here, Floyd and Jezzy and Luanne too. We¡¯re all the friends you need.¡± She rubbed him. He jerked his face away.


    ¡°You don¡¯t see what we see.¡± He said. ¡°You can¡¯t. You¡¯re in the prison box. We¡¯re not though, we get to play.¡±


    ¡°Stop saying we. Stop talking about that idiot. He¡¯s a stranger. You only met him once. We¡¯ve known you all your life, so don¡¯t you act distant young man.¡±


    He kept his face away from hers, his eyes shifting between her and the toys and the bed. She tried getting closer. All he could see was her sagging clothes, like a black drape trying to shield his eyes, trying to suffocate him. He moved. Crawled down his bed and hid behind the pillows.


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to be a good boy?¡± She asked.


    He raised a pillow to his mouth.


    ¡°I want to see him again.¡± He said, quietly. Just loud enough to be parsed through the background noise of festivities.


    ¡°I told you to stop talking about him!¡± Her finger, raised, she shook it at him. Her face flushed red. He remained quiet, silent. She screamed some more at him, he quieted. Junior, after all, was a strange boy. Capable of untamed rage and long-lasting catatonic dismissal. He lived these two modes, which ought to have been opposites, but he lived them in the constant day to day, as if time itself was an irrelevance to his demanding existence.


    So it went then, his eyes narrowed towards his mother before he shifted them entirely to the television. Then, the corner again. Of which, at the turn of his head, a sudden chill sprung back up on all their backs. The boy (man), the mother, and the workers.


    ¡°Junior! Look at me.¡± She screamed. He did not. ¡°Junior! You better be ready in an hour, young man!¡±


    He stayed quiet. The workers came, curious, opening the doors to peep.


    ¡°Don¡¯t disturb him.¡± She nearly threw the doors as she walked out, with her pompous stride. ¡°I¡¯ll be back to pick him up in an hour. Just make sure he doesn¡¯t stain his clothes. I want him clean and prim.¡±


    They looked at her, eyes wide open. She leaned in on them, her chapped mouth wide in a frown.


    ¡°You¡¯re dismissed.¡± She waved at them. ¡°Go on.¡±


    They all scattered. Junior did not bother looking at Salome or her workers. He did not move much of anything, for he knew all and saw all and spoke all and need waste his time in the headache of work or petty disgrace of desperation. Junior did not move, for he need not run for a destiny that waited for him.


    For Junior knew what notch on the circle he occupied, and knew with calm, collected uncaring. And Junior sat, with his bowl of cereal and his toys and his television set, a screen of static that reflected in his wide, brown eyes.


    He sat there. As he had before. As he would, in the infinity to come.


    He sat, not waiting. For waiting and time and all those things meant nothing to his strange and touched brain.


    And one hour, or minute, or second (what mattered of time?), when the most of the workers were on their quick break and when only few remained, a young man and woman cleaning after the room, he heard the doors open.


    Mama lied. She came early. Mama came early. His eyes did not even move to meet him. I know what Mama told me and I know what Mammoth told me and mammoth rhimes with mammon.


    The foot steps approached. The two workers screamed, a millisecond, before they were hushed.


    Mama isn¡¯t here for me. But mammon sure is. And Mammon rhymes with mama. And Mammon is Mama.


    The figure stood in front of him. His breathing, tempered and quiet. But Junior did not turn to look or was even ever worried. His face was stubborn, past the static on the television, to the corner of the room. He felt the cold on his neck and he smiled.


    Mama came to pick me up. And I''m dressed up. And Mama goes with Mammon and and and m m m m ma ma ma ma


    One blow. A thump. A body, dropped. A seizure that would not stop. Junior''s tongue, stuck in his throat, speaking a word that would never, could never be said.

 Hit me. 3

    ¡°You¡¯re drunk already,¡± Dorothy said. She looked uncomfortable in her wear, a bit bony and free underneath the green-colored dress. But Turnus had told her to wear it, with¡­aggressive persuasion. She was just glad that the dress was long enough to hide the bruises on her legs.


    ¡°I¡¯m not drunk.¡± He swigged a bottle down. ¡°But I¡¯m getting there.¡±


    He poured his drink down his gullet and then into another man¡¯s martini glass, who, at the sight, screamed for security. Of course, security did not come, not in the way the man wanted. The black gloved, dove-masked security took one hard look at Turnus and realizing the face, eased their advances. They tried then persuade him, with a gentle hand, tried to rear him away. And in the spirit of gladness, he smiled at them, the guards and the man annoyed at his overfilled martini glass.


    ¡°Strange, ain''t it? I¡¯ve never seen a man so mad at getting a drink,¡± He said. ¡°But if that¡¯s your persuasion, I guess I¡¯ll leave.¡±


    He plucked the glass from the man¡¯s hand and drank it too, before throwing it down to the floor below.


    ¡°Mazel Tov.¡± He said.


    Dorothy hid her face (she had no mask) and apologized quietly.


    Upon hearing her voice, the manly, hoarse voice, the man and the guards and really everyone around her looked at her, with disgust and suspicion. Disgust, of which, did not surprise or even hurt her. She¡¯d been used to it already. And gentle, meek as she was, she apologized anyway.


    ¡°We should have brought masks. At least I¡¯d be able to hide.¡± She said.


    ¡°What¡¯s there to hide babe?¡± He turned to her and looked her up and down, then with a grin and a swig, brushed away the black bangs covering her eyes. ¡°Let ¡®em get an eye full. Only cowards hide from their nature and I ain¡¯t yellow, babe.¡±


    ¡°I know how you feel, but the party invitation said-¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be so eager to appease others,¡± He said. ¡°That¡¯s always been your problem.¡±


    And she wanted to call him a hypocrite, for beating her in his too-drunk-to-remember states, but she was afraid to.


    ¡°But this is your brother¡¯s big day-¡± She said.


    ¡°Step-brother. And the only blood we share is putrid and rotten,¡± Turnus stopped again, at an intersection between two sets of stairs, one going up and one going down. ¡°But I don¡¯t hate him. Not any more than I hate Jezebel or Floyd or Luanne. Or the stars or whatever hand plucked me from non-existence to this...life. I¡¯ve had a week to come to terms with Junior and I''ll have a lifetime to settle with his fate. And do you know what? I¡¯ve found some humor in it all." He giggled. "It''s funny, ain''t it? A retard owning a company. Dad would have hated this.¡±


    She did not answer. For either supporting or mocking him would have invited the backlash. Or, backhand, to be more specific. The rapt fury, the angst of a boy. Impotent rage, of which, he could only show to her (and only would show to her) and in that way made her feel special. To be the sole recipient of the beatings Turnus inflicted upon her, made her unique and uniqueness made her feel importance, which she was sad to say, made her happy in a way.


    At least she convinced herself that.


    ¡°Still, a mask would have been pretty on me.¡± She said, falling into line. Getting closer to him, tugging his arm. Not for herself, but for his sake.


    ¡°We¡¯re all wearing masks, honey.¡± He shoved her some, only enough to get her away, and drew her back in like a fickle fish line. In out, in out. ¡°Take a look at every one of these sons of bitches. If I took a saw and ripped their skulls right open, if I probed them like a damn torturer or scientist, what would I learn? What imaginations, dark and evil, run current to current through the rivers of their souls? Oh, they¡¯ll smile with drinks in their hands, but it¡¯s all pretend. A superficial get up, the dress they have to wear to get through the play, the stage, the act and -¡± He paused. ¡°The finale.¡±


    His eyes looked across to the horizon of the casino floor, past the blaring noises of slot machines ringing and shining with the mascot clown ¡®El Gallo¡¯ at the tops of the square coin-spitters. Past the blurry lights of blue and yellow chandeliers. Past the large central fountain that grew out three floors high; a woman holding an urn of clear blue water dripping down to the pond.


    He looked past the waters, and the scantily dressed women swimming in the make-shift pool at the feet of the statue. He looked past the people, really. Past everything, eyes glowing in his drunkenness.


    ¡°They¡¯re all worried, and they don¡¯t even know the half of it.¡± He said, smiling.


    He drunk. The hot intensity of the spirit went down his throat like acid.


    ¡°They¡¯re worried about things that don¡¯t matter much to anyone but themselves,¡± He continued. ¡°Who they¡¯ll fuck. Who they won¡¯t. Who they¡¯ll network with. Who they¡¯ll spite. Irrelevant, all of it, worthless. This societal superficiality, the mockery and the judgement is a second order fear to what they should really be afraid of.¡±


    It was as if he wasn¡¯t even looking anymore. His eyes were open but they were still and transposed to an imaginary far off distance.


    So now it was her this time, who dragged him through the crowd. If it was up to him, he would have sat by the edge of guardrail, drinking, and judging, spitting and staring. He would have looked until his glassy eyes rolled out of his skull, she knew it.


    ¡°Come on, show me where you wanted to go.¡± She said. ¡°Show me why you brought me here.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure?¡± He bumped into the strangers but did not drop his drink once. ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll have fun where I want to go.¡±


    ¡°You have to tell me first.¡±


    ¡°Take me to sweet mama.¡± In mockery, he mimicked Junior. ¡°Take me to mama, please. Mama.¡±


    She felt a drop in her stomach.


    Laughing now, biting his tongue now, with each of his deep guffaws he repeated: mama, mama, please.


    ¡°Oh, god.¡± She said.


    His fervor grew as he walked. His eyes rolled back and forth in his skull, looking for their targets.


    ¡°Where¡¯s mama!¡± He shouted, spitting out tequila from his pursed lips, they looked like fireworks as they shined in the light and fell upon people. The guests reared away from Turnus.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    It wasn¡¯t hard to get her attention after that. They spotted each other across the fields of the masked men.


    ¡°Oh, mommy dearest!¡± He laughed. ¡°Won¡¯t you speak to me?¡±


    He freed himself from Dorothy¡¯s grip and skipped in between the gaps of people, with swift (but still drunken) movement. He checked his breath and slicked his hair and made sure to take the grit out of his teeth. With one hand, he tightened his vest. With the other, checked the supply of his tequila. He had a few swigs left in it. Dorothy looked at him from behind, planting her palm on her face and shielding herself from the gaped stares of the masked men and women.


    Four guards (not casino guards, Salome hired her own men) walked in between her and him. But he saw her in the gaps of the men, with her plague doctor¡¯s mask pointing through a gap in between them.


    She snapped. The men looked back and split. She had an emerald ring around her hand, and she walked up quick-like, almost gouging Turnus¡¯s eye as she came face to face with him.


    ¡°Don¡¯t come around looking for trouble when you aren¡¯t fit to have, boy,¡± She said. ¡°I¡¯ve got neither time nor patience. Patience! Especially patience.¡±


    ¡°The Lord knows a lot, don¡¯t He?¡± He asked. ¡°Makes me wonder what you¡¯ll say when you meet Him. I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be a strange greeting, on account of that mischief of demons you¡¯ve maligned yourself with.¡±


    ¡°I bear the burden. It is a curse. You should know that, you refused it,¡± She said. ¡°Now we - Junior -, will have to tolerate it. And I¡¯m sure the Lord will be appreciative of our - his - sacrifice.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I do not doubt you, ma''am. I am sure you¡¯re blowing trumpets and singing choirs and weeping your hoo-rahs for the big G Himself.¡± He said. ¡°And it¡¯s mighty kind of you to sacrifice yourself for that, curse.¡±


    ¡°A heathen like you has no place to judge how I worship.¡±


    ¡°On the contrary, it¡¯s only the heathen that deserves say on what is proper practice and what is not,¡± He laughed.


    She sighed. A drink in her hand, tipped over, almost spilling. She fixed it to her lips and sipped along.


    ¡°Step aside and let me find your brother,¡± she said.


    ¡°Which one?¡±


    ¡°The good one. Floyd.¡±


    ¡°Oh? Oh, Floyd? He¡¯s foolin¡¯ around. You know, having fun.¡±


    ¡°How would you know that?¡± She paused.


    ¡°My instincts tell me so, it''s not hard to tell if you''d just look real hard for a second. He''s a passionate person, real lover boy, that one,¡± He leaned in. ¡°Though, honestly? Sometimes I wonder if his tastes are a little¡­too exotic. And that''s coming from me.¡±


    ¡°What in the god damn do you know of my son?¡± She asked. ¡°Do you think I won¡¯t kick you out? I will not entertain a clown. Go bother the birds with your shit.¡±


    ¡°Oh mother, don¡¯t act a fool.¡± He said. ¡°You know exactly what I¡¯m talking about, don¡¯t ya? It¡¯s why you chose Junior over Floyd for this little game of royal hot-potato, ain¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°I chose nothing. Your father (God rest his soul), made his decision long ago.¡±


    ¡°Really? You don¡¯t know about Floyd? Well, shi-et.¡± He said. Dorothy pulled on his arm. ¡°I thought it¡¯d be hard to miss, him and your poor little girl, off alone together.¡±


    ¡°Shut the fuck up, Turnus.¡± Her words were blazing, speedy, like pressurized steam long since waiting to release.


    The guards made a movement forward. She snapped again.


    "I will not hesitate to remove you." She said.


    ¡°Was there ever any other idea in your mind? Because I get the impression that I¡¯m talking to someone who''s already made up her mind.¡± He said. ¡°You got that look about you, the look of a damn repo-man. You¡¯ve been waiting to get rid of me, and in a few moments, with poor Junior at the helm, you¡¯ll get what you want. Isn¡¯t that right?¡±


    ¡°You ain¡¯t so clever, Turnus. Because I¡¯ve never seen no clever man dig his grave as deep as you. To disgrace yourself so brazenly when the gun is pointed at your head. You''re begging me to pull the trigger, you really are.¡± She tapped the base of her glass against the counter-top of a roulette wheel. ¡°Don¡¯t hazard the risk. Keep your mouth shut and let things go smoothly, and I might let you, go smoothly.¡±


    "You really want me gone, don¡¯t ya?¡± He asked. ¡°Out of resentment or fear? Or Both? Or maybe you¡¯re just covering bases. That¡¯s fine, I respect that. It makes sense, really. You¡¯d need to be a stiff bitch to live with father for as long as you did.¡±


    ¡°Turnus.¡± Dorothy said, loud, though it sounded like a squeaking rodent in the bedlam of the party-crowd.


    Salome was quiet, her lips pursed.


    "What? I can¡¯t call her what she is? What''s the wrong in that?" He looked back to Salome. "Right, stiff bitch?"


    The guards were twitchy. And Dorothy knew it was not herself that stopped them, let alone Turnus who was circling in place, drowsy-faced. She did not wonder long what stopped Salome from killing Turnus here and there, for she had met them, those agents or detectives or some such another. It had to be them, she speculated. And knowing this, she immediately pulled on Turnus. Knowing that the liability that was his ego and his mouth would get them killed, knowing what Salome was and is, she begged.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get out, babe,¡±


    Salome stared at her, pitied her even, as the unintentional casualty that she was. The small prey caught in the bear trap, pressed against Turnus, both bleeding to death from the jaws.


    ¡°Listen to her, Turnus. Your buffoonery has limitations, don¡¯t think yourself impenetrable because you¡¯re Thomas¡¯s son.¡± She said. ¡°I must honor the will of the father, even if that means sacrificing you for another son. So if you persist with this Floyd talk, or the jabs at Junior or show any pretense to disobeying the rule of tradition that will be said today, I will have you¡­gone. Gone.¡±


    And Turnus smiled. At her, at Salome.


    ¡°You make things too fun, Salome, you do.¡± He approached her, swishing what little remained of tequila in his bottle. ¡°By god do I have a problem with you and the excretions from your filth you call, Children. By god do I have a problem! Why - Why -¡±


    ¡°Turnus!¡± Dorothy grabbed him by the hips.


    ¡°You¡¯re all fucking sick!¡± He threw the drink at her, which rolled off her mask and onto the floor. The room settled to quick inertia, not even sound waves dared bounce. Nor light, shine. A blue hue hovered over them, and Salome looked at her mask and at the droplets falling to the floor.


    ¡°Well, shit.¡± Turnus laughed. ¡°The witch didn¡¯t melt. Fuck me, right?¡±


    The guards approached him. His eyes were half closed, but he managed to find a corner of the table to smash his bottle with. He pointed the jagged ends at the guards.


    It took them no less than five seconds to disarm him and then, to seize him in a choke hold.


    ¡°Just don¡¯t rough my face up, please,¡± He squeezed the words out, as the massive muscles of a python-gripped man clenched him.


    She did not hesitate to throw him out. He did not hesitate to laugh. He made no resistance. It was as if he had expected it, for he was rather reserved in his retaliation. He made no aim to punch or kick or bite or to grab or lunge or plead or shout. He just laughed, his voice warped and distorted and coughing; pausing and slowing and speeding, like a looping scale of unmitigated dread. He laughed and laughed, at everyone and everything.


    He passed by Dorothy¡¯s face and paused, only briefly, to try and kiss her. She made no move to lean in, only watched.


    He laughed, even at that.


    ¡°This family will get its comings. And it will be biblical. You¡¯ll go like the dinosaur cunt you are. Old bitch! Up in the flames of armageddon, choking on the smog of destruction." He screamed. A guard punched him against the head and made him dizzy. His voice recovered though, quickly, with proper drunk grit and tolerance. ¡°A retard and his collar-holder! What a riot! Well, a little birdy tells me he won¡¯t survive one lick, Salome. And He tells me that it won¡¯t be long till you get yours too, Salome.¡± He turned his head, to snap, almost. ¡°Let me get you in on a secret, mother dearest.¡± The spit of his salivating mouth dripped down to his purple blazer. ¡°There are two kinds people who don¡¯t live long. Kind men and old fucks.¡±


    They struck him again, in the stomach. The air released from his mouth, but he regained it back in one strained gulp.


    ¡°Why shit,¡± He shouted. ¡°As I see it, both of you got one foot in the same grave.¡± He spat blood. ¡°And that makes it a full ditch, don¡¯t it? Aha.¡±


    It was as if Moses himself parted the crowd, for they all stepped back for the madman restrained.


    Salome took off her hat, the white in her hair showed. She brushed the plumed hat of any remaining tequila and said, in a low, muted voice.


    ¡°He¡¯s made me waste time. I was supposed to meet Junior twenty minutes ago. I was supposed to get Floyd, ten ago.¡± She looked at Dorothy, a look that paralyzed. ¡°You¡¯ve made me waste time for your tom-foolery. And I will not forgive you for that.¡±


    The veins in her eyes made them glow. The heaviness of the stare made her look down. Down at her knees, where her bruises were and where they would be again, tomorrow. Supposing Turnus survived.


    And she knew that suffering would wait them all, every single of one of them. Because they were all beaten dogs, to a master now missing. And all a beaten dog knows is suffering, and all they knew, was suffering.


    She rubbed her thighs, unnoticing of the swelling tears in her eyes.


    She rubbed her thighs, and the lights went out.

 Hit me. 4

    The loud talking of the party-crowd behind the thin walls should have dissuaded him. On the third story of the ball, in the heart of the casino, only a few halls away from the giant doors leading into the chaotic fray, he was nearly crawling, pacing low and steady towards that forbidden thing that his heart compelled him to. As if, by being forbidden, he wanted it even more and feared to lose it, even more.


    Luanne was waiting for him behind the hall, he was sure. His eyes narrowed. His pulse jumped.


    It had been so long since he''d consummated with her.


    Too long, in fact. So long, that he had to find every second of every opportunity to find a way to get alone with her, so long that he was now crawling the halls of his casino, dodging the lazy dragging cameras, to make his way to a small cornerstone of the hall, where the janitors closet was, where the emergency stairs were, where there was no one but her.


    He checked his cell phone. A giant wall of text from his mother flashed. He turned it off, no time to read. No time for anything in fact, but to chase for the feeling that moved his loins.


    He turned the corner, fearing disappointment (though he was sure she was there, and perhaps he only feared to add to the drama and the excitement, but his heart knew she would be there).


    A smile formed on his face.


    ¡°Who¡¯d you leave Little Flint with?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Jezebel. She''s with him."


    ¡°That¡¯s good. I love him, but he can be...distracting,¡± Floyd wrapped his arm around his sister¡¯s waist. ¡°All of them are distracting, aren''t they? The heart-eaters, the bastards. It''s suffocating¡­¡±


    ¡°We shouldn¡¯t be here.¡± She mumbled.


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°I told mom I was courting another boy, the son of a critical CEO.¡±


    ¡°Oh, really, what company?¡± He pressed against her.


    ¡°An¡­insurance company. Auto...life - I think. Or something, another.¡±


    ¡°God, you¡¯re a terrible liar. You don''t know how to sell it, that''s your problem...¡± His face approached her. ¡°That¡¯s why you shouldn''t even bother. Just be honest.¡±


    He kissed her immediately, swallowed her mouth, forced his tongue into her. His hand worked underneath her shirt with deliberation, like a surgeon reaching into the wound. She pulled herself out of his grip.


    ¡°Floyd. Stop.¡± She said. ¡°We need to stop all of this. We already made one mistake, let''s not make another.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean stop?¡±


    ¡°I mean, I¡¯m a girl who needs good prospects. A life. A family. A husband. I know that doesn¡¯t mean much to you, but there¡¯s a certain impatience women have that a man could never understand.¡±


    ¡°What impatience? You already have the child you always wanted.¡±


    ¡°It''s not enough.¡± She said. ¡°I have the child, but not the future he deserves.¡±


    "Future? He''s part of a multi-billion dollar bloodline. What more future does he need?" He paused to stare into her. She was tight-lipped. "Am I not part of your future?¡±


    ¡°You never could be.¡± She was firm and stone-faced in her visage, she stood tall, and he felt hurt by her courage. At her animosity. He felt struck in the chest by the weight of her conviction and twitched in the eyes.


    ¡°You''re not his father. Right? You''re his uncle. Right? That¡¯s all they¡¯ll ever know, right?¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± He grit his teeth.


    ¡°And you, as the uncle, can never fill the role of a father that he needs.¡± She said. ¡°So I need to find that man, that person willing to be the dad. And you need to support that decision.¡±


    His nostrils expanded in the anger of truth. He felt wrong, not that she was making the choice, but that she had made it without his consent. And that was strange, even to him, that she would need his consent.


    But he was sure. Sure in his anger, in his pride, in his lecherous heart, he was sure that she should have asked for permission.


    His eyes went wide. His face passed around the corner, then back to Luanne who looked up to him, with her pretty blue eyes, with her full and red lips, slightly open.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    He did not know what to do, stuck in the paradox of contempt and want. To slap her? To embrace her? How best to convince her?


    He pressed against her, harder now, until he felt her back hit the wall. His arms full encroached upon her sanctity, wrapping around her, clutching her by the waist.


    ¡°I¡¯m not letting this go. I¡¯m not letting you go,¡± He said. ¡°You can have anything, I''ll give it to you. If you need a father - if the last name means that much to you -" He bit her lip, she pushed him back.


    He hoped his face conveyed some kind of confidence, but he was sure it didn''t, for even he was shaking.


    "If the last name means that much to you, I''ll change it. We can leave this family, ditch all of this. I can be someone else, I can be the stranger in your life, the chance-love to be your husband. I can change, we don''t have to be brother and sister. I''ll leave it all. I promise you."


    ¡°Are you out of your mind?¡± She asked. Though she knew the answer. She had known it since they were together, he had lost his mind long ago, lost it in the battle with his heart. "We''re not just leaving."


    ¡°Why not? Let''s take Little Flint and get out. Mom¡¯s already got her eyes set on the plan for this casino. She has her future and Junior will support it. She can take care of things at the homestead. What do we add by being here?¡±


    ¡°Mom needs you as much as she needs Junior. You know that.¡± She touched his face. It comforted him. Then she let go, and he went cold all of a sudden.


    ¡°And I will not allow my son to grow up with a lie. I will not allow him to grow up, a lie.¡± She said.


    ¡°A lie? Were the last ten years a lie too?¡±


    ¡°Stop it, please Floyd.¡±


    She put her hands against his chest, to pry herself out of his grip. Her protest was insufficient, weak-willed. And Floyd was stuck in that strange place between lust and fear, a place he had lived in for all his life (for life to him had only started upon the first kiss with his sister dearest, Luanne). He pulled her closer. She didn¡¯t know they could get closer, but here they were, a breaths distance away. She shook, but did not run. Ran cold down the spine, but was not weak.


    Her elbows bent, but the bond did not break.


    He pecked at her neck.


    ¡°Floyd, you''re desperate.¡± She tried catching her breath. ¡°Don''t start, please.¡±


    ¡°We started a long time ago,¡± He said, exasperated. ¡°We¡¯ve sinned for so long, it¡¯s a bit too late for cold feet, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    He rode her neck, with each nimble kiss, a kind of step up to her face. Then he sunk his claws into her, a wolf mounting prey. He clutched at whatever, soft and warm and flexible, whatever inch he could find his grip onto. He clutched onto whatever part; ass, hips, chest, waist, face, lips, neck, legs, thighs. Then he lapped and licked and stretched and scratched and ate. Ate her, right up.


    She protested. And was forced to enjoy, for he was too forceful, and her routine too easy to follow. That was her flaw she hated most, being stuck in old ways.


    She moved back and hit the wall again. The wall shook. A light fixture (the glass lamp shade) fell to the floor. It shattered into small, brilliant flaws.


    ¡°No one knows your better, every inch of you.¡± He said, beneath his breath, beneath her legs. She moaned and punched the wall and looked for the little will she had left. She slapped him and kicked him away. He looked up, falling on his ass. The warm blood coming down his nose fell into his mouth. A metallic taste.


    "You bitch!" He wiped his face and looked up, perhaps it was only then that he felt guilty. And his conscious managed to lead in the racing motivations of his heart. He paused, looking at her. Paused, ashamed.


    She waited against the wall, wiping tears, composing herself.


    ¡°That''s all you think about, isn''t it? Fucking, that¡¯s all you care about?¡± She asked. "You don''t even care about our son, do you?"


    ¡°Wait, that''s-¡±


    ¡°This is why there is no future with you in it. Because you are a decade''s long mistake incapable of any accountability because you don''t have it in you to be a good father. Or uncle. Or anything good, really." She said. "Having a child made me realize what huge waste of time you were."


    His conscious must have tripped, must have drag itself in the sand and lost itself in a ditch, for it fell. He fell. He lowered his face, his mouth pulsed with the racing hot blood going in and out of her.


    "Me, a waste of time?" He asked, not to her, for she had no answer.


    His eyes came up, dogged and dark, like two pits.


    ¡°You are letting go of so much.¡± He gripped her neck with a tightness even he was surprised of. ¡°History. So much history between you and I. Too much, you stupid girl. The weight of our sin far exceeds your sudden moral character. You can''t let go of what we have with words, with hope, with a ''plan''. We have too much.¡±


    ¡°Stop, Floyd.¡± She punched his chest.


    ¡°Ain''t nothing to stop. This is meant to be, ordained, by the natural world. You can''t stop what was always willed to be. I know you better than yourself. I know, I know.¡±


    She tried to pull his grip away. He felt her scratching claws, saw her tenacity, felt his fingers hurt. He forced a kiss on her. Then another. Each one, blow for blow, until she hurt. She must have been hurting, she was crying. And he kissed her still, too, kissed her tears and her cheek and her eyes.


    After a while, she gave up.


    He loosened his grip on her neck.


    She put her hands against the wall, pushing herself, which only seemed to stimulate Floyd, who came up behind her.


    "I''ll make you feel good, promise.¡± He said.


    ¡°Please¡­stop.¡± She cried. And the thought and the sound of her wanting to stop seemed to go nowhere, simply echo, even in her own mind.


    Until all she could hear, from a far off distance, from her impotent mind-voice, were the words.


    Stop!


    Stop.


    Stop...


    Like a rock thrown, bumping, down an endless well.


    Floyd kissed her neck, with eyes venomous and predatory, with narrowed intensity.


    He looked to stuff her, for them to be forced into that forbidden place, in the secret corner of this casino, where the peering eyes could not reach them. Unabashed, unashamed, for what shame could there be, he must have thought, in copulating true love?


    What shame is there in loving?


    His member approached her. She closed her eyes, in the fear of anticipation, now full in the reality that it could not be stopped, now begging for it to be quick and for there to not be another mistake.


    He would have had her, again, like before.


    But the lights went out. And Apollo¡¯s voice rung out in the darkness.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there? Where are you?¡±

 Hit me. 5

    ¡°You¡¯re not on the list.¡± They waited at the front of the line, amongst the shaking heads and folded arms of a disgruntled group of guests. Apollo, waiting for the many to deny him entrance. Apollo, sweating, as he swore the walls were melting. Another hallucination.


    Dion put a hand on his shoulder. The scenery reforged itself to normalcy.


    ¡°What do you mean I¡¯m not on the list?¡± Apollo asked, wiping sweat.


    ¡°I don¡¯t see your name. He¡¯s fine though,¡± He pointed to Dion.


    ¡°Of course they wouldn¡¯t let me in. Do you know who we are? We¡¯re detectives, sort of. We¡¯re important to the Wolfe¡¯s.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry sir, I don¡¯t see you on the list. If you were important, you¡¯d be on the list.¡±


    The page stared back, with scratchings that annoyed him just to stare at.


    ¡°It was Salome, wasn¡¯t it?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°It was your attitude, is what it was. You¡¯re not good party company.¡± Dion said, almost joyous. ¡°You should be nicer. I keep telling you, smile.¡±


    ¡°Fuck off.¡± Apollo looked back to the name-keeper, the guard, the giant wall in between him and truth (at least, as Apollo saw it).


    Apollo stood next to the line, getting told by the man with the strange mask (a bunny, why?) with the bowtie and the nametag that made him some such officiary that could do some such thing. And the man with the bow tie, with authority (as given to by Salome) said this: ¡°Sorry, sir, we can¡¯t let anyone in who¡¯s not on the list.¡±


    Dion was in the clear, for he had no coat or guns or really any desire for violence. Apollo, however, was not. And by reputation, the name-keeper knew it too, that Apollo was dangerous. So there he was forced to be, standing, with a short man keepin him in between him, and the party (his prey). It made him think, as the walls continued to melt and his anger and hallucinations grew off each other. He rubbed his chin, I''d hope I would not care anymore. I could give Aenea any name than go through this trouble. But instead, I''m here. Why? I need a doctor, I need a therapist, I need a priest. But I refuse that help, I refuse that easy life. Why? Why not just give her a name? Why suffer this stupid man and his stupid list and this stupid brain? He took a deep breath. Some of the hallucinations cleared. Because I need to be right. Because I want the answer. Because I want to catch my suspect. Mine, and mine alone. I need something to make this suffering valid, I need it, like a damn martyr for all my lifes worth. I need to catch this prick to pay my debt.


    ¡°Alright then,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I¡¯m still allowed in the halls, correct?¡±


    ¡°Absolutely sir, anywhere but the party.¡± The man with the bunny-mask smiled, buck teethed. ¡°If that¡¯s mighty fine with you, of course.¡±


    Apollo turned Dion away from the crowd and the guard.


    ¡°You heard him, you¡¯re on your own. I don¡¯t expect much to happen in there, too many witnesses if something were to go wrong, which means the Wolfe¡¯s are going to come in and out often,¡± He said. ¡°You¡¯re going to have to keep an eye on them.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I have enough eyes for all of them.¡±


    ¡°What - Uh - It¡¯s an expression. Just watch them. That¡¯s all, as many of them as you can. Watch them. Aenea too.¡±


    ¡°You think she¡¯s a murderer?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know who is or is not, but we can¡¯t be too sure. After that demon attack, I¡¯m beginning to think these people are more capable than they let themselves onto.¡±


    ¡°Black magic? I thought most of them weren¡¯t even aware they were witches¡­¡±


    ¡°Fuck man, don¡¯t be so stupid.¡± Apollo said. ¡°That¡¯s what they told us. But it¡¯s not what¡¯s true. I figure most of them probably have something up their sleeves, dark arcana or otherwise.¡±


    That was the end of conversation before they split, with nothing but an earpiece and a microphone sleeve to keep them tangled like an invisible umbilical cord. Apollo, who mothered Dion through the steps of spying.


    It wasn¡¯t so bad though, all the arguing and the watching and the walking. It was not so bad, until midnight.


    ?


    Maybe it didn¡¯t matter much, being in the party, keeping tabs on everything and everyone. He already knew who had come to the party. All the Forbe¡¯s people, those ¡®top most important¡¯ such and such people, as it was.


    There were a little over two hundred guests invited, of various trades, though all of which regarding those most affluent in society. Artists, CEOs, an actor here and there. The kind of titles and grand-standing thing that excited Dion. He was not excited to be at the party, or to meet anyone from the party. What amused Apollo (strange? The feeling of amusement), was the prospect of witches. And one such of these witches that he found, early on, was Richter. Wandering the halls. Ritcher.


    Richter who he kept at a fair distance, watching in the corner of his eyes. Following.


    He roamed the halls, stalking them like Dracula. A hunter, searching for his prey. He saw the people with their masks and jewels and watches, like expensive mannequins. Absolutely hollow, nothing but show. One such lobby was delegated for the drunks. Here, people sat on bean bag chairs, sharing a small metal box filled with cocaine. They gave one look at Apollo and laughed, before taking turns sniffing. Another group, further from this one, was composed of people smoking laced cannabis. All of them were drunk, and all of them devolved.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    The women were competing with each other, showing off which kind of men they could enrapture with their wiles.


    It all seemed a game, a game that disgusted Apollo.


    If they even knew that this was all a Satanic rite, would they care? I don''t think so. Are they even sentient? I wonder.


    People danced and laughed from within their bedrooms (there were bedrooms scattered about for the guests to have sex in¡­or worse). Apollo saw from the cracks of doors, the people in their primitive state. He approached one such door. It was the loudest in the hall, by far.


    His eye, peaking inside. He saw them, dressed up, laughing in hysterics.


    And dressed they were. Some, in mocking get-ups. Some, with masks of politicians old and new in the middle of absurdities. Others were dressed as animals; horned goats, horses, elk with their antlers poking at women.


    He felt disgusted for some reason. He could taste something sour, metallic. Like rancid blood. He removed his head from the door and closed it. The laughing stopped. Around him, around the lights and furniture of the halls, he could see swarms of flies. Dancing, playing with each other, buzzing and humming.


    Here we go.


    The hallucination had stopped, but only as a taunt. Because they continued again, all of a sudden, faster and more intense. He could feel his heart in his throat, beating, beating, beating. His eyes looked left and right, the people morphed into trees. The walls, bled. The floors looked like swamp and beyond, to the end of the hall, he could see two snakes running through. Pythons, swimming across the shallow pools of imaginary blood.


    He rubbed his eyes.


    Things returned to normal.


    His imaginations had gotten worse. Ever since he had been attacked (his leg still wasn¡¯t fully healed yet), ever since he had come out of his sleep, he had hallucinated. Mostly of Astyanax, sometimes of animals and of strange occurrences, like the walls bleeding or the floors turning to swamps. But he was thankful at least, he could tell them apart. For now, at least.


    ¡°I need to get my head checked.¡± He said. Though he knew what it was, instinctively at least. He knew it was the price paid for helping Bartholomew in Hell, for killing and eating Astyanax. And it was a realization that kept him up, sleepless. That thought, and the nightmares. Both of them.


    For he had thought that maybe all good men and all evil men have a price to pay for their lives, no matter how good or horrific they were. And the only difference between good men and bad men was that the bad men don¡¯t pay their toll. Sometimes, the good men have to pay for it. Both shares.


    So here he was, paying his toll. He rubbed his eyes to get the images of bloody walls off his mind. He felt his foot drag and thought it caught in imaginary quick-sand. It was just a drunk woman, laying on the floor, holding onto his foot. He wiggled her away and turned the corner.


    He was following the snakes. What appeared as giant pythons, green and black, swimming across the shallow pools of filth and grime.


    He chased after them and every so often, he could see them in their human form.


    Ritcher. He was chasing Richter, maybe he didn¡¯t even realize it.


    A butler passed him with a platter of shrimp and button mushrooms and glasses of champagne. He swiped one, to chew. He grabbed a drink, to forget. They tasted like unripened grapes and puckered his mouth. Sour. Sour. Sour


    ¡°Are you alright, sir?¡± The butler asked. He turned to face him, he swore he saw the eyes of the man asking him the question pop out of his skull. He swore he could see them dangle and fall like two deflated balloons. Apollo rubbed his eyes. The man was normal.


    ¡°I¡¯m okay.¡± He lied.


    Apollo finished another mushroom. The same taste, sour and unripe and puckering. My head isn¡¯t right. He walked towards the hall where the tail of the snake dragged and the room in between. People sat with, high from opiates laying on the glass table. Their heads were stuck at an angle, looking at the floor. Their eyes were glossed, with an unholy sheen as they mumbled inanities.


    He realized at once where he was. In some far off corner of the casino, the music, though loud, was strangely downplayed here. There was a fire exit and an emergency staircase.


    Richter turned behind himself before he went through, into the corner. Apollo made himself flat and parallel to the wall, hidden behind a fern.


    He wore no mask. Needed no mask.


    A light above looked like a spider, a tarantula with a giant black skull for a design upon its bulb-abdomen. He ignored it. It was not real, none of it was. And his eyes flashed red. Crimson, bloodshot, as he turned the corner and limped with his dragging right foot.


    He dragged his body across the hall, the music in the background adding a tempo to his deliberate steps. He foot dragged along, taking a carpet with it. He did not care to be stealthy anymore. He needed to catch him, catch him before the world burst and burned and bled itself into oblivion in his twisted hallucinations. Apollo needed to find Richter before he was possessed again by another vision.


    His hand touched the walls. It sunk through. Not again.


    His throat went dry.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± Apollo made his way around the corner. He could hear two people.


    The lights went out. Apollo held his breath. Between the sudden drop of ambiance and the fact that he was now seeing the chandeliers as spiders, descending from the ceiling, he was feeling confused and dreadful,


    ¡°Where are you?¡± Apollo asked. ¡°Richter, where are you?¡±


    A door opened. People went down the steps. And they slipped out.


    He would have followed, could he have heard. But there was loud shuffling, as there tended to be around strange occurrences and unplanned dramas.


    And he had to rub his temples to relax, as the hallucinations and the sounds of blood squirting out of the ceilings, and the people rushing and screaming, and the spiders. Crawling. Crawling all over him, were becoming overwhelming.


    He slammed his head against the wall.


    ¡°Ah, fuck.¡± He said. The lights turned on. A drugged man was staring up at him, smiling.


    ¡°What are you looking at?¡±


    The bruise on his forehead healed.


    ¡°Where¡¯d he go?¡± Apollo asked the opiate, who smiled and drooled.


    He looked at the emergency exit. There were too many people in it now, all rushing down.


    The lights were turning and off, repeatedly, into a strobing effect.


    Now it didn¡¯t matter where he wandered. Apollo only followed where the crowd was leaving from. So while they all went down, he went up.


    And the higher he went up the crowded emergency steps, the closer he got to the screaming. It was like he was following a trail of fear, looking for the women with their hands up and the fainted bodies.


    There aren¡¯t many people who chase after fires and floods and destruction, but Apollo was one of them.


    He followed the steps, and the people routed away, all the way up to the principal hall. The VIP rooms of the Wolfe family. He went all the way in, to where a group of people were hyperventilating. All of them, surrounding two wide, open doors.


    He stepped up to them, to these group of horrified guests and workers.


    He took one look inside. Just one. And what he saw made him wish it was a hallucination. What he saw was so horrific, he pinched himself in the hopes that it was another false visage.


    ¡°Get away.¡± He told one of the weeping, crying, screaming workers on the floor. She clutched her gray uniform and suffocated her noises in it.


    Apollo closed the doors and took out his sword.


    A scene as bloody as this, after all, could not have been done by someone sane.

 Hit me. 6

    "If there¡¯s anything to be said about this, it¡¯s that I did nothing." Apollo held his stance, opposite the door, with Dion staring back and Aenea approaching from behind, sweating at the forehead. The rest of the family was gone, nowhere to be seen for the deathbed of Junior.


    A toy train quietly whizzed in the background, snagging upon a plastic, topped over tree and falling with the wheels spinning and slowing and whining into the air.


    Junior¡¯s blood pooled underneath Apollo like rising tide.


    "Oh my god," Aenea said. Her eyes were focused on the rising tide of red.


    "I found him like this," Apollo said, his blade interred into the floor, covering half his face.


    ¡°You found him like this?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Yeah, I did. You believe me, right?¡±


    Apollo should have known what crazed and intense face he made, he should have known to relax, to ease his eyes to their dull blackness from the red crimson they held. He should have been calm, composed. He should have been many things, he would regret later, but calm was not one of them. His crooked body stepped forward, most of his weight was on his blade.


    ¡°There are witnesses. The people in the front, they saw me come in.¡± Apollo said.


    Dion stepped back.


    ¡°I was chasing after Floyd. He went somewhere but I swear that if you found him, he''d tell you as much.¡± But why would Floyd help Apollo? Why wouldn¡¯t he blame him too?


    He wanted to slap himself at the claim. Apollo knew he wasn''t...thinking. He took two looks at Dion and Aenea and knew what they felt, then looked at his shoes and the footprints of blood he left.


    ¡°I don¡¯t even have a reason to kill them. What¡¯s in it for me?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Dion said. ¡°I don¡¯t know what¡¯s been going on with you lately. You¡¯re talking to yourself. Arguing. Slapping. Punching yourself. You sleepwalk. I don''t know what''s going on with you Apollo, or what you''re capable of. You¡¯ve been acting¡­a little eccentric.¡±


    ¡°And what about you?¡± Apollo lashed back. ¡°You¡¯re spineless. You can¡¯t move an inch without regretting it.¡±


    Dion maintained his quiet indignation. Apollo could feel the laser beam of his stare burn into him. He felt warm at the face.


    ¡°We don¡¯t have cameras to prove whether he¡¯s full of shit or not,¡± Aenea whispered to Dion.


    ¡°I can hear you¡­¡± Apollo said. ¡°And I know you don¡¯t have cameras. You¡¯ve invested a lot into making sure this casino is a hellhole of debauchery and chaos. Of course, you don¡¯t want videotapes of that. Everything and anything to protect the elites, right?¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t helping your case,¡± Aenea said.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need help for a case, I¡¯m innocent.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the only one who wasn¡¯t in the ball at some point.¡±


    ¡°I just finished telling you I was following Floyd!¡± He said. It didn¡¯t matter who he spoke to now, him or her, for their unified suspicion felt the same. A giant brick, gray wall.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    They were both quiet.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have made a mess as much as I did anyway,¡± He said. ¡°Fractured skull. Displaced spine plates, a broken neck, bone shrapnel in his brain matter. His windpipe, crushed, his jaw, fractured. I would have cut him clean in two if I wanted to kill him.¡±


    Then he just shut up. Like they wanted him to because it was not out of pleasure that they blamed Apollo, nor convenience. So they just wanted him to shut up, to stop incriminating himself, to make himself look at least presentable. But Apollo knew how hard that was, with the sweat and his heartbeat and the fucking walls melting before his eyes, and the ceiling lights like fireworks. Hallucination after hallucination, growing out of his rising anxiety. He was being transported to a schizophrenic nightmare and his vehicle was the dread-steed of judgment these two had made for him.


    ¡°His gut is cut open,¡± Dion looked away. Aenea held her mouth.


    ¡°They¡¯re just everywhere, aren¡¯t they?¡±


    Apollo put a blanket over the scene and the blood soaked into the baby-blue, flower patterned blanket. There was still spit and bite marks where Junior had last nibbled on it. Then, those too were soaked in blood.


    There was a period of silence that felt like in itself, a kind of hell. A period of waiting, as they looked around at all the ruined toys; the stepped over green-plastic army men, the stuffed animals, the hot wheel cars and broken train sets. They looked too, to the corpses of the workers laying about in the corners of the room.


    Apollo put his hand in his hair (it felt like dead, blackened straw, brittle, but looked like tar) and rubbed his scalp. Oily, sweaty and wet.


    And Salome walked in.


    She collapsed immediately, someone held her. After a while, she dragged herself onto the floor and underneath the blanket, such that all they could see was her shadow clutching Junior¡¯s shadow. And the globs of black clotted-flesh wrapped-skull that fell from her squeezing hands as she cried and held him. Maybe she didn¡¯t even care at that point, about the body or what was left of it. Maybe holding it was good enough.


    She didn¡¯t pass Apollo even a moments attention, not his sword or his nervous disposition. Her guards came in, following her, and they closed the door for her to give her privacy to weep underneath the bloody, baby blanket.


    ¡°Who did this?¡± She screamed, her mouth a wide, fanged outline underneath the blanket. ¡°Who?¡±


    Dion passed Apollo a look. Aenea put her hand over his mouth. And all Apollo could mouth, not even speak, was the sentence: You¡¯d sell me out?


    Of course, he couldn¡¯t. He couldn¡¯t lie to the crying mother either. So he was stuck, in perpetual silence as the blaming, wrinkled, vascular finger of Salome went person to person. Aenea took a deep breath.


    ¡°We don¡¯t know who did it,¡± She said to the relief of Apollo. ¡°It was someone who knew what room he was staying in and who had a reason to kill him.¡±


    ¡°Who?!¡± She wasn¡¯t even talking anymore, just repeating herself like a broken machine.


    ¡°We. Don¡¯t. Know.¡± She said. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine it was Dion¡­or Apollo.¡± Her breathing was unsteady, her eyes kind of dragged to the floor and to the blood following the cracked lines of tile. ¡°They don¡¯t have a reason to kill them. As far as I can tell.¡±


    The words were forced. All of them could tell, though would not raise opposition to.


    ¡°Who did it?!¡± She came out of the blanket like a monster out of hibernation, dragging herself with chipped nails, onto the bloody floor and up, tall and overbearing. She walked over to Aenea, her pupils small and lost in the large pools of white. Her face, half-bloodied and clung to by pink brain. ¡°Who?¡± She whispered, in a voice that made even Apollo go numb.


    Apollo hid his blade at last. It disappeared into his coat. His clothes too, were bloody.


    ¡°If I find out you had something to do with it¡­¡± She muttered, angry, crying. ¡°You fucking church dog¡­if I-!¡±


    ¡°Whoever killed your son,¡± He said. ¡°Has a propensity for skull bashing and a right mind to get rid of your position as head of the pack.¡±


    His vision cleared. His thoughts cleared, perhaps it was only just occurring to Apollo, as the blood dried on his skin and clothes.


    ¡°Who else had a problem with your sons'' ascension to the throne?¡±


    And he knew the name in his head, but could not say it. Maybe all of them knew it.


    He closed his eyes. His breathing eased, his head begun to ache and the letters came to his mind by some manner of precognition, or soothsaying, or perhaps out of a retrieval of a thought his frightened delirium had kept hidden to him. What had he thought before they all came into the room? What did he think of that cracked skull, of the beaten body?


    A mallet had done him in. Or a bat.


    Or a cane.


    ¡°I think Richter killed your son, ma¡¯am,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I think he caved Junior''s head, right the fuck in.¡±


    And they all went quiet.

 Hit me. 7

    The death of Junior was spoken throughout the casino, the particular details lost in the game of telephone, but the gist of it very much real and true: Thomas Wolfe Jr. had died at the very height of the casino, his body opened like a pig and his head bashed in.


    Needless to say, the party was spoiled. That was only the beginning of the ruin of the Wolfe. For now, standing in front of the two large silver doors with the carved and frilly design, stood Aenea in front of a crowd of about fifteen. Fifteen workers, who stood with their black and white suits and with their anthropomorphic masks in their hands, berated Aenea.


    Bombarded her with questions. A shell shock of angry, bitter, resentment of what had happened. Resentment, shock, disgust.


    "Who killed Junior?" One such worker said, a card dealer with edgy eyes and greasy slicked hair.


    "When did it happen?" Another.


    "Are we safe?"


    "I want to quit."


    One after another. And her, standing in front of the very doors to the very corpse. There was a thin line of white tape and some tarps put over the blood stains. Wet floor signs were used to stop anyone from approaching, like little yellow blockades. That didn¡¯t stop people. They simply walked over it, in resentment. For this was the second murder, and after Thomas Wolfe, they (the casino workers) could no longer hold their fears.


    Because, as she realized quickly, they were also dealing with the fallout of a LaVerne. Some poor girl gone missing. And it was all coming down on them, a harbored animosity and fear.


    "We''ll have a public announcement tomorrow. Please just go back home, alright? You''re free to leave." She said, her palms extended out for the rising crowd. She was standing on a raised plank, most of the workers were on the stairs opposite of her, in a circular form, like a crescent moon had been cast out in front of her.


    Their faces looked fierce, tense, somber. Sad eyes, thin-lipped, wooden-faced men and women. They were all wrinkled, as if they had aged ten or twenty years from the very stress of being around the blockaded room.


    "I''m calling the police." One person said.


    "No!" She screamed. A silence came across them all. She walked in between the circular crowd, to the person who had said it, who had her phone out. Aenea yanked it and hung up. Her eyes shook, and she threw the phone onto the floor.


    "We already have private investigators on the situation." She said in a voice quiet and hostile.


    "There is a body in this casino. We need to inform the police. It probably has something to do with the gas-station killer."


    ¡°Or with the Old Man (Thomas Wolfe Sr.)¡±


    "We don¡¯t know and I¡¯m not paying to speculate.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not paying us nearly enough to tolerate this shit.¡± Someone threw their mask on the floor. ¡°This casino¡¯s gone to shit. I¡¯m not surprised someone died in all the hurrah of today''s mess. Do you know insane people have been acting in the party? Violent and uneasy.¡±


    Another continued.


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen it too, some of the servers were harassed. Seen a girl nearly raped in the damn broom closet. By God.¡±


    ¡°None of this would fly if The Old Man was around.¡± It was the older bartender again. The rest of the workers shook their head in agreement. ¡°And I can assure you, we wouldn¡¯t have a murder to clean up either.¡±


    No response could satisfy them, really, and really, she had no response that could satisfy her. What words would or could be said?


    They were all silent, Aenea staring down at them from the top of the steps. They took one hard look behind her, to the tape and the tarps and the bits of dried blood like autumn leaves on the ivory tiles. One walked in front of the pack, towards Aenea. She threw her name tag onto the floor.


    "I''m quitting."


    The first of many.


    Like a trail of gasoline to a stronghold of TNT. It set off the reaction, one after another, throwing their name tags onto the floor.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°I refuse to work in such a sordid place.¡± The bartender said.


    Another, chef perhaps, for his arms were hardened and cut and burned and calloused.


    ¡°And you ain¡¯t got your head right if you think I¡¯ll let myself work in a god damn murder factory, little girl.¡± He said. ¡°Forget those two weeks, I ain¡¯t working one hot minute.¡±


    And her, standing there, with her eyes closed, clutching her arm (because they hurt. They hurt?) and her eyes falling onto the floor and her mouth strained into a forced frown.


    "Somethings wrong in this place, girl. There¡¯s a devilment here that is going to tear you apart. If only Thomas were still alive¡­" One said with a voice that sounded ubiquitous amongst the crowd for they all nodded in agreement.


    "Thomas was a great man. He always had things under control."


    And her arm kept hurting the more she heard it. She winced now, holding her arm at the elbow, winced as she felt the blood trickle down her fingers. She looked at it with strained eyes, to something nasty growing on her arm, something that carved into her. Her coat was soaked with blood, she held her arm behind her back. And they would not shut up. Not one bit.


    "Why, I don''t think anything bad happened under Thomas -"


    "Get the fuck out of here!" She screamed, her face looking down to the people who looked back with renewed anger.


    ¡°He¡¯s dead and if you don¡¯t like it, get the fuck out!¡±


    They stood for a moment, but looking at her, at her sweating face and her reddened cheeks and the blood trickling down her arms, they felt a wave of fear. Eventually, they obliged and stepped out. They took the elevator down in groups, and before they could even leave the building, she had already begun to hear the phone calls through the casino intercoms. Phone calls regarding a mass exodus, dozens upon dozens of resignations. And she knew they would continue, she knew, and she fell on her knees, the phone dangling by the side of the wall. She sat on the tarp, holding her arm.


    "Why?" She said and slowly fell on her ass onto the floor. Her head leaned forward and dug into her raised thighs. She felt like a child again as she cried into her legs, cradling herself left and right.


    "Why?" Like mantra. "Why?"


    ?


    It had been a tiring night for Richter, one he was glad to finally see come to its natural conclusion. He walked through the hall of the party, now empty and echoing of shuffling feet. His clothes were, admittedly dapper and clean. He wore no mask save for the small band of cloth wrapped around his eyes, and he led himself, with his cane, into an elevator and feeling the buttons, to the floor of his room.


    ¡°All good works is tiring,¡± He stretched his shoulders and his neck.


    Murder was always exhausting on him. On the spirit, on the body. And Junior, grown man as he was, was a hardier person than usual. A thick skull had made him difficult to hurt.


    But neither the difficulty nor the nature of the killing seemed to inspire guilt into him. For guilt only appeared to those who could not coordinate both nature and moral will, of which Richter was confident, he had done. For he believed, emphatically, that he had done right.


    Perhaps he did. As everyone knew, Junior was a daft boy unfit for any rule.


    He walked casually to his room, casually to the door and opening it, casually to his bedroom. A small drawer lay on its side, open and stuffed with small flowers and a piece of pink cloth. There were candles, a picture of Jesus Christ, and a chipped-cross who was uneven in weight and length from one side.


    He reached into his pocket to a small chained necklace and the strange rune that made up the circular piece of metal. Gold colored, with an odd curve to it, and a peculiar name in Hebrew perhaps whose archaic gave it a sense (even to the touch) of something esoteric and wrong, something that ought to have been lost in time but by sheer will of its horribleness, had survived. He felt the necklace, almost crushed it, and stuffed it into the drawer and snuffed out the candles. The smoke wrapped around him and up, to the walls. He laid on his knees in front of this wall, staring at it.


    Nothing around him was of any particular interest. He had no furniture but the drawer. And no bed, but a small mat on the floor.


    He was reclused into his room and took off his clothes for bed. It would be a tiring tomorrow, as it had been tonight. So he was quick about it, to quickly go to bed.


    He worked his coat and shirt and tie off. Shoes put neatly on his side, pants tucked into the corner. The bloody gloves in his pockets came out last. Those would have to be burned tomorrow.


    He laid his cane down, horizontal and adjacent to him as he sat down on his futon bed. The ceiling fan moved slowly, the wind pulsed and hit him on even intervals and produced a noise he could only describe as, harmonic.


    He took off his cloth wrap and let his eyes breath, they were white and empty of all visage. And he laid there in rest with his arm raised above him.


    ¡°It¡¯s started.¡± He said. The mark of the beast had begun to cut its way into his arm, bleeding him and leaving it burned and exposed. His body, specifically his right arm, eviscerated upon. His flesh was pried open by an invisible force it seemed, and whatever strange design was writing itself upon him, he could only feel and hurt. So he rested there, with his sigil-tattoo, stroking it with two small fingers like unholy Braille.


    Above him, in black paint, the symbol was there.


    A pentagram with an infinity symbol, like two snakes eating themselves, wrapping around and entwined with the pentagram. Around it, a ring, and the words Mammon. Once in English, once in Hebrew.


    He sat there, letting the pain wash over him, for it was penance and reward and the thing he loved and the thing he hated. His back against the rough floor, his scalp hurting and his hair pulled back.


    He laid in false-sleep, with tired eyelids and tired thoughts, without hope for sleep or sedation. He laid awake, perhaps in prayer, asking; ¡°What¡¯s there to do next?¡±


    And the voice came to him, a minutes later, scratchy and rugged; ¡°The Matriarch first.¡±


    It came from his drawer.

 Episode 5: Death in the Family

    A mother should never see her son buried, Salome thought from across the descending silver coffin. Yet here I am, a Louisiana girl swept off her feet by a charming old man who had hoped to find the world only to see it end.


    She stared at the coffin with terror at first. With sorrow second. And as the silver trimmed, silver-sheened, silver plated coffin finally came to its last foot before the mechanical stand stopped, she looked over the side of her head and into Turnus¡¯s eyes with a look of absolute and maddening anger. A kind of anger that kept her still and hostile, with quick twitches across her mouth and lips. Her chest barely rose as she breathed.


    They were twenty miles away in the city of Jacksonville, to the place Junior had been raised. A stone angel watched over her and the crowd of one hundred. They were all, and she found this funny, the same people that had shared the very ballroom and guest rooms Junior had been murdered in. Some of them even still hung over.


    But she was alone, alone with Turnus in this small time frame, as the body and the machinery snapped and locked and the people took the line to drop dirt onto the coffin of Junior.


    Turnus looked back to her, not crying, not smiling, merely dejected and mournful. His head was tipped over to her, and she knew he knew she was glaring.


    ¡°He was my brother.¡± He said in a voice, unusually apologetic.


    ¡°He was my son.¡± She said. ¡°And your brother killed him.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s presumption.¡±


    Her face was flat and void of all expression save for the twitching and the wide-eyed thousand-yard-stare. She turned her head and heard the gas in her bones pop. Most of her body popped, with a compression.


    The priest said some words of Christ and of His holy grace or some such thing as the people lined and threw dirt.


    She felt a burn though did not move or show any sign of pain, though it came from her arm and was very real, a pain riding up her body like a snake. And as the preacher continued, her burn too continued, like hot oil splashing across her body.


    It was only a fraction of the pain she felt for her son.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t your kids here?¡± He asked.


    ¡°They¡¯re busy.¡± She said, without looking, without feeling. Her voice was low.


    ¡°You got it too, didn¡¯t you?¡± He asked. ¡°The mark.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk about this right now,¡± She looked.


    ¡°Naw, no one does, especially at a funeral.¡± He said. ¡°But it has to be done. A lack of talking got us in this mess in the first place. A lack of talking of secrets, a lack of being honest.¡±


    ¡°My son died.¡± She said as if it would be enough, enough to buy her some silence.


    Turnus fixed his coat on his body. He wore a solid black funeral suit, with two dark shades to cover his eyes from the glare of the sun. He stood.


    ¡°Just so you know, I actually liked Junior.¡± He said. ¡°He reminded me of someone I used to know and love. I¡¯m sad he¡¯s gone, and if there was anyone who deserved death least in this family, it was him.¡±


    ¡°If you feel that bad about it, why don¡¯t you go on yonder to your brother and tell him to pay his price. If you feel bad, and all.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t control him. No one can.¡± He said. ¡°But you know that. As to your children. They¡¯re aiming to kill him, aren¡¯t they?¡±Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ¡°Not just him,¡± Her eyes finally turned to him.


    ¡°Oh,¡± His breath was short. ¡°Me too, huh? Makes sense, I stand in the way of your inheritance. As does Richter, as does Aenea.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not it.¡± She said.


    ¡°Right, that¡¯s just the convenient boon. Revenge is the aim, though, isn¡¯t it? Without a trial either, that¡¯s mighty harsh.¡±


    She said nothing. But both knew what it was all about. The mark, the symbol of Mammon had appeared on them the night after Junior¡¯s death. A score cut deep into their arm-flesh that at both, defined and cursed them. The inheritance of Thomas Wolfe Sr. For the mark meant one thing and one thing alone: that there was no heir to be a vessel for Mammon and thus, must be found. A vessel that could only be found one way, and one way alone, through the complete volition and subjugation and defeat of all others who bore the mark. A war between the Wolfe¡¯s. For there could only be one to inherit Mammon, his power and his grace, and the casino itself.


    So they must fight, must lose, must give up or decide.


    With the linchpin dead, it was all up for grabs.


    A fight, she looked over to Turnus who walked into line with the pile of dirt in his hand and who drizzled it over the coffin. I tried to keep this family together, and in the end, it did not matter. A mother¡¯s efforts never matter, for children will be what they were always meant to be with our without my consent. Junior is dead. No doubt, they will all want a piece of what he had to gain. No doubt Richter will, and I hope him and wish him to try. I would love nothing more than to see him die, nothing more.


    By then they were all done and the podium now empty. Turnus sat two seats away, looked at Salome. All of them really, looking at Salome.


    ¡°Do you have any words to share?¡± A funeral helper asked gentle-like.


    She opened her mouth. No words were said. Then she stood quickly. Her dress covered her feet, so it appeared that she was drifting slowly onto the stage. Her wide, black hat, like an eclipse across the sun. It exaggerated the pits in her eyes with a dour shadow.


    "My son was a beautiful boy." Her crooked head looked straight into the floor. "He did not do much or know much or really think much.¡± Her eyes snapped up. To Turnus, to the group of strangers. ¡°I loved that about him. Strange, isn¡¯t it? That a mother could admire simplicity of all things, but in times of chaos and times of perpetual grief, simplicity was what kept me grounded. I loved my boy for it."


    She wiped her nose.


    "My simple boy was too little for a world that demanded so much. Too innocent, too kind. And above all, too honest amongst liars and thieves. He was all the things we expect of men and women, that we pride ourselves to follow. That we be pitiable. That we be kind. Kind!" She slammed her hand onto the the flat wooden surface of the podium. "And kindness killed him.¡± Her voice, broken. ¡°Kindness killed him. Kindness and the men who feed on it like parasites. Why is that? Why is it so hard to be Christian? To be gentile? We deem these noble things and pretend to value them, but reward the men who hurt us most. Is this our doomed state? To be of God but to live like the Devil?¡±


    She stopped. Her eyes still staring out to a horrified, nervous group. Like the Devil. You all asked for this, I didn¡¯t. And you¡¯ll get your comings, believe me. And she looked down at Turnus. God and God alone will judge me and when He does, I¡¯ll put my hands up and say the Devil moved me. I had no choice. And I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll understand. The Devil moved me, I had no choice.


    She put her hand over her mouth and stepped down. A butler, or helper as it was, came up to guide her down the steps. The people whispered and gasped and all around filled the open park with the eerie sounds of a confused funeral.


    "Get the car." She said. "Get me out of here.¡±


    The helper, a young man with green eyes and greener sensibilities, lifted her up and walked her onto a truck that zoomed by the road. The tombstones around her stared at her as she entered the black truck, windows tinted to almost an almost onyx. She took her hat off, she was balding at the top of her head and her flesh was stained with brown spots all across. Like a true witch, almost broken and crude and ancient looking.


    Her eyes were straight and narrow, as she looked down the roadless desert.


    "He didn¡¯t love him," She said. "He¡¯s full of shit."


    The young man nodded. He needed do no more.


    "Well I got something waiting for him, him and Richter." She said candid and low and shallow. The words barely had any volume to them and they were not directed, not to the men in the car at least.


    ¡°Tell Floyd to tell Luanne and Jezebel not to touch the elevator. Tell them to not even think of moving up or down.¡± It¡¯s as if the words weren¡¯t even being spoken, for her mouth did not move and her throat did not jump and her eyes were still and staring off to remote lands, far, far away in the horizon.


    ¡°Maybe they¡¯ll learn when I show them my souther hospitality,¡± She said. Her arm burned. ¡°Maybe when they¡¯re beaten and bleeding and cut and begging. They¡¯ll learn. All of them, they¡¯ll learn.¡±


    She turned, wheezing. Her breathing, exasperated. Her chest filling with air, her lungs pressed against her stiff bones.


    ¡°They¡¯ll learn the love and patience and anger only a mother could teach.¡±

 Death in the Family 2

    ¡°Jesus,¡± Dion said, staring down from the elevator now zooming up towards their floor. ¡°It¡¯s a ghost town.¡±


    They looked across the horizon. What was supposed to be a bustling metropolis now seemed to be nothing more than a shadow, an undercurrent of an already ruined city. It had been two weeks after Junior¡¯s death and approximately ten days after the closing of the casino. No staff was left, they had either quit, had been laid off, or were now waiting nervously for the future of their workplace, the casino El Rey.


    All because of the two murders. The disappearance of a young woman. The strange happenings.


    The exodus and destruction of the casino had started five floors a time, when Salome decreed that no staff and no one, in general, could approach the topmost five levels. It started like that and over the course of three days, had gone all the way down until no floor (not the main floor, not even the parking lot, not even a square mile around the casino) was accessible to anyone save for the family. And even that! Even that was only a fickle guarantee.


    For the family was split, and certain allegiances had been made in the shadows. Such that, no one family member (or Vicar) had all access to all floors.


    The Vicars had found this out by mistake when they tried to use their cards in the elevator only to find it halt midway on the fiftieth floor. They heard it was the same for the rest of Wolfe''s. There were floor-restrictions, as it was, placed on everyone''s cards. This was a decision made without the consent of everyone, in such a passive-aggressive manner, that it had left everyone sour. And tenuous...to say the least.


    The Wolfe''s hadn''t spoken to each other, Aenea had told them. No dinner was hosted. No greetings. Nothing. There was radio silence across the casino. But they were all here, all of them. She had them that too.


    But they could do nothing. And so it was that these two worked, even with these restrictions, tallying up evidence and struggling with the Wolfe family who now made significant efforts to dodge and avoid them.


    It felt like they were preparing for something.


    "It¡¯s the shadow of a ghost, honestly." Apollo stepped out to their preliminary stop by the ballroom. The elevator stopped with a loud creak. The elevator panel flashed in red and blaring words, ''Access Denied''. They¡¯d have to take the stairs. ¡°And if those two murders didn¡¯t kill the casino, then Salome surely did. Gossip, social anxiety. It didn¡¯t long for the corpse to rot. The staff left, the heart died, and here we are. In the rotting corpse of a skyscraper, host to a family of parasites.¡±


    ¡°Parasites?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°What else can I call them? Those who take advantage of the stupid and poor and their habits can be called nothing more than parasites. Cancer growths. I¡¯m glad this place is dying.¡± He took a cigarette out. ¡°It¡¯s a shame the city is going to die with it.¡±


    ¡°Why¡¯s the city going to die? A little over dramatic, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    ¡°The city will die because the attraction keeping it alive is gone. All the hotels, restaurants, tourist spots, all live as supplements to this thing.¡± He pointed to the windows and the floor and the ceiling. ¡°It¡¯s funny in a way. They put their whole hand on this place and now it¡¯s flipped. Bad bet, if you ask me.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ll survive. More importantly, what are we going to do?¡± Dion asked. ¡°We¡¯ve got two bodies on our hands.¡±


    "Hmm? What? What''s changed, Dion?" Apollo asked. "Junior isn''t our problem. And if he''s of any interest to us, it''s only in his relation to the death of the father. "


    "What about the family? They¡¯re¡­acting funny.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re witches. What do you think they¡¯re up to?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, god Damnit Apollo, I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on at all.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re witches. And they''re bound to a devil. It¡¯s an inheritance of a mistake their great great great grandfather made a long time ago. What do you think happens next?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m asking you that. Stop spinning it back to me.¡±


    Dion¡¯s eyes water from the cigarette smoke. Behind it, the veil of white, the bud of cigarette burns and glows red. Apollo¡¯s face is haggard, he has not slept, perhaps for days. And Dion stared at his tired eyes, for they don¡¯t even seem to blink.


    ¡°I¡¯ve heard a case like this. Out in Rhode Island, a family by the name of the Culvers. Real old shit, World War I old shit.¡± The smoke came into him, second hand, from Apollo¡¯s cracked lips, having passed by his tired throat. ¡°I call them family in the loosest sense. They were a group of worshippers of Belial. Had a whole gated community, even fooled the government into subsidizing their property after fiddling with the law. It turns out you can get away with a tax break if you''re willing to register your cult as a religion. As a ''church''. Anyway, this family also made a deal with a demon. And it too was something of a filial affair. I¡¯ll cut the boring shit out. But the family ended up tearing itself apart, kin killing kin. All of them eager and selfish to inherit Belial, or at least, their false belief that they would inherit Belial.¡±The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    ¡°How¡¯d that happen? How does something like that start?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°Easy, the son killed the father. Then he moved on to the mother, raped his sisters, then kill them too. The neighbors, the other cultists, eventually offed themselves too. The only survivor, funnily enough, ended up being the son. He¡¯s in prison right now, in Soloman¡¯s Keep.¡±


    ¡°This happened during World War I? Shouldn¡¯t he be a hundred years old by now?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m guessing Belial really did give him something. Something worth slaughtering his father over.¡± Apollo said. ¡°Funny thing, power. Goes straight to peoples head.¡±


    ¡°Why wasn¡¯t this in the news?¡±


    ¡°The Vatican put a chokehold on the government and subsequently, the media,¡± Apollo asked. ¡°I¡¯d blame the media, there¡¯s no shortage of spineless journalists after all, but it¡¯s not like the masses gave a shit either. People tend to forget and tend to ignore that which wanders near their stratosphere. And the closer something that horrible is (I mean, who would have thought it¡¯d happen on the rich soils of Rhode Island? A cult?) the easier it becomes to ignore. Maybe people forget bad news because it¡¯s the only way they can get through the day. Or maybe the repetitiveness of tragedy just becomes dulling. White noise.¡±


    "That was Belial. This is Mammon. The prince of possessions, of wealth and greed. They¡¯re different, aren¡¯t they?" Dion asked.


    ¡°The demons? Sure. The people? No. They¡¯re fucking H?xans. Same shit, all the time. Nothing changes, really.¡±


    They had entered the stairway somewhere along their conversation, up a few flights, and towards the fifty-fifth floor, where most of the main bedrooms of the family were. Out in the center, they saw the strange growth of marble left by Floyd, shadowing them. The lights were dim.


    ¡°The Culvers were cultists though, amateur mages at best.¡± Apollo pointed to the marble growth. ¡°We¡¯re dealing with the real thing now though. I can¡¯t imagine how bad things will get. This fight is going to be such a fucking mess.¡±


    "Fight?"


    "What else do you think is going to happen? Here¡¯s my detective guess about the intention of Junior¡¯s killer. Something tells me he figured, hoped, that with Junior dead, the family would be forced to fight.¡±


    ¡°But why?¡±


    ¡°To decide who earns Mammon¡¯s love. It can only go to one and it sure as hell doesn¡¯t seem like they¡¯ve all agreed to a successor. So they¡¯ll hash it out, the only way they know how. Which means¡­¡±


    "We¡¯ll have to defend Aenea," Dion said. ¡°She¡¯s as much a part of the Wolfe¡¯s as any of them.¡±


    ¡°You mean, I will,¡± Apollo said with strained breath, the stairs were getting to him, and his limp seemed to worsen with each step. His health hadn¡¯t returned. His sass, certainly. But even that seemed a shield, an arrogant pessimistic shield against the reality of his status as a warrior.


    ¡°We will,¡± Dion said, helping Apollo up. Apollo leaned away. ¡°I¡¯ve gotten better at shotting. I can fire all six shots now.¡±


    ¡°But can you hit anything?¡±


    ¡°We''ll find out.¡± Dion said.


    "Great. That''s exactly what I want to hear." Apollo laughed with the kind of aggressive sarcasm that was just perfectly hot enough to boil Dion''s blood. "Here''s another good question. Are you gonna be able to put a bullet in Salome''s head? Or Richter''s? When the time comes, of course."


    Dion said nothing. Apollo opened a door towards their floor of residence.


    "I''ll find a way."


    "Right. You ain''t no stranger to murder, after all."


    Dion''s eyes looked downcast as the light of the hall glared against them and as they approached their room and the low glow of the wall lamp near it.


    ¡°You better learn how to clear your head then." Apollo said. "Meditate or masturbate, pick your poison. Just make sure you''ve got your head straight for the fight. And it''s coming, I promise you that. I''m beginning to resign the idea of ever figuring out who the murderer was. And when that happens, there''ll be only one mode of conversation left between us and the Wolfe''s."


    ¡°Why are you telling me this? You¡¯re the one who can¡¯t stop hallucinating. How about you clear your mind.¡±


    Apollo stood standoffish against Dion. His face, wraped to a frown. He managed to turn it though, after a while, turn into a grim smile. He moved along, to the door, a crippled gait. Then Dion followed towards their room, and towards the wall lamps that flickered and dozed into darkness.


    Dion coughed. Nervously.


    ¡°Who do you think is going to attack first? If you¡¯re right about¡­all of this.¡± He blurted into the awkward silence.


    Apollo hunched over the door and worked the key, which appeared stuck. There was no beep of the verification device hanging by the door.


    ¡°Beats me. It could be anyone.¡±


    Apollo removed the key card, frustrated. He smacked the doorknob, heard something break and instead simply¡­opened the door. And Dion stared, confused that there was no resistance from the steel doorknob. Even stranger, in his observation, was that the paint on the door hinges was ruined with stains. That the wooden frame was chipped and a few scratches and prints decorated the walls near the hinges.


    Apollo took a step in. Dion grabbed him by the shoulder. He looked tired, glared back at Dion, tired.


    "What?¡± Apollo asked.


    He put one finger on his lips and nodded his head, with closed eyes. When he opened them again, they were crimson. And Apollo found out then and there, what deadliness waited for him behind the door. His smile remained on his face, superimposed through stifled and scared muscles. He reached his hand into his coat, both of them did. Dion shaking, Apollo stiff with a kind of paralyzing excitement. They looked liked explosives. Bombs filled with different recipes and magnitudes of emotions, but explosives - both of them - none the less.


    Apollo sensed it then and there. His eyes widened. Though he hadn¡¯t seen it or heard it or felt it.


    He knew it. The monster behind the door.

 Death in the Family 3

    Aenea came to the conclusion that something was wrong, though her intuition could not tell her what exactly. Perhaps it was the scent in the air, of that medicinal, sterile quality. The distilled atmosphere, like hospital air. It smelled of finality, death. Or at least, she presumed this is what death smelled of.


    She sat in a restaurant around a group of board members. There was no scent of food. Neither of wine. She was stiff. It was as if all senses were reduced to focus wholly and solely on these board members. Board members who called her ¡®the only sane Wolfe left.¡¯ Board members who forty-nine percent of the shares of the casino El Rey.


    She looked down at her half-eaten steak and then at the men.


    "Now we know your brother is dead and we don''t mean to bother you or anything..." One of them said, an old man with folded hands and a mole on the side of his cheeks.


    ¡°Why are you contacting me? I own less of this company than you all.¡±


    "Well that''s the thing, isn''t it? We don''t know who owns the company right now, which, as you can tell is quickly becoming a problem."


    "I¡¯d guess Salome owns it, right?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯d be wrong. There is no successor and no lawsuit to decide who does own anything. What¡¯s going on?¡±


    If only they knew.


    ¡°I can¡¯t help you there.¡±


    ¡°And the casino has been closed for a week now. We¡¯re losing money?¡±


    ¡°Ask Salome about it. And about the successor, while you¡¯re at it.¡±


    "That''s part of the problem," He said. "We can¡¯t talk to management. We can¡¯t get a single second of an audience with your mother- "


    "She''s not my mother," Her fork fell with an awful timbre of metal hitting ceramic. The other guests in the restaurant turned. Even the chefs, who cooked by the table-side, a flaming breast of duck were moved to stare.


    "Come on, don¡¯t get offended." The old man smiled. "That''s neither here nor there. Let¡¯s focus on Salome, as an entity of the Wolfe family, if that makes it easier for you then. She¡¯s a problem. Or rather, she doesn¡¯t know how to deal with problems. Now I understand two murders in such a short time frame - Family, especially, can cause issues. But that''s no reason to shut the casino down. We''re losing money, you understand that, right?"


    "Yes. I do. I¡¯ve got about a couple hundred resignations left to review." She said.


    "You¡¯ve managed well, see? You can manage stress much better than she can. Or the rest, for that matter. Why I¡¯ve seen you do it. You worked those casino floors for the little time you¡¯ve been here, and I¡¯ve seen you do some magic. Real magic."


    "What''s your proposition?"


    "I - We," He gestured around the table to the other smiling board members, seven in total, who looked at her with hungry eyes. "We''d appreciate it if you''d perhaps consider...taking over? As far as we can tell, your father never really left the casino in your mothers will. There''s an argument to be made, perhaps a lawsuit or two that might entitle you to some shares of the company. And maybe if you leverage with your siblings...we don''t know how your relationship with them might be but..."


    "I appreciate your consideration." She said, both annoyed, maybe even flattered and humbled and annoyed at being humbled. "But I can''t convince any one of those people, and I certainly don''t want this headache of a company."


    "We heard you''re very successful with your pharmaceutical company. A great startup, we hear - artificial intelligence to replace doctor¡¯s in analysis diseases and injuries - Incredible, though I don''t really know all about it, it''s way over my head. But that incredibleness, that quick wit is exactly why I want you to lead our company. You¡¯ve got a mind for the long term, don¡¯t you? It¡¯s a nice head on your shoulders, I can say that much. " He smiled, and she knew what those wide-bright teeth and that lascivious glint in his eyes meant more than just words. A kind of lust. "Big pharma? Tech Startup? Why not add a casino to your portfolio? You just need to fix it up where Salome ruined it. Then it¡¯ll run all on its own, perpetually. We promise.¡±


    "No, it really can''t run on its own." She said. "And I have no interest in adopting my father''s abortion, just like he had no interest in adopting his own."


    She frowned and they looked confused at her as if the words weren¡¯t even English but some foreign tongue in an accent both insulting and humorous.


    "Would you consider at least?" He asked, standing.


    "I will. I am. I have." She took her coat and walked out.


    The man with the mole sat down, twirling a fork and some strings of pasta.


    "God damn she''s as stubborn as her old man." One of them said.


    "Worse, honestly."


    "At least she has a pretty face."


    Another smirked, a younger man. "Beats the old shit in looks, that''s for sure."


    ?


    She would have loved to say that that was the end of things. That while she drove through the city and the streets (whose resemblance reminded her of dried, black rivers) that her troubles with this casino would soon be over. With the death of Junior, she was sure Salome would not have the intensity nor propensity even put a fight. That she was sure that Salome would leave the casino to Floyd, which to her seemed the obvious choice. And afterwards, that she could negotiate with Floyd and have the corpse buried back in California with her mother, that she would sit on the little bump of fecund earth and smile at the sunset.


    But one look at these streets, the bumpy, cracked roads, reminded her that her troubles had only begun. The city people, travelers, and natives alike appeared to her like apparitions, phantoms amongst the dying sun, with their dragged shadows cast against her BMW and behind them, the red glare of the sun. They looked lifeless. Limp. Thin, sickly thin. The life sucked out of them like newly victims of a vampire. She began to think how this all happened but realized the source = immediately when she came around to the parking lot and faced the casino. The main artery of the casino was blocked, cut, nipped along and what she saw now, was the slow bleeding out of the casino and the city into the desert.


    This city would be dead within years. She knew it. And she was kind of glad, even her father¡¯s monolith could die.


    She was glad. And sad as she stared up the giant accomplishment, the casino, and the operant lifelessness of it.


    But even this still, was not her concern. Not the premonition of the death of the city and not the choking out of the life of the casino, neither of these gave her the eerie chill behind her neck.


    It was the tattoo on her arm. The deep cut it left and the way it bled and burned and produced a kind of numbing ache all across the days. This scared her, this tattoo or marking or branding or whatever it was (she didn¡¯t understand, hadn¡¯t asked the Vicars yet out of embarrassment and shame and fear).


    She undid her sleeves to the see the damages of the day. There were blue veins near the markings. She nodded her head.


    She walked over to the elevator, her heels clanking, the machinery beeping behind her. The noise was loud when there was so little chatter to fill the rooms.


    She pressed the elevator button and rode it up. She stared at the sunset, watching it drive beneath her. Yawning. It was a steep climb up and the more she climbed, the sicker she felt at the stomach. Also too, was the strange sense of awe at the scale of the city. As if disgust and amazement both came to her and turned in opposite directions of her stomach, such that she at both got butterflies and weak legs at the same time.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    It was enough to make her rethink what the old businessmen said, staring at the city. The beautiful lights like stars in the sky. This was her fathers work, all of it. She was impressed, she had to admit to that.


    She put a finger against the glass and pretended, like a child, to poke out the lights with her index finger. She smiled.


    And the elevator stopped. Creaked to a halt. Aenea almost fell but held herself by the rail. The lights flickered, and the cart shook once more. It made her scream, a quick burst.


    Perhaps the machine heard her, for it begun again. It went up in a strained chug, stopping midway to her destination, stopping midway to the door. The elevator was stuck again, and this time in a peculiar spot. For she could only access half the door to the exit. She was afraid to go through it, fearing that the elevator would start (or drop) and sever her in two. After another creak and another shake of the cart and another scream (from her), the fear of falling overcame the fear of being severed, and she jumped, scratched, crawled her way through the small sliver of the door left open.


    The elevator dropped immediately behind her. She couldn''t help but gasp. She fixed herself up and composed herself, though could not fully wipe the sweat from her face.


    She turned around. She had found herself in a little section, a collection of poker tables sprawled across.


    There were no dealers, of course, no security either, for when she reached over to the emergency telephone wire, she could not find a single call line or even a single beep of electricity to tell her she was part of the world. The safe world, one she had just come out of and into this,a chaotic mess.


    She looked around, how couldn''t she? Sweating and frightened and wondering what mechanical mess had led her to this if it was an accident or something...worse.


    The tables were high risen, the stools looked like trees, black lacquered and dividing what little she could see in the darkness. There were empty tom collins glasses. She smelled whiskey. Someone had drank recently.


    She walked past it, she knew the layout well and knew that behind the bartender, behind the twin doors of the restaurant behind the bar and behind the giant white piano sitting in the spot line center-most of the room, was an emergency exit. A flight of stairs to get her out. She ran for them immediately, following small lights set on the floor to direct guests. Overhead, a few low hung lamps gave off a warm red.


    They were the first lights to die.


    Flickered. One by one. The bulbs popped and shattered and she felt the hot glass hit her scalp. She shook her head just to get the fragments out of her hair, and she looked around. Well, tried to. Abrupt darkness had left her eyes in a blur and daze. There were halos where the light had been killed from her. She rubbed her face and tried to see again, see anything. Nothing. Nothing but the single glow of light from the single light pointing at the single piano.


    With her hand out, she believed to trust herself to walk through the aisles of poker tables, touching for green felt and smooth cards and even more empty drinking glasses. She must have hit her hand half a dozen times, her wrist hurt. She was looking for the exit light. The giant, red light.


    She saw two letters. E X. Then, the E gave off. Only the X remained. Red.


    In her intoxication with the light, she struck something.


    "Fuck." She breathed hard and held her chest. A stool rolled underneath her heels. ¡°Fuck.¡± She sighed, in relief.


    It was enough to make her laugh, giggle even. Until the piano begun to play.


    Not any specific tune, not any number or piece. It was a random stroking of keys, abrupt, without that human touch of tempo that you find even in amateurs. It was a random smashing of keys, beating of music, hitting of the piano.


    She turned. Her head almost snapped at the speed of her anxious turning.


    Nothing. Nothing in the light at least, nothing she could see from across the room.


    When she turned around, she heard the piano start again and once again turned.


    She saw a glimpse this time, something small, like a small black tree branch, descending, then rising.


    She saw it fall down again. Then rise.


    Her eyes widened.


    The tree branch, what she thought it was (stupid thought! A tree? She smacked herself across the face for it), was shaking. It meandered about, wandering in a slow, methodical motion towards the piano. Licking it, wrapping around it.


    It was no tree. She realized this as soon as the cold chill swept across her body and her hands begun to shake and her tattoo stung and bit into her flesh, smearing her sleeve with blood.


    It was a tendril. And it treaded ground slow and steady, like a slow probing animal sniffing and observing the terrain, and her, low and with her hand around her mouth to block the scream coming out of her. She wanted to be calm, as collected as possible even when her body refused. She walked with a hurried carefulness, with jogging and skidding, but with her free hand (for she only had one available to her, the other was on her mouth still) extended out towards the chairs and tables to touch them before she could bump into them. And she was careful, at least she thought, as she wandered through the tables. They were so dark though. Too dark, and she, too clumsy in her heels. She grabbed them immediately after the entity appeared in her periphery, she grabbed her heels and throw them headlong away from her, far into a corner and stood still to let the noise dissipate amongst the silent, raw air . The entity made no movement, no sound either. She wasn''t even sure what it was, as it descended from the ceiling. It''s organs and limbs seemed dislodged and out of place, and it crawled with tendrils and long streaks of hair that collectively, looked like a pulsing muscle or heart. It made a stretch out. A colossal movement that shook the whole room. It moved with one giant limb, outwards, towards her like a clam, with its tongue about the ocean floor to pull itself forward. To eat.


    It moved. She saw everything in it move too. Its fleshy body was semi-transparent, so she saw what was digested. She saw the red glow of something. She saw a body too, a corpse.


    She had to bite her hand this time around to stop herself from screaming. And she drew blood.


    The creature wandered about, slow-moving, a large entity the size of a small truck, and getting bigger.


    Unconcerned, uninterrupted, this limbed creature extended small hands to maneuver itself and to drag in food. What food? Anything, any matter. It strolled with pompous leisure and abject aloofness.


    It didn¡¯t even want her.


    It wandered, hovered near her, its long legs latched onto the walls and ceilings. And when it was almost ten feet away, she ran.


    Far. Tripping twice, and getting up only once, for, by the second, she found her feet trapped underneath a table that she kicked away.


    And seeing the creature approach her like an large black whale, a large entity in the indifferent dark sea, with neither patience nor impatience for much of anything but grazing, seeing this entity she crawled underneath another desk to get away. To not look. For looking made her paralyzed with fear. Looking held her back.


    The tendrils extended out like feelers. They grabbed a table, the table she hid under, and sucked it into one of many mouths. White teeth, dirty with yellow stains, that ground and devoured (why¡¯d she look?!).


    A black hole, she saw it. Her hands shivering. A black hole, within an even blacker darkness that covered the room. She could barely see the purple flesh of the creature, the slimy and scaly flesh. She only felt its drool as it went overhead her. She crawled again, underneath it, underneath a table.


    She figure as long as she could avoid the hands, if only she could dodge the tendrils, she was safe. No matter the noise, no matter the movement, as long as flesh did not touch flesh and as long as she was not captured, she would live.


    So she acted as such. Wandering, tad poling onto each table like wooden Lillipads. Hopping underneath, above, around each table. Feeling the shavings of wood and glass, devoured by the creature, falling on top of her. The crumbs of destruction.


    She looked left and right, still hopeful, still looking. She found the exit again, around the creature that she now charged. Her feet were bleeding, she did not care. And a giant hand fell in front of her, pushing smoke and dirt up. She was walled off and twisted her ankle to turn. So what? She limped. My legs already hurt like hell. So what? What¡¯s a little burn?


    She was a mouse.


    And she screamed in pain and rage, and the monster did not care because those too, tears, was food as well. Those too were just matter to be eaten and absorbed by the demon. Fuel.


    She fell. Pained, crawling underneath tables. And she made the effort to take out her cell phone and to call Dion. He answered, of course, exasperated and screaming where she was. And she said the floor.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m on the floor.¡± She hissed.


    ¡°What?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Fifty-eight, don¡¯t be late!¡± She screamed. Nothing much more. The cell phone dropped from her hand, it fell to the floor, and she saw the tendril crawl up to it and pick it up. She rolled away.


    Wondering where she would run, for the exit sign was gone, the main light on the piano was gone, only a crushed residue of the piano remained. The strings were laying on the floor. She ran and wondered where to go or be, she looked up. The ceiling was covered. Almost all of the room was covered now by that sickly looking, scaly demon and its tendrils. Like a rooted tree across the wall. And these limbs pulsed. They extended out, out to every side and every inch.


    She was trapped.


    She always was trapped, right from the beginning, and nothing could change that now.


    "What do you want?" She screamed though she did not understand at what she was screaming at. The monstrosity was either beyond hearing or beyond the notion of conversation. She had lost her energy to cry, she instead raised her fist and beat it in front of her, towards the creature and his glowing misplaced eyes, five of them, that all rolled around before zeroing in on her. And more eyes appeared, on the limbs of this room-shaped demon. Eyes that traveled through the veins, through the fleshy body, and towards the center mass. So it appeared as though a hundred pairs, a hundred people judged her then and there.


    She could do nothing.


    Her hand was up, her face was hot, and she wavered in between anger and sadness. And she beat her hand. For the tendrils closed in.


    Why me? She asked, to the ghost of her father, to the memory (if she had any memories) of him. I didn''t want any of this. I''ve never wanted any of this. So why me?


    She picked up a wooden leg of a stool, still complaining, still fighting.


    You¡¯ve done me in once before and failed, now you¡¯ll do it a second time. Her hands shook. And succeed¡­and succeed¡­


    And she stood above a table, as the long shaky limb reached her.


    Taking the weapon out of her hands is easy, but she makes sure, out of spite and sheer audacity, she makes sure to make it hard for it to catch her.


    So she runs, in circles, mindlessly, she runs.

 Death in the Family 4

    I feel like a damn roulette ball, spun and forgotten, waiting to drop on the number. What number? Fuck if I know.


    Apollo put his shoulder against the door. Dion kept close behind him. Apollo¡¯s eyes, locked onto the peephole. Red, crazed. The silence in the hall was nauseating. He had forgotten to breathe in the sudden rush. Apollo faced the door, the peephole, observing it. He saw a blackness in it, a placid darkness. Then once. Twice. It moved, across, to the right. A smudge.


    He broke the door. He pulled back from the door, readied the shoulder of his amputated arm and pushed. Once. A single thrust that shot the door inward. The metal hinges flew. Apollo ran into the room with the immediacy that comes from fear and excitement, with his eyes focused and moving every which way. Dion, behind him, flipped the switch. The clank of the switch nearly ten times louder. As all things are, after coming from abrupt silence.


    ¡°The lights aren¡¯t working,¡± Dion said.


    Apollo turned to him, the light of the hallway behind Dion, he put a finger up to his lips and shushed him.


    He stuck his hand into his coat. With one swoop his blade came out, tall and wide and nearly covering the door frame and the light shining through it.


    From the kitchen was a door, leading to the living room, and a hall leading to their bedroom.


    Apollo did not hesitate to thrust his sword into the door. It imploded. The wreckage of the composite wood door filled the room with sawdust. That was the first scent.


    The second was of dried blood. And sweet, flesh rotting.


    Combined, the smell of the corpse and the smell of sawdust, he could not help but feel at both an urge to cough and an urge to hold his breath.


    Smoke and darkness clouded the frame. Both their eyes flashed red, it helped in seeing.


    Apollo stepped through the half-torn door, one foot at a time.


    ¡°Watch the hall, alright?¡± He said. Dion posted himself next to the hallway, his head turning, however, to the room Apollo was slowly encroaching upon. For that¡¯s where the smell came from.


    "What¡¯d you find?¡± Dion asked, his voice rattling with a certain tremble. Apollo put a handkerchief over his mouth, his eyes looked up at the wall. Blood was always hard to make out in darkness, it dried too fast and colored too darkly.


    He supposed then, that he was slightly lucky, that a lamp laying on its side on the floor still had the strength to buzz on and off. He raised it, the bulb was shattered, the lampshade was torn. It looked like shadow puppets dancing along the wall as Apollo raised the light above him and towards the blood and the smell of rotting.


    There was an arm. Dismembered. The blood ran out from its point of severment, the bicep. It was stabbed through with a small knife, and on the arm, with the bold green colored tattoo; the mark of Mammon glowed.


    It was a Wolfe¡¯s arm. Female. Though, in the darkness with only the bare minimum of a broken lamp to give him guidance, he could not tell whose. He only noticed nail polish and frail and soft fingers.


    He dug out the knife pinning the arm. The fingers twitched as he did so, though knew it, even in his fear, that they were merely muscle spasms. The arm plopped on the floor, and he looked down at it.


    ¡°It¡¯s a warning?¡± Apollo asked himself.


    That was about the time Dion got his phone call. He could hear his voice behind him, in the kitchen, pacing back and forth. He understood most of what happened and expected Dion when he came in, afraid. Apollo kept staring down at the arm, on the trail of blood on the wall leading down.


    ¡°She¡¯s in danger,¡± Dion said, briefly. ¡°We gotta hurry.¡±


    Apollo remained for a moment, staring at the arm before his eyes narrowed.


    ¡°So it was a distraction.¡± He said. And he walked out.


    ?


    They did not ride the elevator and had only taken the stairs halfway before they found most of the doors blocked. After that, it became a job of door busting and lock shattering before they could approach the doors. The high stakes poker room that had been re-assessed and transformed into what was formerly, the party ballroom. Now it was neither. Neither a place to wager nor a place to indulge. Now all it was, was a pulsing nightmare, a panic room for a supernatural monstrosity that did not want them in.


    They stood in front of the doors, only to find them a pulsing, flesh mess.


    The black, almost leather colored skin of the creature protruded through the small gaps of the doors. The fibers of muscle had at both devoured and combined itself with the door, such that, the pale doors appeared to be like wide teeth. An infants teeth, crooked and shaking with the pangs of pain of a new protrusion.


    The doors could not stop wobbling. The muscles, could not stop flexing, breathing in and out.


    Wet. Slick. Greasy.


    "What the fuck is this?" Apollo asked.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°It¡¯s not small time." Dion wiped the sweat from his face. ¡°A justice, maybe? A justice, Jesus¡­¡±


    A Justice, a group of third ranking hierarchal monstrosities. Third, which should not denote weakness. For a Justice, was that of which bordered insanity and chaos, and corporeal form.


    It was the Justice that gave him shaky eyes.


    Dion could not keep still. He wavered to the right, pressing his hand against the wall.


    ¡°Stay cool.¡± Apollo said. ¡°You can shoot, right?¡±


    ¡°Maybe?¡± He said. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I can¡¯t know that, can I?¡±


    Apollo, whose blade stood at a horizontal perpendicular to himself, looked forward to the door. He punched the muscles of the demon (wall, furniture? He wasn¡¯t sure, it seemed to contain and devour all).


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t look that mobile.¡± He said. He looked up, small tendrils were extending out and beginning to consume the LED lights and the panels of the ceiling. Sparks flew from the wiring. One of the tendrils backed away, quickly slithering from the sparks and the electricity and the hanging wire.


    ¡°It¡¯ll start overlapping as much space as it can, and it won¡¯t stop,¡± Dion said. ¡°On and On. Who the - Who would summon this?¡±


    ¡°When you act this naive, it makes me wonder if you even have a brain, Dion.¡± He said. The exasperation of the climb had caught up to him and made his words sound winded, dragged along by sighs and drawn-out vowels. It was a tough climb, one worse on his crippled leg, the sum total of the massive steel blade burdened on his body like a cross. He had taken this sword - what felt like - fifty fleets of stairs. And had come to this end, the overindulging, overflowing demon.


    Fifty fleets that he argued were necessary to climb with the blade. Because, as he reasoned, drawing it naturally from his coat would waste too much time. Time! Of course, which could cost him his life.


    ¡°I don¡¯t care what it is. We¡¯ll just kill it.¡± He said. His breath, still drawn and heavy.


    Apollo put his foot against the flesh-door and pushed his weight in. His foot sunk in through the wood, out the other side, caught in a web of muscles and fibrous purple flesh. He put his other foot into it (and he felt stupid for doing it too!) and found himself caught once more, into flesh.


    Dion had to pull on him, had to drag him out, splitting marble tile underneath his feet just to grab the traction to pull him out.


    "I had to try," Apollo said, with his palms to the floor, catching his breath. "It¡¯s like living clay though. A dynamic, living, quick-sand trap."


    "She¡¯s behind that, isn¡¯t she?" Dion put his hands to his head. "Jesus Christ, she''s behind there."


    "Yeah," Apollo asked. He raised himself slowly. "And putting your hands in the sky won¡¯t help her. Where¡¯s your grit?"


    Apollo lifted his blade off the ground. The sleek metal glowing silver from the little light showing overcast. It looked pristine, white as if the moon had been fragmented and him, given a piece. As a gift. As a safeguard. As duty and curse.


    "Move." Apollo put the blade horizontal to him. Dion stepped back. He focused, as well as he could, feeling for the circuitry of arcana bleeding through his arms. It was not quick, not really, especially with how unusual the mechanics of the blade were to him. The coordination and drawing and directing of arcana or his essence was all a strange task.


    It took long. Maybe too long, for Dion was biting his teeth and beginning to run out of nails.


    Then they felt it. Both of them. It struck them, the sudden hot flash of air like being hit by combusted steam pipe.


    They felt the vexed air. Apollo, unusually calm. His eyes were closed.


    The flux came steadily, currents of hot and cold both wrapping and drawing away from the blade. He could feel the heat of the blade in his hands, in his arms, as the life essence (Arcana) of his was transferred to, through small veins that appeared little more than spiritual schematics, and into the blade, where it began to glow and heat up.


    The air cried out. Seething, screeching from the heat.


    It whistled. From the three perforated holes along the base of the blade, like exhaust. And the flame, unlike his last blade (which wasn''t really his), wrapped around the sword. The fire spat out each hole. Mainly the lowest, biggest, hole. Which must have been two hands wide.


    Like a faucet of red flame that engulfed his sword and heated it to a glowing yellow.


    There was nothing in this dark room that was not shined, not flashed with the bright light.


    Dion had to put his hand against the light. Then, moved - ran - further away and behind a corner wall, as Apollo raised his blade overhead.


    Though crippled, through struggling to stand, he did so. His bones cracked. He felt his joints dislodge. Wrist, shoulder. He put the sword now behind him. His muscles flexed. He couldn¡¯t help but scream. In pain, in exhausted fury.


    He shot out towards the door.


    The room exploded.


    The large screen of flame came from every angle, surrounding him and the area around with the outline of yellow flame - the sound of combustion, deafening and the pain of his feet as they struggled to stand upon burning and melted floor made him kneel. The glass was smoldering yellow, burning through the floor. Glass walls surrounding him shattered, night air swept in immediately. To cool and tighten and harden the melted glass. Three floors up, three floors down. The glass was broken all along. They couldn¡¯t hear it shatter though. Nor could they hear the sound of water falling from the emergency sprinklers.


    The world was muted to them. Apollo, specifically, who suffered most of the acoustic humdrum.


    He couldn¡¯t stand. He stabbed his sword, now steaming from the water faucet, in front of him.


    At least the door was open.


    And that wasn''t all.


    And so was every wall around him. He was almost afraid he had killed Dion, and would have cried for his name had he not heard him walk around the corner (what was left of a corner).


    Sweating, soot-covered, the smog ran past them both, out the windows.


    They walked towards the open slit of the demon, into the room. Hot-glowing water pipes shot steam out from above them.


    And the creature awaited in front of them, Aenea too, who was being dragged into the saw-blades-for-teeth mouth. Apollo pulled away from Dion. His last bit of oomph in it. He spun and threw his blade. Out, towards the limbs grabbing Aenea.


    The limbs were cut (the smaller ones seemed weaker than the flesh walls).


    She fell, what must have been five feet, right on her sides.


    As did Apollo, who fell from his standing position.


    Dion ran to her first. Apollo face planted onto the floor.


    He looked backed, as consolidation, just to say: ¡°Are you alright?¡±


    Apollo, face down, said briefly: ¡°No. No I¡¯m not.¡±


    He felt a crack in his abdomen as the words were expelled. He wheezed out in silent pain, the air escaped his lungs. The explosive, the blast must have left him injured. The very vibration of air, compressed against his body had left him with broken ribs and a broken arm. And he had not eaten, feasted on a philosophers stone. So also, to the list of brokenness, was his regenerative capabilities.


    He was weak. His body slunk. Not crawled, slunk. Like a worm.


    "You said you were ready to fight, right?" Apollo coughed. Blood lubricated his throat to coax the words.


    He looked up to Dion whose eyes were shaky and whose hands could not even hold a still grip on his clothes. The purple monstrosity was all surrounding, all seeing. Omnipotent and seemingly, omnipresent.


    "You said you could do it, right?" Apollo looked away from him, towards his blade stuck in the side of the flesh wall of the creature. It was absorbed in, stuck in the wall. He looked back to Dion, still shaking.


    ¡°Well you better do something quick.¡± He said, vision fading. ¡°I¡¯m not going to be conscious for long.¡±


    And he felt stupid again. Like he had with Bartholomew. For he had given his weapon and himself, to the moving walls - to be eaten, and spat, and eaten again like a meat grinder.

 Death in the Family 5

    Now Dion was stuck by himself, with Aenea in his arms, who after being lifted for a good minute had decided to move and pull herself off his grip.


    "Drop me," She said. He did, somewhere near the exit of the room, along with Apollo who was still unconscious.


    Though it was hard to call it an exit. The opening Apollo had made had simply given the creature more confidence to spread itself, more urgency to grow and grow and grow and as such, its large and small tendrils both had begun to expand out towards the window of the casino, growing out like a tumor and continuing outside the window.


    He couldn''t take one step without feeling the squishy flesh underneath his feet and his feet sinking in. He had to pull, and continuously pull, Apollo out of the creature. For it began to look like he was being digested and considering how weak Apollo was, it seemed like he was just accepting of it. For he did not struggle, simply groan. Groan for or against his digestion by the demon.


    "What do we do?" Dion asked. Apollo turned his head, his body was facing down, being held by the chest. His neck didn''t even have the strength to move, and his eyes followed nothing. They just stared, emptily onto the floor, while the blood dribbled from his mouth. He began to laugh. An exhausted, abject, laugh.


    "I think I''ll give this fucker indigestion. Aha." Apollo said.


    "That''s not funny, do you understand where we are? What we''re dealing with?"


    "Of course, that''s why I''m joking." He said. "You''re always supposed to joke when things are hopeless."


    "So we''re just going to let it get out of control? Just keep spreading."


    "I can''t imagine you have a means to do anything otherwise," Apollo said. "My swords down and I don''t know how you''re going to kill it."


    It was true. Seeing the glowing red heart of the creature, he began to realize how quickly it moved across every vein and muscle in the monstrosity. Like a freeway, a blur that seemed like an intangible image, that red heart of the demon, driving up and down the walls. It looked like a red blur, a line streaked across.


    "You can''t shoot and you sure as hell won''t be able to shoot that," Apollo said. "Funny huh? Its weakness is right in front of our faces, and we can''t do anything about it. We''ll just have to wait then, for another team to come around and do our job."


    "Wait?" He asked. "Do you think this thing is going to wait when it comes down from the casino and starts eating this whole city. And then what?"


    "And then everyone dies, I guess. Or runs away, and we''ll definitely get reprimanded and executed."


    "Who cares about our execution?!" Dion screamed. "What about the people."The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "What about them? What are you going to do for them?" His voice was faint. It sounded like the shadow of a voice, the last wave of an echo that was beginning to die inside the cave. He was sleepy, tired, his weight dragged Dion''s arms down further.


    "Just let me die," Apollo said. "It wouldn''t be a bad way to go. In my sleep, inside the warmth. Not a bad way at all, there''s been worse times and worse places."


    "Be quiet." Dion pressed down on his gun. The grip almost bonded with his flesh with how hard he was gripping it. "Just shut up and let me think."


    ¡°And what do I do?¡± They heard her voice behind them, and it appeared to have shocked them because they turned with immediacy and fear. She stood there, barefoot and bruised all over. The side of her head bled and trickled down her cheek, to her neck, where it was lost in the rags of her clothes.


    ¡°Good question, what do you do?¡± Apollo asked. His body still facing down. By now a layer of mucus had begun to accumulate on the floor, bubbling and popping, like the white foam of a shoreline. ¡°How are you going to get us out of this?¡±


    By now, their imaginations had become dreadful. Dion could not think, let alone act. His hands were quivering, and Apollo wavered in and out of consciousness. It appeared that the only thing stopping from falling asleep was the constant tug and pull as Dion jumped, out of the way of tendrils extending out. The corridor, now smoldering, was also beginning to cool. And as it did, the monstrosity began to approach them. The fire kept it away, only momentarily.


    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t happen to be able to blow it up again, would you?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I can¡¯t move.¡±


    They both looked around. The panels were contorting to the shape of the monster. The columns, the wooden frame of the room, the pillars, all seemed to bend and break to the strength of the monstrosity.


    It was coming for them, slowly approaching but gaining momentum. They were in the first room now, leading themselves towards the stairs.


    Apollo dangled, his arms dragging back and forth. His eyes looked around, towards the fire and more importantly, the electricity around.


    How the sparks scared the creature away and kept it back. How they circled the open wounds of wiring.


    ¡°Dion,¡± Apollo whispered. The blood went in between the gaps of his teeth, and so warped his voice with gargles and coughs.


    ¡°What?¡± Dion asked. Aenea was close behind. Her feet were bleeding, though she didn¡¯t (or rather, couldn¡¯t) care.


    ¡°It¡¯s scared of the wires,¡± Apollo said. His eyes closing, one before the other. ¡°Electricity.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Dion asked. His guns shook in his hand, Apollo was underneath his left armpit. He felt Aenea tugging at his arm. ¡°Stay awake. Come on, stay awake!¡±


    Aenea nudged him hard.


    ¡°It¡¯s scared of fire and electricity. I think that¡¯s what he¡¯s trying to say.¡± She pointed to the exposed ceiling.


    ¡°Okay?¡± Dion asked. ¡°What am I supposed to do with that?¡±


    ¡°I need to go down and get a handle on the circuit breakers of this place. We can¡¯t shock it if the fuse box turns off on us.¡± She said. ¡°But if I leave it on, if I jam it on, we can run a current to it continuously.¡±


    ¡°Well, start running then!¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not that easy.¡± She said, pointing to the door and the long tendons covering it.


    He felt at once his fear rise again. The fear, manifesting in stillness. Idleness. As he stood, with Apollo in his arms and Aenea holding him, with his guns shaking and moving neither up nor down, but simply shaking.


    ¡°Go on, shoot it then.¡± She said.


    He put his finger on the trigger. But could not pull.


    For in front of him, scattered about, like a bad dream, was the image of Sophie.


    Of her corpse. And then, blinking. She disappeared. Replaced, by the image of himself with the gaping stomach wound. Laid out, like Jesus on the cross.


    He saw himself dead in front of the door, the tendrils fast approaching.


    ¡°Come on, shoot!¡± Aenea screamed.


    How he could he though? He could barely move.


    And the tendril approached, like a whip, coming straight for the back of Dion¡¯s head.

 Death in the Family 6

    He knew it was a hallucination and begun to think if he too, like Apollo, had gone insane. But the more he thought about the image in front of him, the more he realized it was not a product of psychosis, not of the abnormal kind at least. No, his illusion was a bit more grounded, a bit more real if that could be said.


    He was staring at himself, along with Sophie, dead on the floor. And it was an image strong enough to hold him in a trance.


    It was a death grip on his soul. A hand clench on his attention so hard that the flames of the burning room, or the expansion of a creature seemed like an irrelevance, an accessory to the scene.


    He wasn''t thinking of danger at that period. And after a while, (what was seconds, but felt like hours), a new image formed. Him, once again, walking into the scene with a spear coming out of his abdomen.


    He regretted having the capacity to remember. Of thinking. Of being.


    Something touched his shoulder. He screamed. His breath was hard and brief.


    "What are you waiting for?" Aenea asked. She pressed down on his body. Her hands were roughed, scratched and calloused. She came around and tried to help him raise his gun. It was a struggle, the weight was too much for her. And for him too, because his hands could not move. And she stopped, to breath and to scream and to slap his chest around, for the creature approached.


    "If you don''t do it, if you can''t do it, we die." She said, gritting her teeth and tightening her face. Here she was, obviously injured, with the blood running down her face and her body bruised and battered, with tatters for clothes. Rings of ripped flesh lined the limbs she had been grabbed from by the monster. They were red, bleeding.


    She was in pain, even Dion could see that. Yet she did not stop.


    "You don''t get the luxury to go off and daydream," She said. "Not yet, at least."


    His heart felt like it was going to sink again. Like something had cast him down, as he looked at the young woman struggling and then back to Apollo, now completely asleep under his armpit. He breathed in sporadic coughs, in bursts of wheezing air. The smog, the injuries, all compiling a complication on his lungs.


    He felt stupid. Amongst other things, and the idea of his stupidity made him feel weak.


    Sophie, still severed at the stomach, still in front of him created a frown of disgust. But more so than that, was himself. For the thought of repeating the same mistake, or crime, or sin (he forgot what it was) seemed more disgusting to him.


    His breathing eased. He felt his hand rise.


    His gun steadied. Not completely, for neither was he completely convinced. But he could raise it, he could do that much.


    He felt the air behind him move. He jumped, pushing Aenea to the side as he did so. The black tendril, a sword almost, had cut through the thick atmosphere of smog, stabbing into the floor.


    He landed on the floor next to it, steadying his gun once more. He heard it click. His heart, he swore, had stopped beating. His eyes aligned to the door and the large black mass covering it.


    He felt the shot ring through his body. A familiar feeling.


    Three times before the gun slipped out of his hand.


    The loud flare of the gun nuzzle had blinded them, the meteorite flying through the air whistled. With a crash, the doors broke. The blood of the creature spilled everywhere. The tendril wriggled on the floor.


    Silence possessed them all, the creature most of all.


    He dropped one of his guns. The recoil was too much. The other remained, opposite to the hand he held Apollo.


    He was starting to hyperventilate. Seeing this, Aenea grabbed him and pulled him towards the door.


    He rushed them down the stairs.


    "What took you so long?" She shouted. Apollo dipped into consciousness temporarily, to stare up. He took one look at the stairs before his head fell again. The smoke rose through the center, like a chimney shoot.


    "Life''s complicated." He said. "I can''t even promise I''ll be able to shoot again."


    "That''s great to hear. That''s exactly what I want to hear!" She said. "What''s the plan then? You wanna shock the thing, right?"Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    "Yeah, Apollo said something about wires. Electricity." He said, "Your job is a little different, though."


    Floor twenty-one, the numbers flashed in front of Dion on the top of the door frame. He stopped. She had a long way to go and they both nodded in understanding.


    "Get to the fuse box and make sure it doesn''t shut off on me, all right?"


    She shook her head. Her bloody feet made a slapping noise against the floor. Behind him, a room full of slot machines, a noise, rattling bustle.


    He pressed his shoulders against the door and broke through them. Apollo groaned.


    "Watch it."


    He was awake. It made him breath easier.


    A giant screen looked on from above, on an overhead in the center of the room, where it glared at him with passing colors of red and yellow. News forecasts, jackpot winnings, different specials and deals and advertisements for things no one cared (and there was no one to even bother). It had a glare to it. A terrible, giant red glare. He walked into it. Behind him, he heard the drag and snag of the creature''s tendrils like a passing snake. He could hear the crackle of metal and concrete expand in the stairway.


    And after some time, it slipped into the room, squeezing through the door frame.


    Dion ran to the center, where he had the most area to view the creature and to see where it traveled. It had brought its whole body here, which as he further analyzed, was more significant than it had been before.


    He waited, with a table flipped over and his shoulder against it as cover. His throat was scratchy. He swallowed spit. His head peeped over the side of the table, dragging across as he observed for the creature. The bottle broke beneath, leaving trails of glass where the long tendrils walked through.


    And he began to dial his phone. He only had one gun, anyway. And with it, only six bullets.


    "Are you close?" Dion asked.


    "Yeah. How are you holding up?" She asked.


    "It''s not doing much." Dion looked to his rear. He placed Apollo on the floor and put his back against a small step, hiding him. "But I think he''s going to start getting lively soon."


    "What floor are you in again?"


    "The twenty-first. Direct everything here,"


    "I told you! I''m not there yet."


    "Hurry then." He hung up. And it came to him immediately, that he only had six shots before reloading. Six chances to miss or hit, that would, he was sure, decide his life or death. He stood then, tall. Running from Apollo, concentration the attention of the creature, now beginning to fill space and cover the walls.


    There was no darkness to hide the monstrosity. The vascular limbs, the scales, the heart that paced through its small tendrils and veins like a speedy, red blur. He needed to shoot it. He was sure. But he needed to keep it still, to shoot the heart.


    So that was the game then. Finding a means to stop the organ traveling through the creature. It was terribly sad, this joke of a fight. To have the weakness suspended in front of him, the glowing heart, and to still have it so far from him. It felt like a mockery.


    A tendril shot out. Like a rod of black steel. It struck the floor. The debris of the floor rose rocks cutting his cheeks, halfway into his inner mouth.


    He couldn''t focus on his injury. He saw tendrils approaching...approaching...where?


    To his rear! He put both hands against them. A limb whipped him.


    His body shot down, dragging along the floor. A line was formed through the tile of the floor, pulled in the trajectory of his body. Another limb came for him. He stood slowly, tile interred in his skin fell off. Blood left the exit wounds. Most of it collected behind his shoulders. It felt like a burn and a cut and everything in between the pain of broken bones and the pain of a gash of skin.


    He breathed hard. He felt his lungs ache. He was glad he still had his gun on him. That he had not dropped it. And in his desperation, shot once against the hands approaching him.


    It shot through the approaching limb.


    The black mass of flesh plopped down, the monster made an... audible sound. Though all he could decipher was that...it was sound. Of some kind. A hellish screech, from a sonic platitude that rose and rose and rose before the screech became indistinguishable to silence. Though his ears still buzzed and his eyes still winced and he still felt the vibration of air. Too loud, too loud.


    When it was done, Dion''s ears rung with buzz. Then brief deafness, like the aftershock of an explosion.


    Somewhat muted, bleeding, hurt. He looked around, desperation in his eyes.


    His eyes caught a glimpse of the wires above traveling up the ceiling.


    His eyes were focused, but the monster did not care. It came again. He dodged. Jumped, traveling up a limb. Jumping off it, hanging himself by the chandeliers and the lights.


    Jumping. Hopping, chandelier to chandelier. Avoiding the shooting limbs.


    By now the creature was more of a mass of flesh, for its body had completely covered one wall. It had many limbs, many ways to attack and Dion saw dozens of them extend towards him. They struck him, the chandeliers, destroyed everything in the ceiling.


    The metal chandeliers crashed down.


    His eyes focused though, beaten, tossed around. He focused on the television panel (right in front of him!). He narrowed his vision to the large wires, like pumps. They dangled, and waved back and forth, enticing him almost.


    He was struck on the side and bounced off the floor. His ribs felt fractured, he knew that feeling well. He rolled around on the floor for a while, dodging other limbs shooting out.


    He pushed himself off. He ran into a sprint, holding his sides, knocking down slot machines and the quarters that spilled from their mouths. They exploded into metal shavings, into smoke.


    He hid behind each one, like small spartan shields, and kept his body low as he approached the giant monitor.


    He climbed up to the television, hanging by it by the edge and waiting. Waiting. Waiting.


    The creature shot out.


    Dion let go. His body fell, the limb struck the glass panel. Then through it.


    And it was shocked, immediately. The lights in the room flickered on and off.


    Dion steadied his gun, the joy and glee on his face, a familiar feeling.


    He looked for the red (Now still! Still!) heart of the creature. His heart rate increased. He aimed.


    He aimed...


    Aimed? Fire. Aiming. Fire, please.


    He saw Sophie again. He saw Astyanax. He saw both fast approaching, and shot. Shot the hallucination. The imagination.


    He shot. And...missed.


    And the power went out.


    And he could hear the creature, screeching once more, in absolute darkness.


    He tried to dial his cell phone. It rang. But no one picked up.

 Death in the Family 7

    ¡°Shit¡± She ran down the stairs, tripping twice or perhaps thrice, she didn¡¯t know really what to do or count or think. She merely ran and went out to the back upon landing in the main hall. The lights were dark. They were yellow and lined the way to her destination, out the back door behind the restaurant of the casino and to the outside world. She burst out like a blonde flood, both hands placed against the doors to the exit. She ran towards the parking lot, though only needed to go half way. Through a chain link fence, and into a shed of generators in some dingy room, where the dusty glass filtered light into a blurred and low glare.


    A metal lock held this door, one she opened with keys hanging on a lanyard on her waist pocket. The wind was cold beneath her, there were no crickets or indeed no sound. There was nothing in this large casino, nothing that could be considered life. She walked casually inside or appeared to be casual, though her heart raced and her eyes paced across the horizon of the room for the metal box. She found it across, in between, it was two rows of four generators, spinning and humming like engines of some forgotten warmachines. She paced through, it was a center shot inside.


    About halfway she felt a pain in her arm. She squinted and looked down, her brand was bleeding. It ran down her sleeve, and she was sure had the coloration of green, something shiny and reflective, like the exoskeleton of a fly. She dismissed it, as much as she could at least, for it still frightened her, but the task at hand frightened her even more.


    She walked towards the box, a man-sized sheet of metal that creaked open and looking inside, she could not tell what was what. For the switches were on and off in strange orders and referred to numbers and floors, she did not understand. Such that, she looked at the fuse and out the window to the top floors of the casino. She turned switches on and off and watched as the lights of whole levels turned on and off. And so she began mapping the schematics of the fuse box to the levels. She worked her way down, getting rid of every useless apparatus and every useless light.


    The street lamps were turned off, the giant sign at the front too was turned off, and the casino grounds were reduced to dead-space, like a graveyard. The warmth and the buzz remained alone, amongst the dead lamps and lights.


    She was beginning to get confident and recognized what floor she needed to remain on. A giant lever was set next to the twenty-first-floor switch, one that would leave it on indefinitely. One, she struggled to pull and pry across. One that made clicks and clacks and groaned as she ran it across.


    She looked at it, halfway, breathing hard and cursing at herself. She stared into the switch box, which she now realized was rusted and croaky. And breathing hard, and relaxing, she noticed in the corner of this metal wall, a reflection. Herself, of course, blond haired and messy, and then¡­something else. Behind her.


    She moved aside. The wall near her shattered, she wasn¡¯t even sure if the fuse box was intact. She only saw, from the floor looking up, a hooded figure and a long blade like a dagger running across.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    She shrieked as she crawled out and behind a generator.


    When she looked around, the figure was gone.


    Her breathing gave a false sense of security, for it was neither hard nor constant. She wasn¡¯t breathing at all. Her eyes merely looked side to side in wait.


    And after a moment, she felt her arm bleed again.


    She jumped, in the only direction that looked clear, and she felt her hair cut and fall to the floor.


    She looked behind her again. The figure returned into darkness.


    ¡°Who is it?¡± She screamed, walking towards the center, towards a hanging bulb and the weak light it rendered.


    No one responded. Though she could see the figure move along in the long shed, along the walls, with a dagger crooked and chipped.


    She felt a cut along her shoulder, something light that trickled down. Blood wasn¡¯t a stranger to her though.


    She waited, feeling her arm which to her now appeared the only instrument in safety. And in her waiting, she heard her phone ring. A dial from Dion and looking up the windows by the side of the little shed, she could see the light turn off on his floor.


    She looked behind herself, only a small glare, and felt her mark burn and bleed again.


    She jumped down and watched as the blade interred itself the steel fuse box, into the wiring and the electricity. How it went smoothly through the surface, like water, and how it remained interred afterward, like a holy sword in a rock.


    The electricity and sparks shot out, as did smoke afterward. Smoke that wrapped around the masked figure, smoke that she ran from and out the door.


    She dialed her phone as she did so, with her eyes looking every which way.


    ¡°I fucked up.¡± She screamed in between heavy breaths. ¡°I fucked it all up, I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Dion asked. ¡°What went wrong?¡±


    She put a hand on her forehead. In confusion, in anger, for her eyes showed both.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Someone¡¯s chasing me, I don¡¯t know.¡± She ran behind a pillar, in the parking lot now. There were no lights, she was to thank for that. And so she followed the sound of leaks and of small debris falling from one parking lot floor down to another. ¡°What do I do?¡±


    The phone broke into static. Then a loud bang, a scream. And more static.


    ¡°Come on.¡± She screamed at it, she raised the glow of the phone outward. There was no burn of her tattoo, but she needed to be sure. Then she hit it some more.


    Dion picked up again, groaning and spitting.


    ¡°I won¡¯t be able to kill it.¡± He said.


    ¡°What do we do then?¡±


    ¡°Kill the person who summoned it.¡± He said, desperate-like. ¡°Kill the summoner, you kill the pact. Kill the pact, the demon disappears.¡±


    ¡°Is that who¡¯s chasing me?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Dion said. ¡°Where are you?¡±


    ¡°In the parking lot.¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°In the parking lot!¡± She screamed. She felt a burn in her arm. He jumped forward. The blade went through the pillar. Not just the blade, the black-gloved-arm too, as if it wasn¡¯t even apart of this material plane. As if it had just phased through, before materializing, and shattering the stone that took up its space. The rest of the figure came through, right through the metal.


    She shrieked. She crawled back as the figure looked down at her and walked. Walked, just so casually. Walked, as if it had no other care in the world, as if this meant nothing.


    Walked with complete calm. As she shrieked and ran, and grit her teeth and roused herself into fearful fury.


    She ran, down a floor and down the stairs. Ran, dodging knives coming out of the steel stairs and out of the metal walls, like a funhouse of madness.


    She ran, thinking, how in the hell am I going to kill this thing? How in the hell am I going to survive?

 Death in the Family 8

    The world went fast by him, or perhaps he went too fast for the world. For Dion jumped and pushed and was dragged around. And his body was in constant movement, to dodge or block or following a trajectory from his being struck. So it was, him bouncing around each panel, each large floor tile, dragging with him debris and destruction in streaks across the room. He was like a bulldozer. A small, black ball, taking with him a bit of the wall or the floor or the slot machines. The coins littered the floor.


    His body rolled around, he had just been struck. The metal clanked, stuck to his clothes and falling to the floor. He rose. The blood was all across his face and between blurred vision and blood covered eyes, he did not see well ahead of him. Though, it was hard to miss the creature, who by now was a behemoth across his whole horizontal vision. He (the demon) was half the room. Not figuratively, there is no symbolism here. He was quite literally, half the room. A blob, forming to the square shape, stomping over slot machines and glass and wood.


    Light was behind Dion, outlining him. Light from the moon and the stars and the city like a mural of bright yellow dots and streaks. The glass had been shattered behind him long ago and now his whole body was exposed to the air, to the cold air.


    His head labored left and right. He looked around him, though could not see much. His body was operating on pure sensation, pure instinct. Contrasted with this were mental images forming on the floor or in his front vision, images of his own death. Imaginations of being punctured by the demon, apparitions or destiny perhaps.


    He was starting to accept his death.


    He opened his mouth to shout, he felt a tooth fall and hang by its root. One of his eyes was swollen. His regenerative powers did not operate on it. No, it took care of his ribs and his arms and his hemorrhaged skull.


    Each breath he felt his broken rib cage press against his skin like an internal knife.


    He wasn''t even sure how he moved, only that he did. He certainly did not know why he still held his gun, that by now had only one bullet left.


    The demon approached like a moving wall. Dion hung back, walking towards the edge of the room where the breeze wafted a nearby curtain. He remembered, strangely, perhaps because the parking lot was outside, Aenea saying something or another about it. The thought quickly faded.


    All thoughts focused on the demon.


    All he felt was the slow moving of time and his bodies labored movements. Each movement dragged an afterimage, it was like his perception only worked in micro-chasms of time.


    How many times have I missed? He looked down. Blood streamed down from one eye. I always miss the mark, isn''t that the truth? I don''t think there''s been a single time that my aim''s been true, that I could say with confidence that what I hit was what I meant. That what I meant was true to me. The air stung his cheeks, whose wide cuts appeared like a crescent moon. I am a living hypocrite. A hothead that can''t shoot when I need to, that can''t miss when I need to. That can''t do anything but misfire. Always. Misfire.


    His head rose. His cheeks shook, they were swollen black and blue.


    Behind him a draft blew, it raised his coat tails and stung against the cuts all across his body.


    The demon attacked.


    He dodged. Left. Right. Like dance. The creature shot out limbs every so often, in sporadic and irresponsible anger. He couldn''t even hear the air split. His eardrums were popped already from the creature''s shout.


    He just dodged. Ducked. Rolled around and kept his side of the room as well as he could. But looking towards the creature, which by now had become a tumor growth, a cancerous blob and mass of flesh. A parasitic body, wandering, absorbing. He saw this thing approach. He saw the veins and the black skin and the slimy, hungry arms and the almost childish curiosity of its dissecting limbs approach.


    I''ll jump. He looked between the edge of the high-rise and the demon. I''ll jump and I won''t give the son of a bitch the satisfaction of eating me. I can at least do that much, I can at least stop myself from being eaten.


    But as his feet went to the edge, he stopped. As he looked down and the streets looked up at him, he froze. He felt it, vertigo, like a wind pushing him back. A feeling that of course, pulled him closer towards the creature.


    He tried to jump again, this time with a head start. It was even worse.


    Another misfire. His lips trembled. He could feel a tear in his eye. Why can''t I do anything right? Why am I disobeying myself? It''s like I got two legs both going opposite directions. That I know better but can''t act it. That even trying to be right hurts, and failing hurts too.


    He bit down on his tongue. One half of his left foot stuck out by the window frame, the glass crackled beneath the other. The wind blew his hair, he had no mask. His face, bruises and cuts an all were exposed to the harshity.


    He looked behind him. He saw the many limbs, like tree branches, skinny and dreadful.


    "Did you forget what our jobs are?"


    He heard the voice. It was hoarse, pained. And it went through the intercoms, through the walls almost.


    "Jump, go ahead. You can do it, you can live if you want to."The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Again. Familiar. His heart begun to beat, he clenched his hand.


    "If you want to die though, stick around."


    He didn''t. He jumped. Close to the wall, so he could stab his hand through the metal girders and window frames, so he could pull and drag his body through the side of the casino, falling, falling falling. He felt his arm cut and sliced.


    He felt the blood and muscle and bone torn and streaked across the wall. Until, at last, it came to a stop, and himself, to a pained sigh.


    His arm was cut up from the clawing he had made to get there, which he was sure, was a four-floor drop. His feet slipped against the darkened glass he stood against. He stuck his hand deeper into the wall and looked up.


    The limbs were fast approaching, four black ones, traveling down towards him like snakes.


    It wasn''t enough. He groaned. His gun was still out, pointed towards the limbs. He''d kill one of them, at least. Then fall. That''d be slightly more dignified, he was sure.


    And just before he pulled the trigger, the floor above erupted. The twenty-first floor exploded.


    The fire blew out the side of the windows like exhaust.


    Smoke followed.


    As did water sprinklers.


    All of it rained down on him. And him, staring at the explosion and, after a while, when the wreckage cleared, staring out into the wide expanse.


    ?


    It was through the complex web of tunnels and floors that she had managed to reach the first floor, every so often looking behind her and every so often enduring the quick jabs of a knife coming in and out of walls. It was as if she was being chased by a shark, some subterranean predator, with its bladed fin going through the floors and walls and with its eyes hell-bent on killing her.


    She could not stop and was beginning to slow, her feet were bleeding. The cold air stung and had made her, for brief periods, stop her momentum and grip her swollen cuts. This had nearly killed her twice.


    She did not know why she was not dead yet. She wasn''t thinking for most of the chase, only equated stopping to death and after a while was reduced to whimpering run. Fear ran her, coaxed her feet to go down the steps. Her athletic body (thank god she was) allowed her to persevere but even that failed after a while. For her muscles were strained, her breath bated, her sweat runs dry. It was then that she began to feel the heat of her body finally approach, it was then that her eyes stopped and looked down. The knife was coming from the floor. From below, she was on the second floor. It ran up from the floor, aiming to slice her vertically in half.


    She moved her leg up and tripped to the side. She felt the cut on her thigh and she screamed, holding it. Screaming. Swearing.


    She composed herself to stand and by now dragged her legs to the stairs. Then seeing the figure waiting for her there, turned. She looked back briefly, only to yelp.


    The figure was gone.


    And she stood center. There were no cars. Only pools of residual oil and black stains. There was nothing, save for the low droplets of leaking water from the sides of the walls. And it made her think. She looked around. Her eyes easing. Droplets. The sound, echoing through the building. The miniature sounds, louder and more pronounced in the complex.


    Sound.


    What sound does it make?


    What sound? She hadn''t thought of it. Running and slapping the floor and tripping had stopped her from thinking of things all together.


    What sound?


    The knife approached. Her arm bled to warn her (she accepted it as a warning long ago). It came like a scythe for her neck. She ducked. The figure retreated back into the concrete roof.


    What sound was that? It sounded like ripping.


    And more blades came, her arm bleeding more often.


    It sounds like paper, ripping.


    Her eyes opened wide as she ran through the floor, dodging as best she could. She felt a cut on her shoulder. A cut on her arms.


    She reached a fire extinguisher, one she picked up and hoisted over her shoulder.


    She heard ripping. She turned and threw her fire extinguisher. It phased through the figure. Of course, (it was metal!).


    But she noticed too, at that instant, as the blade approached her, that it too phased through her.


    So it was, in this crazy fray, that she began to think about it clearly.


    It could do neither both at the same time. Phasing and attacking, material and ephemeral. It was only a constant shift between one or the other, and she supposed, its whole body had to abide by that law. So it could neither have an arm both material, and a leg, ephemeral.


    And she noticed, quickly. As she approached a puddle of oil, that it too went around the puddle. She stood at the center of the oil, it dripped into her feet-wounds but her face was tight and focused. No pain could distract her. Not again.


    She noticed the figure, a shadow in the asphalt and concrete, swimming through. It was not approaching her in the puddle, not approaching liquid at all.


    So it''s limited?


    The thoughts gave her courage, like nothing else would. Her breath focused. Her eyes looked around to the stairs and to the sloping level downwards.


    It came to her like fire, something to fuel the empty feeling in her body.


    Courage.


    She sprinted for the falling hill, out into the streets. Her footprints left puddles of oil and blood, ones the figure avoided.


    She was heading for a fountain outside the parking lot and noticed the figure only had one means of travel, the asphalt floor.


    She touched the grass. The figure approached, materialized rather, behind her and onto the grass. It too was running now.


    So that was it.


    Concrete. Metal. Asphalt. Stone. That was all it was. Travel through those fabrics, nothing more.


    Travel that could only be held one way and one way only.


    So she ran towards the fountain, avoiding the black spots of asphalt and avoiding boulders.


    She went through the hedges, went through fields of grass as she approached the fountain (which unfortunately for her, was center of a large stretch of concrete).


    But she traveled anyway, because by now she had a lead, even with her injured leg.


    Her vision was fading though, and the figure was still audible behind her.


    She went towards the fountain and stood center.


    The cloaked figure approached her, seemingly unworried. For she was sitting center of the fountain, center of the water where she sat on her ass, breathing heavily. She didn''t even have the energy to scream. Tiredness had rendered her immobile. She had a hand over her chest, and another holding her above the water. Her chest went up and down with deep breaths. Her eyes were shaky.


    The figure approached, knife drawn, water trickled down its body. But it had no need to phase. It was high above Aenea, looking down at her.


    It raised its blade.


    And a large pop was heard.


    The figure tried to phase, sunk almost an inch. But it was blocked. It could not go through water, could not even move. Its wispy body returned to solid-state.


    And the bullet ran straight through its neck, nearly taking its head clean off.


    The figure stopped. Paused. It held its neck for a moment, in shock almost, for the running blood that came down. And then it looked at Aenea, its strained eyes set upon hers.


    She pitied it, for a moment, this creature. Aenea pitied it, as it fell down, letting out a female wimper.


    It (the fiend chasing her, leaving her breathless) was a girl.


    And she (the figure), fell on her knees and after a moment, fell onto the pool. Which to her, seemed like a font of blood, and which to Dion, looking from above the side of the casino, appeared to be the den of sharks. Bloody and carnivorous.

 Death in the Family 9

    It was by then, a few minutes after the murder of the hooded figure that they realized there was no danger. No immediate danger, at least. He stared up the long streak left on the steel beam. In front of him, the tinted glass of the side of the casino, and above him and the scar of metal, the floor window he had shot out of.


    Tentacles hung out from outside, pointing down as if in rest. They were on fire and now, as the red heart came to a slow stop, they began to rot. Apollo approached the monstrosity, bleeding from his head, leaned over the side of the window. He thrust his blade hard through the heart of the monster.


    The body decomposed into a mineralized, calcified gritty substance. Then it disintegrated, philosophers stone and all, sprinkling down at Dion who still hung by the edge.


    "How long can you stay there?" Apollo leaned over to look at him, the blade was stained in his hand.


    "As long as it takes you to pick me up." He said in a voice both quiet, and nervous. "Please, hurry."


    He looked down below him, then up, for the feeling of anxiousness had struck him in the stomach. Apollo limped away, presumably to an elevator or staircase.


    And Dion looked to the side, at last. To the city, for what filled him now was a much more shallow fear. The nightmare was over, for now. Or perhaps he had just awoken into a bigger dream, and a bigger terror and that this was only a small break from the actual panic.


    ?


    Aenea stood in the pool of the hooded woman''s filth. Blood and bits of flesh floating like dead leaves. On her, the exasperation finally collapsing on her. Her breaths were deep and her eyes were closed and looked away. Neither pride nor courage nor fear could stop her from this moment, the moment of disgust and relief.


    The fountain continue for a moment. The water splashed about, hitting her and coloring her bloody. Nuggets of flesh touched her palm, floating towards her. She pulled away and huddled outside of the fountain, outside where she knelt and breathed and cried in a ball.


    Staring at a corpse was easy, at least now it was. But surviving death? Even she couldn''t calm down from that, no matter how cold or calculated she was. She had never seen someone die.


    She saw bits of bone float casually upon the water surface. It left her quiet.


    She stood after a moment, with a covered mouth, to look at the back of the corpse.


    Pain had finally caught up with her. Strange, of course, because she hadn''t realized it until now, that her arms and thighs bled and ached. She felt relieved too that pain had decided to wait for her to be done with the damn thing. That it had stalled this long. The her suffering had courtesy at least.


    She walked over to the figure, dragging one leg and nearly collapsing. Her hands trembled. Her face hardened and she looked down at the corpses head. The dagger rattled on the floor and she twitched, startled enough to back away. But upon further inspection, there was no doubt that the creature was dead. She called it a creature, of course, because that''s all she knew of the figure. That it had on it a ruthless ambition to kill her, and to her that kind of motivation seemed inhuman.


    She leaned in closer to the creature. Her hands, shaky. Her palms, sweaty, even below the thin sticky layer of water droplets.


    She stripped the hood off the murderer. Her eyes froze for a moment, then narrowed. Even the mutilation of her head could not disguise her.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Jezebel.


    Her mouth, slightly ajar, she stepped back and fell. Then she bit her tongue, for she felt a sigh or a cry or a bitter scream urge her.


    Her sister had tried to kill her. Of all things, her sister.


    Aenea looked closer down at Jezebel. She looked to the blade, which was onyx and embelished with gold at the hilt, and she looked at the other side, opposite the blade.


    She was missing a hand. An arm, to be specific.


    Aenea took off her cloak, her body exposed underneath. Jezebel wore a simple black shirt, something tight around her waist and gloves for her (single) hand. She wore some type of leggings, something mobile. Wrappings on her feet. That was about it, nothing else was on her person and Aenea wasn''t interested in a full body inspection. She was too busy suppressing a vomit. When she was done, she looked up to where the shot that saved her life had come. Which, as she realized, was Dion. She hadn''t planned on Jezebel getting shot, really, that was more of a miracle as she reflected. She wasn''t even sure she was glad he had shot her.


    She had killed her sister, or at least gotten her killed. It was luck, she guessed, that saved her. Not good or bad luck, but just luck. Luck, of which, she had never believed in before, and luck that she came to appreciate as the corpse fizzled underneath the clogging of the fountain drain.


    She stared back up at the casino and to Dion.


    He was only a speck on the side of the wall and in the darkness was little more than a deeper shadow among the blackened walls of the casino. A speck, lifted by Apollo, through the window and into the casino.


    She took out her phone but realized it was drenched. Many realizations followed, like the realization that her arm had stopped bleeding and burning. That her thigh needed stitches. Her nose too, felt broken and each breath she took made a whistling noise.


    In front of her, the statue of an angel and an urn, pouring bloody water above the corpse.


    It was a familiar sight, this fountain. One she admired as she heard Dion and Apollo approach, with tired, dragging feet.


    They came from the under-walk of the front of the casino, and beneath the now defunct glowing-crown.


    "What happened?" Apollo asked. Only moments ago he was being lifted, but now Dion was the one latching onto him. "Did I miss anything?"


    "No. Nothing, really."


    "Really? You both looked fucked up."


    "Have you seen yourself?," Aenea said.


    "I don''t know. I''ve been worse." He said. "I actually feel pretty good, like I''ve gotten the most sleep I''ve ever gotten."


    It had only been an hour and he yawned. The deep breath made him keel over and hug his ribs. Apollo was hurt, certainly, though looked the best. Even with his limp and his bruises.


    His small cuts were being healed too, burning to a close shut. She was not surprised, but still apprehensive.


    "You guys really aren''t human, are you?" She asked.


    "What gave it away? The giant fucking explosion, the acrobatics?" Apollo asked. "Who cares what we are as long as the job gets done."


    Apollo rested Dion along the side of the fountain. Both of them looked like they could barely stand, though Apollo was better by far. He limped over, dragging his legs through the molasses of bloody water which seemed even a struggle.


    He didn''t even hunch over or bend his knees. He rested himself by the rim of the fountain, facing inwards, facing the corpse laying on the floor. She was already half-way stripped, he didn''t need to do much.


    He lifted the corpses head. Aenea was finally able to take a good look at the damages, something that made her feel chills and a pushing feeling her throat and lightheadedness.


    "You shot right through her throat, Dion. Cut right through her lower jaw, straight through her spine." The head turned like a screw and even Apollo, crude as he was, laid it down. The head faced this time. A full twist.


    "Fuck." Apollo turned the head back and they all looked quietly.


    "Jezebel, huh." Apollo ran his fingers across the flesh. It was bruised all across, he traced the tattoo that rode up her (only) arm and up to her back. The tattoo too, was beginning to disappear.


    He picked up the onyx blade and flipped it on its side.


    "She cut her own arm off." Apollo said. "Then she put it in our room."


    "Yeah, she could phase through...things...that''s probably how she got in."


    "I''ll take your word for it," Apollo said. "I don''t know why. Don''t know why she cut her arm though."


    "Who knows anything?" Dion said, from a distance. He was sitting on the floor.


    "No one does." Aenea''s voice tapered off into melancholy.


    "Well, I know why she did it." Apollo said. "She wanted the throne. The mark. Everything. She wanted to be the winner"


    "Winner of what?" Aenea dried her tears. "Some stupid fucking leather chair on the high rise? A view of the city? Some demon...shit!"


    "You really don''t know what''s going on, do you?" Apollo asked.


    She gave a dull, almost annoyed sigh. She passed glances to the corpses every now and then, as if to remind herself what the real fight was about. As if to remind herself why this all even happened; her father.

 Episode 6: A Bonding Moment. 1

    Jezebel awoke to the sudden pain of her arm. As if it had just been bitten by ants, ants that clung and scratched and still nipped. She undid the covers of her bed, throwing them to the side. The mattress was stained. A once pink color, now red. The beads of blood on her arm spread all across the tattoo, a stain that went down her arm and that made her lean over, hunched by the bedside, clenching her arm.


    That was the first time it happened to Jezebel. Exactly three days before she would be killed, and exactly three hours before her mother would call her in for an emergency meeting.


    The rest of the morning went awkwardly. Badly, actually. She could not hold a plate or a cup or really do much of anything, for her left arm felt exhausted and pain and every now so often, bled with a new shade of green-black ink. Her eyes would roll back before the pain struck, a kind of face that made everyone wary of her as she crossed and walked through the halls of the casino. It wasn''t as if there were many employees here anyway, most of them were being kicked out by the matriarch, mother. And those that did survive Salome would merely quit themselves.


    What worried her then wasn''t the fact that she couldn''t pick up a spoon without writhing in pain, or the fact that she dangled her arm carefully in front of her, or the strange faces people made as she sucked in her pain and endured.


    What worried her was mother who had called early in the morning. And whom, after the morning ritual had been completed, decided to visit her. She was waiting in Junior''s room. Which made her feel odd when she stepped in. The last time she had been in it, yellow tape had nearly tripped her but now...with Junior a few days dead, the place was wiped clean. As clean as Salome wanted it at least. There were still some oddities that stayed, namely the broken train set, and the ruined race car toys that had been crushed by Junior''s body collapsing on them. Salome sat on the edge of the bed. Jezebel stepped in, her arm clenched by her hand, for each sudden jerk made her shoot with pain.


    Luanne sat in the corner, in a rocking chair, breastfeeding. Her eyes were focused on the infant. The infant looked back, drooling and smiling a toothless grin.


    She loved that child, which was at least one comfort in here. One that made her smile.


    "So it''s happened to you, hasn''t it?" Salome asked. She had a blanket on top of her, one blue with small white clouds, the one Junior had been tucked under after his death. She was holding it close to her chest, and it draped down, past her legs, where it spread out across the tile floor.


    "What has?" Jezebel tightened the grip on her bicep.


    "Don''t play dumb, girl." She said. "I didn''t raise you stupid. What''s underneath your sleeve? Show me."


    Jezebel turned her face away from mother and to Luanne, who had not made a movement the whole time. She seemed displaced, or perhaps disinterested. Cold, bitter. And so she was stuck, between two different kinds of angers, one like the fast-fall of magma and the other like the icy cold waters.


    She sighed and unbuttoned her cufflink. She worked her fingers inside her sleeve, wincing, and began to roll them up, almost to her armpit. The air conditioner blasted above her. The air hit her arm, like a slap.


    "What do you have there?" Salome asked.


    "How am I supposed to know? I thought it was just a bruise..." She couldn''t even lie to herself anymore. The ''bruise'' was too abstract to be normal, to stylized and sharp and well designed. It was strange arcana, she knew that (she had studied it as a young girl) and it was growing, becoming more defined.


    "A bruise?" Salome asked. "Now you''re beginning to color me. What is it that you have. Tell me."


    Her voice was harsh sounding, a bullet traveling straight to her heart. She couldn''t even work the courage to look her in the eye.


    "You were raised with the knowledge that this might happen one day, that you''d be a vessel, weren''t you?" Salome set aside the blanket and walked up. She grabbed Jezebel by the arm and pulled it up. A movement that stretched her skin and caused the smearing of blood to worsen and drip.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    "I know that." She jerked her hand. Her wrist was red. "I know what this is, I know what I''m in for."


    "He''s going to contact you soon, do you know that?" Salome circled her, dragging her long hands across her neck and around her shoulders, rubbing her arms together and keeping her close, motherly. A motherly caress, one so warm enough to make her forget the pain of her wrist. One, so scary enough, to incite a new kind of pang in her stomach. She was afraid.


    Jezebel walked away. Salome tried to follow, stopping halfway.


    "You''re the first to get it. I always knew you''d be the first to get it." Salome said. "You always had the aptitude and the spunk for this kind of magic."


    She said it. The word. Magic. The dark arts, arcana. The many, almost forbidden words. She had only trained in it loosely, had just joked about its capabilities (she was never that imaginative) and mused about the supposed infinity that was Arcana. It had started when she was a young woman, no older than twelve, and she assumed that after four years, would have ended. It was only books and strange pictures to her, and a few funny little moments of moving rocks and lighting fires. That''s all it was to her, she thought, a game.


    But the sudden pain...and the blood...and the mark spoke of something much worse. More, strange.


    "What does this mean." Jezebel found conviction in looking at her nephew. Her face straightened. "What am I in for, tell me."


    "You were the first one to be contacted by Mammon. Some get it quicker than others, and that''s a kind the kind of advantage we should capitalize on." Her fingers moved, making little imaginary dots and lines. "We have to start planning." Her (Salomes) eyes were crazed. "We have to catch them off guard...we should go for Richter first, he''ll be the most dangerous and then -"


    "What are you talking about?" Jezebel asked. "Contacted? What?"


    Salome turned around in one shrewd move, wiry and full-eyed.


    "You are a child of Mammon, you know this. Your father is dead, and now He will begin contacting all of you, from the other world. You see, don''t you? You''re going to confer with Mammon, you''re going to gain the power to kill your brothers. To avenge Junior."


    "What the hell are you asking for?" She jerked back, she touched the wall.


    "I''m asking for your daughterly duty. A filial agreement, a promise to natural law that ought be appreciated and honored." Salome said. "There''s going to be a game soon, one that decides who goes on and who does not. Who becomes the next head and who doesn''t, and I''ll be damned if I let those savages take it."


    Those savages. Her step brothers and sister.


    "And Richter? Luanne? What do they think?" Jezebel asked.


    Salome pointed to Luanne, now sweating, but very still, looking down at her infant. She rocked him with her knees, gently and steadily. The child looked out with empty eyes, sucking his thumb. He was judging Jezebel almost as harshly as Salome was.


    "This is insanity. I can''t kill anyone." Jezebel asked. "And you haven''t even answered my question! What is this-"


    Salome grabbed her by the arm. She squeezed, her bony fingers stabbing into her wrist. And with one thumb, pushed in. Jezebel felt the pain like an electrical surge, hitting every nerve up her arm, past her shoulders and towards her spine. She stumbled back, arm falling to the floor. And to her surprise, she sunk.


    Her arm sunk into the floor. It made her scream and retrieve back. Her legs followed. And by then was begging for help. That was the only time Luanne looked up.


    Salome grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out.


    "Focus, like you''re trying to swim through water. Focus."


    She did as much. Screaming at first, hands waving at first. But soon she began to kick out, to pull her body weight up from the floor of tiles and concrete, to solid ground where Salome could clutch her quick.


    " You are not normal. You never were." She said. "You are a Wolfe. Chosen people. What you see now is not the full development of what you are, but what you can be. You need to speak to Mammon."


    "I don''t want this. I don''t want to be the head of anything." Jezebel said. She was breathing her, her palms flat against the floor in concern. "I''m not killing anyone."


    "Are you under the belief that you have a choice?" Salome asked. "There is no for you. You either die, or you join us. I promise you Richter will kill you like he did your brother. And if not him, then Turnus. And if not Turnus!" Her voice stopped. It went quiet. "Then Aenea. They''ll kill you, I promise you that."


    "Why?"


    "Because unlike you, they have a hunger." She said. "They want to take from us what little we have left. Do you understand? They want the money, the city, the power. Who wouldn''t? A promise by a God for wealth beyond you or my imaginations. The pride. The pride! Of being a servant of Him. Of Mammon."


    Jezebel looked up. Her mother had taken her hands to the air. A cross rattled down her neck, a phony symbol. Heretical even, considering her mother''s allegiance. For the God she referred to was anything but the holy man. Anything but the divine and all-good and all-powerful. No, what Salome put her hands up to was anything but good. And Jezebel knew this, staring up from the floor, afraid that she would fall through once again, in pain that her arm was betraying her.


    She felt blood once more and looked. A pool had settled underneath her arm, and her eyes rolled back as she screamed, once more.

 A Bonding Moment. 2

    She carried the weight on her arm like a dumbbell, a weight, pinned to the floor. Five strips of black leather kept her hand still, stabbed through the floor with five knives, set in the order and shape of the Beast''s star. A pentagram. Her hand extended. Her body, in sporadic intervals of stillness and restlessness. She would awake. Collapse to sleep. Awake once more. All in pain.


    It had been one day (one, only one!) after the first time her tattoo appeared on her arm, and already her pain had scaled twice as much. Luanne stood by her rear the whole time, bucket in hand, to wash and dry her bloody arm. Leeches squirmed on the surface of her (Jezebel''s) skin, squirming. It felt like she was being ripped apart, that the veins in her arms were being re-wired, pushed aside, cut and moved without reason. She tried to stand, but the tethered leather kept her down. Her feet dangled by the edge of the bed.


    "Don''t move too much, you''ll make it worse." Luanne took a suckling bug from her arm. It was dripping blood. She dropped it in a bucket.


    "Old traditions never die, do they. No matter how rich we get, how far removed. We just can''t help repeating the old." Jezebel laughed. Pained. She tried to turn. The leather stretched but did not break.


    "Traditions are hard to kill. They''re in us like DNA." Luanne said, wiping the tattooed arm with a wet towel.


    The prominent black-green glow of the arm''s arcana showed through the black trappings.


    "Why are you here?" Jezebel said beneath the covers of her bed. The sweat-soaked covers stuck to her chest and face. They looked like suction cups, peeling off her.


    "Because you''re my sister." Luanne said rubbing the towel across the fresh blood. The tattoo was leaking again. A leech fell, dead, from the table platform the arm was, down to the floor. Jezebel turned her head as the towel ran across her arm, it felt like candle fire, and hot wax poured over a wound and scratched (though the towel was soft) like a rake.


    "That''s not true," Jezebel said. "You''re here to protect mother''s prospects. She wants to make sure I stay alive long enough to do her dirty work. God knows what-" Pain struck her. She yelped. "God knows what that is."


    "That''s all a child is, aren''t they? An investment."


    "To what?"


    "Who knows. I used to think for a better future, but I wonder. I wonder if people even want things to get better." She ran like rote autonomy, a robot guided by maternal instincts than any kind of consciousness.


    Jezebel felt like a baby as the towels came to her. As she was fed little spoonfuls of blended food. Applesauce. Cinnamon. She didn''t even try to eat it as the spoon approached. Luanne took the spoon away, disappointing.


    "Do you think what''s happening to me will happen to everyone?" Jezebel asked.


    "I know so. You''re just more talented than the rest of us. Well, I hear Floyd has something like this too..."Her voice went quiet. "I don''t want to talk about him though. He''s...going through stuff."


    "Stuff? What kind of stuff?"


    "He''s got a crazed look in his eyes last time I saw him...it didn''t even look like he was in pain. It looked like he was enjoying it, honestly. He kept talking about the Wolfe''s pride and shame or something. I think Junior''s death hurt him."


    "It hurt all of us."


    "No, no. Not in the same way though, not in the same capacity or type." Luanne said. "It changed Floyd. And I''m scared I had something to do with it too..."


    "Like what?"


    Luanne pursed her lips. Her eyes darted to the corner of her eyes.


    "I''ll tell you one day, I think."


    Jezebel tried to protest but felt the fire in her veins once more. A sharp pinch of her nerves that caused her veins around her shoulders to bulge.


    "This isn''t right," Jezebel said, teeth grit as she outstretched from the bed. "None of this is right."


    "It''s just what we were born with. We can''t change that."


    "What are we?" She tried to pump her fist, but the leather held her down. "This is a brand, and we are slaves. That''s all we are, isn''t it?"


    Luanne looked down. Smiling.


    "Of course you''d say that." She hesitated, then looked up. "You were always the rowdy one. Always the rebel."


    "Answer my question-" Her eyes rolled back as she was struck with pain.


    Jezebel turned her head and rolled onto her side, or tried to. The blood trickled down her arm and to the bed. Luanne held her still. The nails keeping the table (and subsequently the pinned arm) down shook and creaked as they began to separate from the wood floor.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Simmer down." The leeches writhed on the floor, falling from her arm. "Please, for your own good."


    Jezebel committed to a final stretch. A final scream, before she collapsed back onto the bed.


    "You don''t know when to calm down, do you?"


    "I was never calm," Jezebel said in between deep breaths.


    "That''s right. Why, I remember when Floyd got stuck in that oak tree back when we were little, outside that little motel we used to rent out when dad forgot to pay rent," She wiped the blood from Luanne nervously as she spoke. "Maybe you don''t remember...you were so young."


    "I remember," Jezebel said. The pangs had made her face tight, had made her veins pop from her forehead.


    "So you remember how you tried climbing that tree and how much you scraped your knees and face and how many times you fell trying to get Floyd."


    "I remember getting hurt."


    "And you remember Floyd climbing down by himself, don''t you?" Luanne asked.


    "Yeah, it made me feel stupid. All that work - Ah," It was the kind of pain where she could not even talk. Not even breath. She waited a bit for it to pass. "Fuck - Ah - Yeah...yeah... It made me feel stupid. He went off and fixed his problem, all the while I tried so hard. All that work, for nothing. I wasted myself."


    "It wasn''t a waste, Jezzy." Luanne rubbed the hair off her face. "That''s what I love about you. It''s a good thing you haven''t changed."


    Jezebel shook her hand off. Luanne rubbed her harder.


    "You''re always taking care of my baby boy, and mother and everyone else. You''re always so overprotective, and violent and angry. You really love this family, don''t you?"


    "I do," Jezebel said, still turned and facing the glass window and the skyline.


    "I know you do. And that''s what I''m afraid of." Luanne said. "I didn''t come here to protect mom''s interests. I came here to offer you to reconsider."


    "Reconsider what?"


    "The idea that you''re going to do something bad for mom. The idea that you really didn''t decline her, that you''re going to do something stupid. I can read it in your face."


    Jezebel was silent.


    "You''re going to help her, whatever it is. Aren''t you?"


    Jezebel turned her head down.


    "I knew it," Luanne said. "I want you to consider something else."


    "What?"


    "Running away."


    "What?"


    "I know you, Jezzy. You''re selling yourself the idea that mom''s right. That she knows better, that she cares more about us than the stupid name we carry."


    "What do you expect? I don''t know what''s going on. I can''t tell what I need to do or what''s happening."


    "Mother wants to secure whatever power is being offered by Mammon. She wants it to herself, through her or her children. She wants you to kill your stepbrothers. She wants to make sure no one but her wins."


    "What?"


    "What do you think this all is Jezzy? This devil stuff, this marking, this curse? It''s a competition. We''re fighting to be the vessel for the Mammon. It''s self-sacrifice, Jezzy. This whole demon, magic nonsense. It''s all a game."


    "A competition? Magic?" Jezebel asked.


    "Yes. I mean, you experienced it, right? You sunk into the floor."


    Jezebel bit her lips, the memory was still fresh. A memory of her sinking and falling. She had a nightmare last night about it and awoke in the middle of the night only to re-experience it. She had rolled off the bed and had fallen through the marble floor, through concrete, before she stopped a whole level below.


    "So we''re in danger, is that why you want me to run?"


    "Yes."


    "So that means everyone else is in danger too. Even you, right?"


    Luanne hesitated. She knew the answer and knew what it would mean.


    "Yes..." She said, finally. The words taking some will to leave her mouth. "But...I don''t know how or when or by whom. And...And-"


    "So you''re in danger," Jezebel said, her eyes lit up.


    The atmosphere was antagonistic. Too thick, too painful to breathe in. The lights seemed to dim, casting a shadow to pronounce her tired eyes. Like two caverns. She was afraid. Her blue eyes rattling in the black pits that were her eye sockets. Like broken, blue glass cast down a well, losing light and falling further into darkness.


    "But if we''re all in danger," Luanne said. "We should all run."


    "I''m not letting any of you get hurt. Not my little nephew, especially."


    All pain had disappeared, or perhaps, had been pushed to the background like furniture. The leeches fell from her arm, simply full and swollen and dead. Jezebel yanked her arm free in slow, methodical violence. The nails keeping her strapped collapsed and shot out as her muscles pushed on and on. Jezebel''s face strained.


    "You can''t tell me that and expect me not to get worried."


    Luanne''s eyes watered. Her voice, shaky.


    "I knew you''d say that. That''s what gets me so scared." She caressed Jezebel''s face. "That''s why I''m trying to tell you, trying to convince you to leave. Nothing good is going to come out of this. Not for you, I know it. I feel it."


    "You expect me to idle?" She asked. "There''s a reason I learned magic as a kid, wasn''t there? There''s a reason why I''ve got the Wolfe name and this tattoo. It''s for this, right? To protect you?"


    "N-no. No." Luanne said. Small driblets formed on the edges of her eyes, they were nearly full-sized tears. But she sniffled and turned away. She always cried silently. Always.


    "There are more ways to protect us than this, Jezzy."


    "Like what?"


    "Like helping us all get away."


    "We won''t get away. You''ve seen Richter, haven''t you?"


    "We have to try before we say that," Luanne said. "We can''t fight. We shouldn''t. It''s bad enough I have Floyd like this! But you - You too?!"


    "You''re all I have, Luanne," Jezebel said. "I''ve got no friends, no future. I''m not as smart as the rest of you. I never had that in me. I''ve got nothing but my family. You''re telling me to risk the only thing that matters?"


    "I''m telling you to think of another way to get us to safety. To forget all this."


    "And if there isn''t? Maybe mom knows that too, maybe that''s why - "


    "Don''t," Luanne said. "Please, don''t."


    "Is there a way out of this competition? A concession?"


    "No. None that come easy, that I know of."


    "So then even you admit it, we''re stuck with it. With this fight." Jezebel said.


    Luanne went quiet.


    "What convincing can you do for me then? We''re stuck. We''re fucked."


    "I just wanted...I just thought maybe we could figure something out."


    "I''m not like that, Luanne. I''m not."


    "I know," Luanne said, smiling, nearly. It collapsed into a frown immediately.


    She stood. Jezebel watched from the bedside.


    Luanne rubbed her neck and left the towel in the bucket of bloody water and stood by the door frame, looking at Jezebel laying on the bed. She waved once. Both of them did, at each other, Jezebel''s bloody hand aching just from the pain of gravity. Then Luanne left, closing four doors along the way.


    And the room was filled with silence. Silence waiting to be filled, as Jezebel stared from the edge of her bed, looking at the wall, looking at the pentagram on her table and the blood falling from its edges and the leeches still writhing on the floor.


    A witches tradition.


    Waiting. Waiting patiently. Waiting nervously.

 A Bonding Moment. 3

    It must have been caused by the fear and the pain. It must have been. For late into the night, whilst the cool wind blew against the glass, and while the floorboards of her little room creaked, she felt herself sink once again into the floor. Jezebel. Falling deeper, sleepy and tired, falling deeper into the bed. Falling into what she believed was a nightmare. She awoke, or presumed herself awake, as her body rose to consciousness gripping the sheets and blankets of her bed. She felt her hands sink into the blood-soaked sheets. She found no grip and fell. Into what? An abyss maybe, a hole. It was not her ability, not the phasing power she was starting to develop. It was something darker, deeper.


    The pail of bloody water to the side of her bed fell, rattled a bit and rolled on the floor leaving a streak.


    She was gone.


    She was having a nightmare. Or what she believed it to be a nightmare, but what was really a warping of reality. She found herself scratching the sides of dark walls, falling. The earth around her beginning to collapse and crack. Falling. Crushing. A smothering feeling, of dark sheets and bondage and cushioned walls. It felt like an ocean.


    She fell screaming. She reappeared, screaming. On her bed, the same bed (was it?), her upper torso raised while the rest of her body laid on the bed. She breathed hard. She dried her sweat with a blanket and looked around. She couldn''t hear the wind anymore. The sound itself seemed muffled. And was the room bigger?


    The walls were colored green. As if a light had streaked across, painting it with a slight neon tinge. The furniture was still intact, and turning on the television in front of her bed, she found static. No channels. She stood. Her foot brushed against the bucket, and it fell. The pail of bloody-water was empty, and there was no mess on the floor.


    Opening the doors, she could see no difference. Not at face value, at least, it all still existed as per usual. But walking...walking...the long hall. She found something...odd. Her shadows, of which there were many, were cast across the walls and unmoving. Stranger still, there was no light of which to cast the shadows from. From the hall, she went to the bathroom. The mirrors reflected nothing but blackness and standing on top of the bathtub, to open a window above it into the night air, she could see no stars. She could see no city. Only even more blackness. A void. But still, her shadows existed in this light-less world.


    She wasn''t even sure how she could see.


    That was about the time she began to worry. When her steps were filled with reticence, an anxious softness that made her sound like a mouse traveling through the house.


    She moved with her back against the wall.


    She made it to the living room. She held her breath. Someone was waiting for her. He sat amongst one of the three couches.


    "You''re here." This character said hidden in the darkness. He was like film barely developing in her vision. A slow burning in her retinas as she scrutinized and made sense of his shape and form in that darkness. She could see his limbs at least. She saw his arms and his legs and his palms and the pale flesh he was made of. Sickly pale, almost. That he (and she called him a him because he sounded it. Male, with a scratchy, tired voice) had strange, sharp nails, of obsidian black coloration. He wore clothes. A completely black suit, with a green tie. And in his left hand, he held two dice that he rattled in his palm and with the other, a drink.


    "Take a seat," This man said. She stood scanning him, eyes wide before she sat opposite to him.


    "Who are you, where am I?"


    "I''m the person taking away your pain right now." He flicked his finger at her. "And the man who gives it, too."


    She immediately squirmed and held her arm extended out. The veins bulging, the tattoo glowing and bleeding onto the couch.


    He snapped again. Her breathing eased, she leaned back.


    "You should have expected me, or did they forget to tell you?"


    "You''re Mammon, then?"


    "Maybe." He said. "I am the man who owns you, which is a much more important title."


    "No one owns me."Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    He threatened her with another flick of his finger.


    "We''re all owned, nothing changes that. So with that knowledge, you really have to accept that life becomes a matter of choosing your slaver. Or having it chosen for you. There are many to choose from, and they come in many forms and names; tradition, civilization, faith. All servitude of a certain kind."


    ¡°So you¡¯re the slaver driving my family then?¡± She asked.


    "No. There''s nothing I could truly do to drive your family to the lengths it''s going to. All I offered was a prize, the lot of you handled the rest. No, I figure that the demon driving all of you is ambition. Ambition or fear, which might be the same thing under certain circumstances."


    The man took a drink from the glass in his hands. It was pink. And bringing his face close to the lips of the glass had made it visible. His nose was crooked. Two piercings, on each nostril and eyes without irises. Pitch black with a small dot at the center, like eight balls.


    "That''s a cop-out, demon."


    "Now, either you treat me with respect," He said. "Or I''ll show you how much of a demon I really am."


    He flicked his finger and watched her squirm. Or at least she presumed he was watching her, she didn''t know why else he would cause her to suffer and to croak and bleed and whine.


    She nearly fell this time. Her back hunched over, as she held her arm on the floor. The drool slipped from the corner of her lips, falling as a slimy string down to the floor.


    "Have some more dignity, Jezebel. You''re supposed to be one of the tougher ones, aren''t you?"


    "Why''d you put this on us?" She said in between pained breaths. The words seemed exhausted, pained.


    "It''s nothing you don''t deserve. That brand is something that you''ve had all along, something your great forefathers before you decided long ago. A filial responsibility you''re here to fulfill."


    "What does that mean? Why does everyone speak in riddles? Give it to me straight, demon." She hissed. His hand went up and fell, and she began to writhe now, spinning circles on the floor.


    "Now if talking with calm won''t get you to respect me, then pain will. I hope this educates you,"


    "What. Is. On. Me." She said. Barely. Her eyes were vein-strained, heartless almost.


    "I appreciate your grit. I love it, even. But you have to ask nicely. If you''re sweet, I''ll be sweet. A king can be forgiving if you allow him to be."


    "P-" She began the phrase. "Please!"


    He waved his hand and immediately her face was relieved. The clenched muscles of her frown and teeth suddenly revoked to calm, and her eyes were no longer red, and her lungs could breathe fully and free with large, deep gasps.


    She laid flat on the floor in the little room. The television screen nothing but static behind her. The ferns and other furniture immobile and far from her. She could hear the echo of her breaths, but she did not care. Pain was gone, pain that seemed a foreign memory.


    ¡°What¡¯s on you is the product of a deal your great, great - Lord knows how many great generations before - grandfather put on you. Ezekial Wolfe. A civil war survivor who wanted his life so desperately as to sacrifice every Wolfe after him. You were sold out by a man, centuries back, who wanted to thrive in the heat and war of the south. That¡¯s what your mark is. A brand of his deal.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯d he deal for? What¡¯d he sell us out for?¡±


    ¡°Immortality. Which is now what you all fight for.¡±


    ¡°Immortality?¡± She asked, standing. ¡°Why¡¯s dad dead then?¡±


    ¡°Immortality, not invulnerability.¡± He said, smiling. His teeth looked bleached. ¡°I am Mammon, who deals with rarities and wealth. And what rarer, what richer item than time itself?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯re fighting for? Immortality? Do the rest even know that?¡±


    ¡°Some of them do, I¡¯m sure,¡± He said. ¡°Does it even matter? As far as I¡¯m concerned, you have bigger things to kill yourselves over. Money. The casino. All those petty things.¡±


    ¡°All of this¡­just for that¡­¡±


    ¡°Oh, the small things people will kill themselves for you.¡± He said. ¡°Starve a man, and he¡¯ll slit an infants throat for an apple, I assure you. And considering how diseased your family is, I¡¯m not surprised at the lengths they¡¯ll go to. Masquerading it as pride or tradition or some other noble thing is just the cover-up. You¡¯re a savage bunch,¡±


    She looked up at the ceiling, eyes wide. It was transparent, like a television glass screen. One that reflected back an image of herself. Sleeping on the bed. Rolling in the bed. She was still there, in bed. At least her physical self was. And she knew this was no dream. It was something worse.


    ¡°And you?¡± Mammon said. ¡°You¡¯re the worst of the bunch. I don¡¯t suspect you¡¯ll be winning.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t care about winning.¡± She reiterated.


    ¡°That¡¯s the problem, isn¡¯t it?¡± He asked. ¡°What do you want? What brought you here? It certainly wasn¡¯t me or my brand. Something in your soul screamed for my help, what was it then?¡±


    Her eyes settled back to the floor, to her arm bleeding and trickling down to the floor.


    ¡°I want to protect them.¡±


    ¡°What was that?¡± He cupped his hands to his ears and pointed them towards the girl, mumbling on the floor. She gripped the carpet and felt the faux fur of bear rug in between her fingers.


    ¡°I want to protect my family.¡± She said.


    ¡°Oh? That¡¯s strange coming from a Wolfe. I knew it¡¯d be you, though.¡± He said. ¡°Okay? What do you want from me then? You''re giving me a goal, not a demand.¡±


    ¡°I want power. I want to control my power.¡± She said. ¡°I know we¡¯re going to fight. Momma said so. I need to be ready¡­I need to strike first.¡±


    His legs unwrapped, and he moved his torso forward.


    ¡°Then tell me about the deal you wish to broker. What will you give me in exchange for this power? Every gamble needs its ante.¡±


    She looked in silence. Her eyes shaky, drifting. She looked side to side, knowing what she would give. Knowing he would only take what mattered to her.


    Then she looked at her arms as if struck with inspiration. She looked at her tattooed arm...then to the other. Her clean arm, as she called it. She raised it in front of her. Her eyes, looking back. Her mouth grit.


    And Mammon smiled.


    "That''s not much, but I''ll take it."

 A Bonding Moment. 4

    Jezebel turned her head from the sleepy dream. Her eyes were blurry, the lights formed a kind of yellow streak as she dragged her head around.


    She looked to her rear, for she had the urge though did not understand why and opening her eyes wider, found the reason there; her arm was severed.


    Jezebel screamed. Banged her head in the back of her bed frame. She cried. Doors opened. The gushing, squirting, burning all coming to her at once.


    Then hands. A myriad of hands and people whispering and gently asking her, ''to please relax.''


    She fell asleep again. Not by choice.


    ?


    "You''re awake?" She heard a voice. Vision came later, blurred once again. The dragging glow of lights reminding her of that day, two days ago. She looked around, extended both arms, one of which was a stump she realized immediately. She looked to her right and saw it. It still surprised her, even after a few days of sleep.


    "You healed real fast. All of your body has healed real fast," It was Luanne, she recognized it now. "Your brand has stopped acting up too. You haven''t bled since, well..."


    Her eyes pointed to Jezebel''s stump.


    Of course, she hadn''t bled. She had sacrificed so much to make sure she would not bleed, not lose control, not become anything but deadly. And already, waking up, she could see strange mental images; glyphs, knowledge, experience she never had and never had the opportunity to have. It was like someone was injecting information into her. Through dreams. Through sleep.


    She looked at her stump, the daze of waking up still on her face, a slouching mouth, drooling lips, drooping eyelids. She brought her stump close to her face. It was bandaged at the end, they were clean and white and comfortable. How many hours have I spent here? How much wasted time?


    "Did mom come see me?"


    "No, she''s dealing with Floyd."


    "What''s wrong with him?"


    "I really don''t want to tell you, you''d have to see him yourself."


    "See what?" Jezebel arose. Her naked feet touched the floor, the cold wood that sent a shiver up her leg.


    "Don''t tell me you''re going to move already? You''ve been bedridden for nearly a week." Her voice hastened. She sounded out of breath, the infant in her arms coming alive with quick outbursts of screams and slaps. "And now, you''re missing an arm. An Arm! And I don''t know why and mom told me not to ask why and you''re just going to walk up and-"


    "I''m fine," Jezebel came up from her rested position so that the light was directly shining down the top of her scalp. "I''m more than fine. I''m great. Don''t think I''ve ever been better."


    "What happened?" She asked.


    "Didn''t mom ask you not to ask?"


    Luanne bit her lips and drew blood.


    "I''ve got a right to know." She said, tense and quiet.


    Jezebel did not answer. She walked past her sister, put on a coat hanging by the main door and out, to the damn halls that echoed with the slap of her naked feet. Her body caked with a layer of grease and grit. She had no makeup on, not that she put much on anyway. All to her slender form was the white gown, a bandaged arm and a black coat that covered her down to her knees.


    Yet she felt strong. Incredibly so. Fast too, and was she thinking sharper? Or more concentrated? It was strange. It was like she could see details and colors she would never find in a million years. Looking down for example, at the wild carpet and the intricate flower patterns, she could see new shapes, pictures within the pictures with a fidelity almost microscopic. Scents, sounds too, were clearer. More defined. This a world she awakened to with new sensory information.


    She was heading to meet her brother. She wanted, above all else, a decision on what to do. To kill or not. And if so, whom?


    Entering the elevator, swiping her card, she immediately realized she was not allowed access to her mother''s floor. Which was strange, especially when she heard the alarm go off like a siren when she tried to stop on her floor.


    She went to Floyd then. A floor below. To Floyd, who had one whole level to himself. And upon entering this level, she became wary. Hesitated to walk. There was granite rubble and sharp stones and rough surfaces all across the floor. Like knives of stone had been propped up for her. Worse even was the terribly deformed floor. There were large streaks of shaved stone as if a rake had been dragged across the floor and walls and ceiling to rip it apart. She looked around. Long pillars that once lined a gallery of art that lead to Floyd''s bedroom were now destroyed. Or transformed. They looked warped, stretched out like puddy into strange strings and arcs and curved, bizarre forms. She took a step forward and felt a sharp rock lodge into her flesh. It made her wince. But not much else. She raised the foot to her hand and removed the stone and watched the blood trickle down. Then stop. Then steam and heat, the red steam blowing past her face until all that remained was black, dried blood and a freshly healed wound. It was discolored, a lighter shade of her skin tone.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Strangely, she wasn''t surprised. She walked to her brother''s room, her feet cutting and healing all the while. And approaching, she could hear the subtle sounds even through the thick layer of wall. Of screaming, of tired breathing, of smacking. Then, something more terrible. A screech of earth shifting, as if mountains were colliding.


    She took a deep breath and put both hands against the door. She opened it. Floyd''s savage eyes turned to her. He shot out a pillar. A spike of granite. Jezebel saw it approach, slowly. As if time came to a crawl. She did not stumble, did not hesitate. Her body became transparent in an instant. The pole went through her, or her through the pole (it was hard to tell). It shot out behind her, this javelin of marble, and injected itself by the side of a wall. It sprung left and right with a ding noise.


    Floyd turned, wide-eyed, now deliberating at what he had done.


    "Sorry," He said. He meant it too."I thought you were someone else."


    She reformed. Her body, sweating.


    "Like who?"


    "Like Richter. Or Turnus. Or Aenea. Or those two fuckers," He clenched his fist and slammed them into the floor. The movement of course that caused the whole floor to shake and for the marble to push aside like opposite ocean waves. "Those fuckers!"


    A control over stone? Is that it?


    "How''d you make this mess?" She asked.


    "What?" Floyd put his hands on his head. "Oh? This?" His hands extended out as if to display the chaos. Granite and gravel, strange formations of stone. It looked like roots had taken grip of the room, along with crystalline growths. Devouring everything. "Don''t ask me about this. It doesn''t matter? Who cares? There are bigger problems."


    "Did the brand give you this? Do you even have one?"


    "Do I have my brand," He repeated in mockery, laughing even. "Do I have my brand? Do I ever!"


    He flashed his arm.


    "I know you''ve got yours too, took you out for days, didn''t it?"


    "Yeah," She said. The sleeve of one of her coat dangled, her missing limb now visible through the curtain fall of her sleeve. "Took more than just sleep, too."


    "I can see that," He said. "But it''s not bad!" He said enthusiasm showed through his voice. His eyes, still very crazed though. "We can fight now, we can kill those bastards!"


    "You want us to fight too? Like mom?"


    "Fuck mother," Floyd said. "Fuck her, fuck her!"


    "What''s gotten into you? Hmm? They''ve told me you were acting erratic and I''m starting to see why."


    "Who told you? Mom? Luanne? Fuck them."


    "What''s your problem with them?"


    "Goals. That''s the problem at the end of the day, goals." He said. "She''s been acting strange you know that? More concerned with winning the war, she calls it. More concerned with conquering and taking the throne. She calls it."


    "Yeah, I know." Jezebel looked for a seat to sit on. She realized all the furniture was in pieces on the floor and instead looked for a little wedge on the floor. It was a protrusion of marble stone in the shape of a seat. "She kept talking about the Wolfe name. Not about the family, but about the name."


    "Fuck the Wolfe name too," Floyd said. "Fuck the family. What''s it worth when we can''t even help our own? Fuck everything but revenge."


    "Revenge?"


    "What else? What else do we have? We''ve been embarrassed twice." He said. "We''ve let them walk all over us and here''s mother, talking so much big talk about avenging Junior but not doing anything about it. She wants us to be patient, to strike right. Fuck that. This deliberation, this concern with the plan. Fuck all that shit."


    "What''s got you in a fury all of a sudden?" Was this Mammon''s fault too?


    Her eyes looked to him, the strange ways he moved, both palms to his temples as he spun in circles in a fury. He didn''t even look like he was talking to her by that point.


    "I''m scared, don''t you see?" He asked. "I''m scared they''re gonna hurt everyone else...but mom..." He said, softly, before raising his voice again. "But mom."


    He laughed.


    "Mom is just worried about winning. She came to me the other day? Do you know what she asked? She asked who I could trust? Who I could fucking trust in my family, she asked me that."


    "I didn''t know that."


    "I wonder what else you don''t know about that bitch."


    "She just asked me if I''d fight, that''s all."


    "Of course, she''ll play a different song for each person. A real fucking walking jukebox. I''m beginning to think she didn''t care about Junior, not as much as she leads on, at least. Well, fuck her."


    "What do you think she wants?"


    "Whatever Mammon is offering." He said. "The casino. I think she has it figured out that not all of her kids are loyal either and I told Luanne that. That''s when she started putting the idea in me that we ought to run away."


    "She asked me that too.


    "And you said no, of course, right? We''ve got a score to settle, you know that, right?"


    She looked down, the sweat dripped down the side of her forehead.


    "I did say no, but I''m getting worried. About everything."


    "You gave away your arm to fight, didn''t you?"


    "I did but..."


    "Where would we run?" He asked. "Where would we go, Jezzy?"


    "That''s what I''m trying to figure out. And if not that...then who do we kill?"


    "Whoever killed Junior, that''s who."


    "Who would that be? You think you''ve got it all figured out, but you''re just talking and thinking like a madman." She said. "Who killed Junior and where''s your evidence?"


    "The fucking heart-eaters, who else?" He waved his hand again, in a rage, as if sweeping off a bug. The very movement caused the marble to rise like a geyser in front of him. Wood fragments of furniture, feathers from pillows, rose with the fountain. It hit the ceiling, before falling. Jezebel ducked on instinct. "They killed him. Apollo did."


    "Are you sure?"


    "Are you kidding me? The probable cause is all there!" He said. Laughing again.


    "I''m just trying to figure things out too. We need to cover all bases -"


    "Fuck covering all bases, isn''t it obvious?" Floyd screamed. "Isn''t it obvious that cunt Aenea brought those two here to help her win? Lord knows she doesn''t have anything special going on herself. It only makes sense, doesn''t it?"


    "And Turnus, Richter?"


    "I''m sure they''re not mad about what happened. But I don''t think it was them. Especially not Turnus..."


    "Why would you say that?"


    His eyes narrowed.


    "Because he has a different target. Had..."


    "What do you mean?"


    "Stop asking questions, Jezzy, especially when the answer is right up your nose. You''re confusing yourself. Apollo was caught with the body, he had every reason to kill him, Aenea probably told him to do it." His breathing quickened. "We have to avenge Junior. That should be our top priority. We should not live with the shame of our brothers'' death. That''s a kind of disgrace that will poison us, I promise you that." Once more the ground moved, every which way. Until it was topsy-turvy and swerved, and disjointed like the chaotic roots of a tree.


    "I need to think on this."


    "What''s there to think?" It was more a demand than a question. He gave her one look, holding his breath before he let go and laughed to himself. Maniacal, sad. "Then go with Luanne. Go with mother, they''re more your type of company. Don''t come to me with your fucking cowardice."


    He didn''t need to say much more. She left the room, and left to the elevator and rung on the phone. Rung and rung, rung for mother.

 A Bonding Moment. 5

    The elevator stopped on mother¡¯s floor. Of course, the doors did not open, of course, the light flashed red, and the siren stung her ear with the loud buzzard sound. No entry, it said at the top of the elevator. She pressed her hand against the twin metal doors, focusing until she went through them. It felt like passing through water. As if going through the top of the ocean surface, and into the deep darkness. Mother¡¯s room was less a room and more a corridor, an aggregation of her favorite hobbies. Gardens, artifact museums, propped statues, galleries. All of this was connected through one main hall, two floors big, with the doors sprawled to her right and left, and going up the large red-carpeted stairs, was the bedroom. Jezebel did not hesitate to walk to it. Anger took the place of resolve, as often both are the same. And fear made way for excitement. She put her hand against the twin doors and opened them, nearly kicked them open really. They flew out and hit the wall. She spotted her mother in the center of her room, knitting and deliberating over a piece of work. Tapestry, or blanket, she was too far away to tell. She only knew that Salome set it down to look back and stare at her daughter. The room was void of furniture, it was all gone save for the bed and rocking chair. The bed and pictures, pictures upon pictures. Laid out on the floors and walls like a scrapbook torn open and scattered. Memories like dead leaves. Pictures of Junior. Of Thomas. Of Jezebel, too.


    ¡°So you finally decided to come?¡± She asked. ¡°What do you want? I hope Floyd hasn¡¯t been filling your head with inanities.¡±


    ¡°He told me you were disingenuous.¡±


    ¡°By God, you don¡¯t even try to hide anything, do you, sweetheart?¡± Salome asked.


    ¡°He said you don¡¯t seem to care so much about the family as you do about what it serves to gain you.¡±


    ¡°Did he now?¡± She went back to knitting, coy and calm. ¡°And you¡¯re going to take him seriously? He¡¯s about one mental breakdown away from being in an asylum.¡±


    ¡°Can you blame him? He took dad and Junior''s death too heart.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s good he¡¯s concerned about his family, I just wish he¡¯d channel it for something more conductive than brashness. You saw him, didn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I did.¡± She clenched her hand into a fist, clinging to a hostility she had had since meeting Floyd. Clinging to the idea that her mother, was in some way, some deep, ill way, manipulating her. As such, she was hostile.


    ¡°You saw the look in his eyes, right? The way he snakes around. Unrestrained, unfocused. Why I don¡¯t think he¡¯s got it all in his head,¡± Salome pointed her long finger to her skull. ¡° That''s it. Revenge and madness. I don¡¯t think he cares one bit about you or me or anyone else but killing those heart-eaters. And they¡¯re the least of our problem.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean what do I mean? We have enemies everywhere, Jezzy.¡± She said. ¡°It¡¯s not good to tunnel vision on a few people. Not that I like the heart-eaters or anything, I want them dead, and I''m sure they will die... I¡¯m sure. But not yet. We should plan accordingly.¡±


    ¡°Plan what?¡±


    ¡°The strategies. We need to go for Richter first, Turnus sec-¡± She stopped talking when she realized Jezebel had lost it, focus that is. Jezebel turned her head and spat on the floor and looked her mother straight in the face with disgust first and foremost, then shame afterward.


    ¡°What does it matter to win?¡± She asked. ¡°All this talk of winning has me curious. How''s it supposed to be decided when Luanne and Floyd and I are the last survivors? How will that be settled?¡±


    She frowned.


    ¡°Well, there are other options. Means to...disengage yourself from the fight-¡±


    ¡°Liar,¡± Jezebel said. ¡°What is going to happen when we kill my half-brothers and sisters? How do we finish this war?¡±


    Salome stayed quiet, knitting along a path and letting her needles clang like pincers.


    ¡°Who wins then? You see, I¡¯ve come to realize that there is no winning condition for any of us, is there? Not unless we stop chasing after this devil''s promise. But is that a commitment you want to make?¡±


    ¡°Someone has to win,¡± Salome said.


    ¡°Why? Who?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll settle that when the times comes.¡±


    ¡°And when¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°When everyone else is dead, and your brother is avenged, and your fathers killer is revealed.¡±


    ¡°As if you even care about that anymore. Your rage is hollow. You¡¯re fake.¡±


    ¡°You really have been listening to Floyd. Both of you deserve to be in the madhouse.¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯ve been thinking for myself and for Luanne. Nothing more.¡±Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    ¡°Then go bother her. I¡¯m glad to know you¡¯re as unreliable as I thought you¡¯d be. It¡¯s good to know a piece is off the table, makes it easier to plan.¡±


    ¡°Plan, that¡¯s all you do. Plan. Plan. Plan.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all we can do. Recklessness got us in this mess in the first place. Why, if we had everything sorted from the beginning, we wouldn¡¯t have this issue. These off-the-cuff cowboy stunts you¡¯re thinking of? They¡¯ll just get you killed, girl.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m only planning on doing what I think should be done.¡±


    ¡°And what¡¯s that?¡±


    ¡°Securing safety and eliminating the biggest threats.¡±


    ¡°What are you going to do?¡±


    ¡°Deal with our problem. That¡¯s what.¡± Jezebel said.


    ¡°And who would that be?¡±


    ¡°The people, I presume, who killed Junior. Who else?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re playing this all wrong, Jezzy. Don¡¯t fight them yet, let me work at them. Get Turnus first, separate Aenea from the two and then -¡±


    ¡°No.¡± She said. ¡°This is happening now. Every day we just risk Aenea getting her mark. I won''t have that.¡±


    ¡°Then don¡¯t ask for my advice when you won¡¯t take it. And don¡¯t ask for my help when you need it."


    ¡°Help?" Jezebel laughed, the first time in days. "What help?"


    ?


    She went out the room and to the elevator, back to her floor where she spotted Luanne against a wall, cradling the child. She couldn¡¯t help but smile and raised her hand, rather limply, before setting it back down. She went to her room. She took off the coat. The air was cold and left a sting against her exposed shoulders and arms. The hair on her body seemed to point upwards, straightening out by the fear in her. She made her way to the living room, locking every door between there and the front. She threw the furniture to its side. Pushing it against the walls until a flat, clear center was formed on the wood-plank floor. The sofas, the pictures, the paintings, the coffee tables, all standing up against the wall. There was no light enabled to peer through the barricaded windows. So it was dark, especially as she lowered the blinds. It was dark enough that she couldn¡¯t tell time, day to night to day again, and after a while, she stopped caring altogether. The hours coming and going like seconds, perhaps days even.


    She worked with pink salt.


    With black paint. A can she had picked up from a departments store nearby. She took her severed limb and placed it at the center. That was the starting point of her insignia, working her way all around, making sure to get every angle and every word of Hebrew down along the rim of the circle. And closing this glyph, she bit her thumb and sealed it with blood.


    She didn¡¯t know why she was like this, stressing and worrying so much, putting this much effort into such a foreign power. She knew it though, deep in her stomach, that the fear of losing her brother and sister and worst of all, her nephew, was unbearable. The idea that they would die like Junior did.


    She didn¡¯t know how she got this way, she only remembered being as such since birth. And what a dreadful thing it was now, she felt, to have too much heart. To care so much about her sister, Luanne. It was just enough to overcome her fear of the dark arts. For each time she tried to convince herself not to follow through with the insignia, not to press her hand against the painted circle, not to conjure the thought of Mammon, each time she hesitated, she thought of her sister; Luanne. Luanne, who had seen her through the rough times of growing up, who had defended her against everyone and everything. The inseparable sisters. She remembered Luanne as a young girl, holding her, as her father and mother argued in the midst of some shoddy hotel and how she tightened her grip when her father punched her mother across the nose. And how she shielded Jezebel''s eyes (though she peaked through the finger gaps) as her mother held her bloody nose on the floor. The image was clear. As was the memory of Luanne¡¯s touch. The tight grip she had over her sister''s shoulders, the closeness they shared. It was the first time Jezebel ever remembered feeling weak, it was the memory she went to whenever she wanted to humble herself. It was the memory that solidified who she ought not to be and who she ought to be.


    All she¡¯s ever wanted to be was like her older sister, someone that could protect. The desire was in her even after they got wealthy and the giant walls and glass panels came to surround her. Growing up with private teachers that forced courtesies and lady-like manners did not breed out of her that hunger to protect. Like her maternal instincts had been fed steroids.


    She always protected them. Now was no different. She had failed to protect Junior, she thought, and she could not fail again.


    She put both arms shoulder width from each other, laid them out in front of her, and pressed her single, open palm down on the black painted insignia. The thoughts seemed to blend, her sorrow, her anger, the esoteric shapes. Like the mystic patterns of summoning were linked to her, somehow, linked to the memories of her being struck by her father. The memories of Luanne throwing herself at Jezebel to protect her from a dog. The memories of Flint¡¯s birth at the hospital and the joy on her sister¡¯s face and the fear on Floyd¡¯s. Every memory spliced together with every strange shape and design.


    She spoke Latin. Though she did not know what she spoke. It came to her from another place, and all she could feel was the warmth and the sting and the ache like electrodes implanted in her tongue, shocking her with each vowel.


    They killed Junior. She pressed her head against the insignia. The black paint stained her forehead. They mawed him like dogs. They butchered him.


    Almost possessed by some foreign anger, she smacked her forehead against the floor again. The blood fell in between the gaps of her teeth.


    They ate him whole. All of them did. They didn¡¯t stop at one piece. They ripped him apart, and they¡¯ll rip Luanne apart. And Floyd. And Flint. And me.


    The heat rose. The insignia ignited to an emerald sheen. She felt it in her stump. Through the bandage. Through her whole body as if her veins were being filled with glycerin. The insignia blew out wind. Then, electricity! Static filled the air like a thunderstorm. The long, dragging clouds of white. She breathed in the scent. It smelled of burned flesh and rubber. Then she held herself, for the pain kept going through her.


    She fell to her knees and laid there for a while, feeling the smoke blow past her, feeling her veins combust. Until at last, out of curiosity or fear, and out of a clearing of the smoke, she could finally see what waited for her.


    It was something small. Her eyes widened. She dragged herself closer to it, to her arm at the center of the insignia. She dragged her face closer to her dismembered limb, to the once lifeless hand of hers, moving, rustling.


    And from the dead, deteriorating flesh, she saw something ooze out. Something dark and slimy. Something black, with a little red ball at the center the size of a pool ball at the center of it. Red.


    Red and black.


    This creature broke through the death grip of her missing arm. It looked up, and Jezebel looked down.


    And she thought while the shock was still in her, holding her breath hostage. Is this motherhood? Is this dread? I can¡¯t tell the difference.

 A Bonding Moment. 6

    The Cerast lives in the third layer of hell, a rare sight amongst the gassy surface. A demon with a body both malleable and resistant. A mostly liquid body allows for a high capacity of filtration, and its great size and regenerative capabilities allow it to survive long periods of times under stress. It is a being that can both consume live and inanimate matter, though preferring live for its higher density in energy. The Cerast, a demon said to consume all, said to be the sole reason for the caverns and holes populating the third layer of hell. A constant eater, the Cerast has earned its name as the "Idiot Devourer."


    It is a being that survives from dead matter. From flesh. From blood. It is a being in constant hunger, evolved from constant brutality. The brutality of fluoride skies and toxic air and corrosive atmospheres. It dwindles and meanders and preservers with simple, nagging, hunger.


    And how does a being, evolved to constantly be assaulted and deteriorated and hurt fare in the human world? Where there is an abundance of food, an abundance of ease and luxury?


    It thrives, of course.


    ?


    Today she would remind herself what it meant to be a Wolfe. That she would protect her family like a surrogate mother. Like her older sister. That this feeling was as genuine as the pain, she felt in her severed arm or the fear she honed in the talks with Mammon. That it would not be a waste.


    She had conjured the plan up the night before and to her credit, was short of time. Luanne had gotten her mark recently, Luanne who was the weakest of the bunch and in doing so, Jezebel presumed Aenea would get hers soon too. Or had. She didn¡¯t know much of the half-brothers and half-sister (and didn¡¯t even know much of her own full-blooded siblings), but she could speculate, and she believed herself right. Aenea would get hers soon or already had it, and if Floyd''s intuition was right then, Jezebel was right to believe Aenea was also the conductor of Junior¡¯s death. This, of course, made her a prime threat. Hopefully, with Aenea gone maybe the two Vicars would leave too, or at the very least, she could kill them off separately. So the plan was then simple as far as she understood it; separate the two entities, the heart-eaters, and Aenea.


    How? To what end?


    She would kill Aenea personally. The Cerast would hold the Vicars. As long as Aenea died first, the two could be handled later, at any time. To separate them, she would allow limited access to the elevator (and had paid one of the few security guards to guarantee that) Aenea would go forward on her own. She''d be coming early after all (she heard from mother that Aenea would be having a meeting today) and as such she would stalk it, wait and phase through the metal doors to kill her in the enclosed space. If the Vicars tried going up, she''d lock the doors. They''d run up and run into the Cerast. He''d pre-occupy them, or hopefully kill them.


    Easy.


    She sat in her room, amongst the black-painted sigil colored in the center. Below her, the rough, scraping seat of a wooden stool. Next to her, a glass box. What waited inside was fleshy and dark. At the touch of her fingertip, the box moved. Wiggled. And from one of the sides, the long yellow eye of a creature looked at her. At her feet next to the box was her arm. She took a long look at the clock, it was approaching the hour.


    With trepidation, a finger so frightened it shook like a Geiger counter pin, she reached for the box. She undid the latch. The metal cracked and the glass door fell.


    A thump. A slow crawl.


    Then it sprawled out, like a spillage. The dark, slimy thing, gliding across the floor.


    It slopped along and dragged itself in lethargic movements towards Jezebel, little hands reached for her legs, little mouths that wanted to devour her. Along the room, the pieces of furniture propped on the walls seemed mawed, half eaten, grazed upon. The creature reached for her leg, missing and getting the leg of the chair. Devouring it, she could immediately see its size increase. Only by a few inches. But it increased.


    She snapped at the monster. The yellow eyes of the demon turned to her and to what she carried in her only hand, the rotting, dismembered arm. Two gaps (which she presumed were nose holes) moved up and down. And with a hum or moan, it began to reach for the dismembered flesh.


    ¡°Come on, let¡¯s go.¡± She waved the arm around like a bone and from the intercom at the front of her apartment room, told every worker (however few there were left) to evacuate the front. A lone janitor answered and with a droning, annoyed sigh, said sure.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    The set was clear. She went for the elevator and pressed a red button, an emergency button, that sent off an alarm. Perhaps a fire hazard. She swiped her card and held the button until it was secured for the first floor. No interruptions.


    She propped her arm from the ceiling of the elevator, like a carrot to a stick and let it limp downwards. The creature ran for it, no larger than the size of a dog, and tried to reach for it. Its hands were small, pathetic for now. For now. The door of the elevator closed.


    Out of one glass box and into another, the creature descended down. She hoped without her control it would simply wander around, eating and grazing, becoming a sizable threat for the Vicars.


    She phoned in another number on the intercom near her elevator.


    ¡°Yessum.¡± The voice intercom responded.


    ¡°Has she already made it?¡±


    ¡°Yessum ma¡¯am. She¡¯s at the front. Cautious looking, I think she¡¯ll be taking the VIP elevator.¡±


    ¡°Right, can¡¯t take the general one.¡± On account of the emergency button, Jezebel had pressed. ¡°Call me when she comes in and hold the other elevators until I say so, okay? We''ve got to wait for the Vicars.¡±


    ¡°The tall looking fellers?¡±


    ¡°Yes, them.¡± She said.


    ¡°Yessum.¡±


    So it was in motion. She could feel the spools spinning and her feet taken to action. She went for her wardrobe and strapped herself with her gear, the long shirt, and the long pants and the mobility these all allowed. The hooded jacket, the straps on her arms. She attached bandages to her feet as makeshift shoes, there would be no sound. She felt her heartbeat and put her palm against her chest to feel it rise and fall as if the very movement itself was relaxing. She could not relax though.


    She left the room and went back to the elevator. She sighed, and with calm (as calm as she could be) and with focus, she phased her body. Transparency, nearly. She went through the floor and reappeared a floor down.


    Ten more floors to go.


    Once more. Once more.


    She fell and fell. Falling to each floor, descending down the lonely halls as if in a dream, phasing in and out, her body floating, weightless through the air. No wall could hold her. There were no walls, at all.


    She came to a stop. Her feet touching the floor. The dreaded floor and waited by the elevator. It was simple, she¡¯d jam her blade in the button and keep the door shut and do her business with ease. Her strength was severe, she could peel the metal doors of the elevator and run like an Olympian. The transformation, beginning with the tattoo, had been great on her body and at least the pain was worth something.


    Jezebel waited by the door, only her blue eyes visible through the tightly wrapped clothes. She was keen on watching the door, watching the elevator rise and rise. But midway (which should have proved no stoppage)...midway... something happened. The lights in the casino went out. The elevator screen scrambled. The pixelated numbers fixed themselves, and she realized, immediately, that the elevator was not here.


    She began to sweat.


    What happened? What¡¯d that idiot do? It¡¯s not time to freeze the damn fucking elevator.


    She waited again. It started. Then stopped. Started once more. She tried the other elevators. The same thing, as if all had been reset. And broken.


    She checked the elevator that had been preserved for the monstrosity. The ''emergency''-pressed-elevator.


    That too had prematurely stopped. With a screech of metal. A twist. A snap.


    She stuck her head through the metal doors of the elevator. She looked down, like a voyeuristic ghost. It was too dark in that little tunnel to tell what was going on down there.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    She ran back to the center of the hall, amongst a bundle of lonely rooms.


    The elevators were going up and down, stopping and going with a freedom that frightened her. So she stared at the wall, thinking, minutes, thinking. She cursed, and the hit the walls with her head and palms. Then punched them The dents of her fist imposed upon a wooden wall panel.


    The elevator started moving again. It was fast approaching her hall (Aenea''s, actually).


    She felt glad for a moment. Her blade was readied, desperation led her now, gave her that false hope.


    The elevator went up, approached her, went up. She could already imagine the doors and Aenea''s face and the whole act of murder. Her face hardened.


    She waited for the elevator, the number going up and up. She pressed on the intercom, screaming at it to stop. Stop.


    She pressed on the button herself.


    Then...it went past her.


    It went¡­to the floor where the Vicars stayed.


    Her whole body went cold.


    She phoned her partner, the terrible security guard she had paid a couple tens of thousands to coerce. The phone answered, but there was nothing past the line. Nothing but hard breathing and a sort of suckling noise. Dripping? Something dripping?


    And she was stuck there, afraid, watching the elevator go up and down and up and down.


    How much time had passed? At least thirty minutes worth past the plan, a good chunk of time. Enough time to see the elevator stop at the floor and enough time for her to hear the violence from below and to feel the building shake and to see - To see! The explosion at the side of the building, the smoke pillars rising up the windows.


    ¡°What happened to the plan?¡± She spoke to herself. She waited a bit, gawking at the damage below. The fire, the smoke. The electricity must have turned off two more times, and by the second, all the power in the casino had gone. The elevators were not working. There was dead blackness amongst the casino.


    And she was afraid. Who was fighting who? Who had done what?


    So in fear, mostly, she decided to fix things.


    So she ran for the electrical generators. To fix the casino.

 A Bonding Moment. 7

    It was not her choice at all. None of it was. Not the feeling of the growing expanse in the pit of her stomach that resembled a bit of excitement but mostly fear. Nor was it her decision to wander down the halls, in the deep heavy sweats that made her clothes heavy, with eyes sloppy and overly excited. She had stopped at the floor, only briefly, stopped on that poker room where the monstrosity and the Vicar¡¯s were fighting. One, laying on the floor, the other struggling. The bullets and fire scared her away though. Maybe she could have killed them. Maybe.


    Instead, she kept true. She went down to the first floor, down to the security room at the side of a janitor¡¯s closet in some corner of the first floor. She looked for the damn security guard who had sold her a lie. She found him too. He was hunched over, hole in his chest. His chest was open, the bone protruding like a busted bird cage. To his side, the access to every room and floor given up, the buttons jammed or rather, destroyed such that they were all active, regardless of VIP access or not. A wall of monitors flashed on and off, static and sparks shot out every so often. The room was desecrated, the corpse was proof enough of that. She looked up to the screen. Her eyes scanning up along the wall of CRT TV¡¯s humming and flashing white noise. She spotted one such television, by chance alone, one where she watched a young woman drag herself around outside the casino. The television, of course, blacked out almost immediately afterward. She slammed her only hand on the desk. Blood spilled down. The bodies head shook and slumped over towards the floor.


    She didn¡¯t even care that there was a body next to her, her eyes rolled back and lips curled into almost a laugh.


    She didn¡¯t care for much of anything but Aenea. Aenea, running outside, running for the generator room.


    ¡°Did she kill him?¡± Jezebel asked she looked at the hole in the man. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think. Maybe? I can¡¯t tell. But if she could kill Junior, what else is she capable of?¡±


    She shook her head. The blood was on her gloves. She paced in the room, thinking, only briefly before beginning to phase. Then found something strange. Her body seemed uncooperative, all her limbs went through save for one; her hand. It would not go through the walls. So she yanked at it, worked at it until finally, her bloody glove slipped off her hand.


    ¡°What was that?¡± She asked. And she could not think it over, not really. She shook her head and phased to the outside. Each brick and concrete and wooden wall like a kind of hidden door. Then she perched herself next to a flagpole. Jezebel¡¯s eyes wandered left to right like a vulture perched on the skull, hovering, waiting. She found her target. Really, she heard her. Her strained screaming, the pacing she made as she ran across through the parking lot.


    ¡°You don¡¯t think I can catch up, bitch?¡± She said. More a declaration than a question. And more an invitation, than just a threat.


    Jezebel ran across the concrete paths, the roads empty and somber. Lamp posts flickered for no one but her lonely shadow, the dragged black smudge that skidded across. She cut through the parking lot and cut through and into the off-site generator room. The machinery was twirling, the lights flashed on and off. All of them red and screeching some god awful buzzing sound. She couldn''t focus on them. She couldn¡¯t even afford to be short of breath. Her lungs were still. Her heart too. All of her body complied with the demand to be still, as she waited, half absorbed into the wall, looking into the dark and morbid generator room. She was nothing. Not in the darkness. Nothing. And she could feel her tattoo light up, feel it bleed through the black bandages wrapped around her.


    Half her body was inside the wall, but she still had a sense for it.


    She felt for the knife strapped to her heel. Unsheathing it from the bandages in a slick, quiet manner. She raised it in front of her and put herself deeper into the wall until all that showed was her face.


    Her arm could not stop shaking.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    And she heard the door open.


    Her breath finally caught up to her. She took a deep gasp and leaned back into the shadow. She must have been paper thin, with nothing but a few inches of her face to show like a mask hung up against a wall. She looked at Aenea walk across, towards the metal panel, towards the lightbox.


    I¡¯ll kill her. Nothing matters now, not the plan and not myself. I¡¯ll kill her.


    Her breath accumulated with small little gasps.


    I¡¯ll kill her and bring the body to mom. I¡¯ll let Richter see it. And maybe then. Her eyes dilated. Maybe then things will be fixed.


    And she waited, hostile in her little corner. Waited for Aenea to approach. Her blade loomed overhead, and she crept slowly up behind her. She must have been inches away from Aenea, the knife still and focused. It must have been that close. Nothing else could explain the heat of her tattoo and the pacing of her heart.


    The knife came down.


    Aenea ducked. She pushed herself away. Jezebel went through the steel, through the panel. The sparks hit her face, she closed her eyes.


    What happened? She stuck her foot against the wall and pushed. The knife came out with sparks. Where¡¯d it go wrong? Not again.


    Aenea ran. Jezebel chased after her, slashing at the air. Slashing at skin and clothes. Slashing at nothing.


    It all happened with heat and fury. It all happened with Jezebel''s cheeks puffed and her eyes incredibly dry and her mouth tucked in, lips bit and blood drawn. With fury and anxiousness and a constant chasing and running.


    Nipping. Chipping away at Aenea. Who would not fall, who escaped.


    They went to the parking lot. Jezebel fell into the concrete, phasing through it, disguising (so she thought) herself, and surfing the solid stuff.


    It did not work well, though she got a few shots in.


    Why is she so fucking agile?


    The feeling was frustrating, her blade cutting at skin only slightly. Blood spilled, only slightly.


    And it frustrated her more. Touching gasoline, touching water. It frustrated her because it made her realize her flaw; water. Liquid.


    It seemed to disrupt her phasing or at least made whatever was wet un-phasable. She must have lost inches of her leg garments touching gasoline, the bandages were being cut and left behind as she traveled along. Her skin was exposed. The cold air, a reminder to this foible of hers.


    And it was frustrating seeing Aenea catch on. To start noticing the wet clothes she left behind, or the way Jezebel dodged puddles.


    Frustrating. She slapped her face and watched Aenea stand in a pool of gasoline. It extended out like a spider-web and Jezebel walked the circumference of the smudge.


    They looked at each other like those old cowboys in the west would, with their eyes narrowed and their hands on the imaginary trigger.


    The gasoline ring was no more than a pause. A break. They both knew it.


    And after a while, they went at it again. Aenea jumping down the hall. Dodging, skirting death. Jezebel chased after her, the blade slicing air. Blade, searching to decapitate her, to slit her neck open, to cut her chest.


    They came to another run, across the concrete fields and the grassy plains. They headed for the fountain at the side of the hotel which led into the side of a buffet restaurant. There was no restaurant left there, of course.


    The fountain was loud in the silence of this empty casino.


    They both sprinted for it. And Jezebel was getting wet from the mildew of grass. Though she did not care anymore. Her bandaged body slowly becoming loose, her knife hell-bent on Aenea¡¯s back. Aenea sprinting with a limp, tiring.


    It¡¯s almost here. She¡¯s got the stamina of a buffalo, but she¡¯s almost at the cliff-side.


    They must have gone for ten minutes at a full sprint before Aenea stopped. Before she dipped into the fountai0n.


    Water won¡¯t save you. Not now.


    Jezebel walked into the fountain, knife drawn.


    She raised it above her head. Her breath was faint, but she had endured long enough for this moment, with sheer desperation and anger.


    She let the knife sheen and gleam against the dark sky and made a movement, a jerking motion, to push it down.


    Her breath halted. Her shoulder clenched. She moved forward, downward.


    And she wondered, briefly, why it was all black. Was she staring at the night sky again? She asked herself that, in what felt like an infinite conversation in the short seconds she had left of consciousness. It felt like she was screaming into a tunnel. A tunnel with a clear ending coming her way.


    Wasn''t I going down? Why am I looking up?


    It came to a shock. No, not really.


    Jezebel died too soon to be shocked. And any thought or question dissipated, returning to the blackness she was seeing now.


    Her head had gone a full circle and came back, clinging by flesh and veins alone to her neck.


    It was a good thing she died that fast. She wasn¡¯t conscious enough to feel the pain. And certainly wasn¡¯t alive long enough to complain about it.


    Her body walked for a bit. It struggled. Then, as if in acceptance, it fell too. Backside. Into the water, she returned.

 A Bonding Moment. 8

    They came into the room with Apollo and painted the walls a different shade of red. They eyed the bed. Apollo pushed them to the bathroom. The walk was small, the room could not have been wider than a five-second dash to the opposite end.


    And there, they found the plastic sheets of the shower curtains and wrapped them around his wounds. Dion looked behind him, the trail of blood leading from the door to the restroom. Aenea had the idea to close the door at last.


    "Jesus, you forgot me already," Thaddeus said, coming in, glassed fixed on his bed-ridden head. Half of his hair was pushed along like a giant wall ran on his left ear.


    It was a late night. Late enough that the only place they could find a bed was among those dismal corners, a shitty motel in some god awful corner, where the hookers were working next door with their false moans and wry laughs. The men sounded ached and combined with Apollo''s thrashing screams, it all seemed like a Capella of pain.


    "I can handle myself," Apollo tried to say, the blood pooled on his lower jaw and he spat it out.


    "I don''t know how you''re still alive," Dion said.


    "I was never good at much, especially dying." Apollo laughed.


    "If you have enough time to talk, you should have enough time to lay down and sleep."


    "Sleeps not going to help him," Thaddeus said. "At the poor rate of his regeneration, I''m going to guess he''s short calories. He probably hasn''t been eating well these past few days. If at all. You''re going to have to feed him in the morning. He''ll be grazing all day too, considering his wounds."


    "I offered him a philosopher''s stone..." Dion said, in his low voice. His eyes narrowed.


    "And he didn''t take it, that''s good. I don''t know his particular condition but he doesn''t seem well enough for that kind of stimulus. Actually, don''t feed him anything with Arcana." Thaddeus said. "It''s better he recovers naturally, with sleep and food. Let him rest a couple days, he can make it."


    "What about me?" Aenea said from the corner. Her voice sounded no louder than a whisper, but it cut through Dion like a knife. She was here. The woman who for all intents and purposes, was the sole cause for their pain. Aenea. Bleeding from her arm with nothing more to her senses but the quick eyeing and nervous shaking iris. Aenea, who rubbed both her shoulders and crossed her arms and stared left and right like a schizophrenic surveillance camera. "What happens to me? This hasn''t stopped hurting and I''ve got this weird feeling. An itch maybe, it''s in my stomach and it''s growing out."


    Apollo had stopped moving with for a brief moment frightened Dion, who turned to feel his pulse. He was asleep. Just asleep, thank god.


    He lay on his side in the tub. His head against the faucet, the blood pooling into the drainage, clogging it with clumps of flesh. His body was extraditing the shrapnel lodged in his stomach.


    "What about you, Aenea?" Dion asked. "I''m the one with questions here."


    "I mean...what''s happening to me?" Aenea asked. She pointed a finger to Thaddeus and to Dion. "You''ve all got a better idea than me on what''s happening so I want to know. What''s gone on with me? And who are you?" She pointed to Thaddeus again, who looked around.


    "Who, me?"


    "Yes, you."


    "I''ll have you know that I''m the greatest minds amongst the Hospitallers. You won''t find a more brilliant philosopher, doctor, scientist, poet-"


    "He''s the guy who gives us our weapons." Dion said. "What else do you want to know, witch?"


    "Just that. What does it mean to be a witch?"


    "Unholiness." Dion said. "Unreliable, a killing machine in waiting. Whose unreserved and irresponsible actions have led to our near-deaths not once but twice."


    "You''re tangled in a big mess, Aenea," Thaddeus extended his hand out. Aenea dismissed it, not even with a slap or a nod but dispassionate scowl. She kept her eyes on Dion, a green gleam in them like something brewing. A potion, a spell. Something vile and something not even Aenea was aware of. But the glow was obvious, especially in the darkness.


    "You''re acting as if I''m conscious of all this shit," she said. "I''m in just a big confused mess as the rest of you. Don''t act like I asked for any of this, don''t think that I orchestrated the attacks or hired you two defend me from them."Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "I know. That''s why you''re so unreliable. You''re a novice. You have arcana, some. God knows what it''ll manifest as," He said. "And you came here expecting a funeral and some concessions, only to enter the arena."


    "Arena?" She looked down at her fumbling hands.


    "Can''t you tell? It seems obvious now that Apollo is half dead and your sister revealed." Dion said. "It seems like it started with your dad too. You''re all killing each other. To what end? Who knows."


    "Arena? Can anyone in this damn place make any god damn sense? Speak in simpler terms, please." Her arms extended out and slapped her knees, her face came forward and rested itself face down on her lap. The arcana traveled through her neck, green. Such that she had a mild glow, like radiation trying to be subdued.


    "You''re going to have to figure things out. I just know you''re cursed, by whom? Who knows." Dion said.


    Thaddeus rose his finger.


    "Well, who am I to...chime in." They all faced him, he smiled. It was a weak smile. "But I believe that''s Mammon''s curse? Right?" He was grinning now, towards Aenea who carried her discomfort obviously as a wide frown."A-a-and." He said. "I''m sure this curse comes with a reward. All burdens do. Whatever that is, though, I don''t know."


    "It''s not just a prize," Aenea looked down. "It''s the damn casino along with it."


    "Competition? Bloodbath, more like it." Dion said. "And we''re fighting people better versed, well equipped and well coordinated. This is not a fair fight, not by any stretch. At least you have u-"


    Her face went cold. Her cheeks drained of color. She sat on a chair next to the window, looking out the small gaps between the window blinds. She looked segmented with the moonlight split and hitting her. Cut into pieces.


    Dion extended coughed, trying to speak, only to croak, to shush.


    Periodically she would look out, though most of the time she bandaged herself. And when the Thaddeus tried to approach her, she''d glare at him. Though it wasn''t anger. More so, a reaction. For her face eased up when she saw his.


    She looked shook.


    It was beginning to dawn on her, this whole picture of a family of witches and her own role in it. The details were like bombs in her synapses, waiting to explode or already in the midst of it. Each thought, each passing memory, all evidence and rumor pieced together, strange new and old point, amassing in the revelation; she was a witch, alone and without hope. Now coming into a world of demons, of magic, of a summons and orderly obedience to a demon.


    "So it''s really like this, then?" Aenea asked with deliberation in her voice. Slow, steady. It sounded like mumbling."I''ve been signed up for a tournament, a game, where I don''t even know the prize. But I sure know the cost, don''t I?"


    "Yeah,"


    "And that magic stuff? She was going through walls. And the monsters - That''s all just natural to you, isn''t it?" Her breath sounded faint.


    "Yes," Dion said. With calm. With a measured tone.


    "So I''m the only one out of the loop then? You don''t even seem concerned. It seems like another day to you."


    "I''ve been in this trade for a while and considering the things I''ve seen and done...no, none of this is strange. It''s sure scary, but not strange." He said.


    "You can''t truly be afraid until you experience the lack of knowledge. Like I am." He rubbed her feet and then, her ankle. It stung and the pain showed, the wide frown across her face. "You can''t understand someone who lived her whole life thinking this was all make-believe and fairy tail, living and surviving for my mom. Trying to struggle, only to have it threatened." She laughed. "By dad...By dad! He''s taking it from me, isn''t he? All of it. All the things I worked so hard for without him and here he''s gone, stomping on my sand castle, telling me to play in the damn ocean. I was having fun. I was doing things. I felt good. But now? Now I''m stuck in a new world with burdens I can''t even understand, because the instruments to measure them are foreign to me too."


    "I''m sorry, but you''re going to have to adjust and we can help you." He said. "We can educate you on your mark, on your capabilities - if you have any - and on your new role in this fight."


    "I don''t want to hear it." She leaned back. "Not now."


    She snapped at Thaddeus


    "Can you get me a drink?" She asked. He looked excited, almost, Thaddeus. He ran to the little mini-fridge in the corner of the room.


    It was as if the details of the room were finally coming together for Dion, as if calm had finally given him perspective. For every piece of furniture was beginning to appear in his periphery. The flower-pattern carpet, the chairs by the sides of beds. The bibles atop the tables. A bathroom with closed windows. Windows with closed binds. Wind, howling. A cross, lopsided, right above Dion who was right in front of the small twenty four inch TV.


    The light above burned a hole through Dion. With the fan circling at a slow pace, looking above, he felt like a fly caught in the wind tunnel. Simply circling, skirting the edge, being sucked into the vortex.


    The mini fridge emitted a low sound. Less than a hum. The AC was turned on. When? He didn''t know.


    "We''re going to be staying here for a while." Apollo spat out from the bathroom. They all turned to face him. He didn''t even bother to move from his side, with his face leaned against the faucet. He laid there, simply, in tranquil stillness. His voice groggy and strained. But that was his natural voice too, so it was hard to tell if he was in pain or not, for he sounded the same as usual; pissed, raspy, low, slow.


    Maybe he was always in pain.


    "It¡¯s bad enough to be in a meth-house looking motel," He said, fixing his posture just a bit to straighten out. "But here I am also listening to two idiots worry and argue over nothing they can do or think about. I¡¯m about to slit my own throat.¡±


    He sniffed.


    ¡°So unless you want to clean an even bigger mess, please, shut the fuck up and let me sleep."


    They looked at him with slacked jaws. The blood and the small shrapnel coming out of his body, the plastic curtains wrapped around him like a bloody toga.


    They gave one hard look at his distressed eyes and the bags they carried and then they shut up.

 A Bonding Moment. 9

    He slunk as he made his slow crawl up the stairs, making sure to avoid every light up, like a burglar. He was not quiet. Not like Jezebel when she descended (he couldn¡¯t even hear her through the audio feed in the security room). No, he was not quiet. It was a surprise even to him he was not caught yet.


    But he was patient, and careful at least as he rode up the stairs and walked around the wreckage of his work.


    A floor; wholly destroyed. He took one glance through the glass window on the door to see the residual mess the Vicars had left. He didn¡¯t want to enter. It was hell.


    The fires were only beginning to wear out, the water was still running down the pipeline and emergency faucets. He couldn¡¯t help but smile at the destruction.


    For Turnus, it was a job well done. And all he had done was kill a guard. Still, a kill was a kill. His left arm hurt, there were flecks of flesh beneath his fingernails, and his rings were pressed hard against his fingers. They made small red marks where he had strangled the guard.


    His right hand was worn, hot and touching the brick walls as he rode the stairs up, he left streaks and marks of disintegrated stone. He didn¡¯t know how to turn it off. His glove had been melted away a while back. His hand was a burning red, though not hot. He was just reducing things, that¡¯s all he understood at least.


    He made it to the elevator to take him up to his suite. Pressing the button, the glass panel, he saw it turn to fine sand in small circles where his fingertip had landed.


    He sighed. More stairs. Touching the doorknob leading to the stairs disintegrated it into fine metal granules. Black powder.


    He had to keep his hand away from the guard rail, from the walls, from everything as he patiently made his way up. His legs shook, not out of tiredness, but of some thrill.


    One hand gloved and bloody, the other dry to the touch, red like a warning. His single glove, wet and heavy, made him lower his guard. It felt like a layer of paint that tainted him. Taking it off did not help him. Rising to the top of the stairs, to his room and to the double doors leading to the psuedo-night club and the sleek bedroom behind curtains did not help clear the weight from his hands. He pushed aside a set of curtains, opened the door and scoped it out. A body lay in his bed, it eased his heart only for a moment. With his teeth, he worked every finger of the glove until it was off and in a bundle in his hand.


    He tasted iron.


    In front of him, on the king sized bed, the low snore of his lover. Behind the lover, a walk in closet and the shower. He struck the dresser with his shoes as he crept.


    The dresser closed, shut, and the soothing sound of snoring and of light breaths of those throes of sleep were disrupted. He ran now to the closet. And inside of it, a set of eight pairs of lights turned on. He closed the door behind him. His shadow worked underneath the door frame, he couldn¡¯t hear sleeping anymore only disgruntled movements. Coils and bed sheets turning.


    Inside, he worked the dressers. He opened them one by one with angst, nearly tearing them from their posts on the cabinets. He stripped himself. He fixed new clothes, hid the old ones. He turned on the shower (should have done that first) and let the heavy sound of the water sprouts mute him. It was calming, like rain, and stepping into the shower, he was first hit with the blast of cold. It caved to warmth almost immediately, and the open pores of his shaking body relaxed.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    The shower was large, and within, he seemed to be inside a prison of glass. Steam rose and made his surrounding foggy. He tried to clear it with his good hand, his un-cursed hand. The fog returned before he could see his reflection.


    Though he swore, he noticed a frown. Maybe even a tear. Thank god he was showering, he could pretend he wasn¡¯t tearing up.


    He massaged his face. Paced back and forth, eyes closed. The wrinkles around his mouth were straining, he wasn¡¯t used to having much of any emotion for too long. For Turnus was always used to being abject, to giving slight smiles, to being brief with his explosive rage, to be knee-deep in a drunken stupor. But being emotional? This deep? This long? That was strange.


    But the dimples on him were beginning to ache. He had never been this sad this long, this mad and frustrated and worried.


    And why? All he had done was kill a guard.


    And my sister.


    He slipped. On his ass, he felt his shoulder hit the wall too, but made no effort to move. He sat there, arms crossed against his chest and nude, hot body. The dried blood of his victim still on him, on his neck and his wrists. It came off, moving like the tail end of a small red snake, down the faucet drain.


    All my talk about being tough. Hah. As if killing a man could ever be easy. He rubbed his forehead. You can shit-talk all you want, practice in your head. But it doesn¡¯t ready you. Sure as hell didn¡¯t ready me to see Jezzy. God damn¡­


    He sighed.


    Her head looked like a fucking screw.


    He felt the septic acid and throw-up rise to his mouth. He swallowed.


    Like a screw top. He cackled.


    They killed her. A smirk.


    The laughter seemed to rise through him like vomit. And as all things uncontrollable, all things that do not abide by the strength of will, he was uncomfortable. He tried to slap his face. He felt the pain, but the laughter continued. Slow, cackling almost, like an old man. It resonated within the enclosed space, coming back to him with reverb. It sounded like an orchestra of laughter. Then crying. Then laughter again.


    She''s really dead, ain''t she?


    He covered his mouth and bit down on the palm. It drew blood, the pain was light though. Balancing his body with his other hand seemed futile, his hand made dust of the marble floor.


    I seen her. I seen her head go round and round in circle. Spinning like she was playing on the tea cup ride. Spinning like she had no idea who¡¯d done it. Her. Them. Me. All of us. Why, she was playing musical chairs with blame, wasn¡¯t she? Just spinning. Head. Spinning.


    The image of the fountain of blood was too much. But closing his eyes only materialized it with richer detail. The fountain of blood. The black suited men. Aenea. And him looking from the second story, with the blood still on his gloves weighing him down and the rapid palpitations of his heart telling him to move on.


    He could feel it all. Again.


    His hand sunk through the floor and he looked down.


    His hand was still decomposing things. Still, reducing marble to sand and clay and pebbles of rock.


    He raised his tattooed arm. Touching the water turned it into steam. A strange scent it carried. It seemed nauseating, breathing in the water.


    I¡¯ve separated even the water, haven¡¯t I?


    Oxygen, Hydrogen, reduced and split.


    Why, Moses would be proud.


    The print of his hand was left and within the gap, a sand and clay and water mixture. A slurry, almost wet-concrete-like.


    He stood up.


    Can¡¯t bitch too much about it. This is what I wanted, right? And man¡¯s gotta stick to his ideals. It¡¯s what separates us from the animals.


    He wiped the mirror with his still marked, still working, hand. That cursed hand. That destroyers hand. He went across, in a sweeping motion, against the glass. It turned to sand in the streak he touched it by. And in this gap, he could see his reflection at the end of the room clearly.


    He was smiling.

 Episode 7: Boy Wonder

    Salome could tell her son was coming because the marble was rising and shooting out the pale stone floors and walls.


    "Who did it?" He said, outside the doors. He collapsed them with a fling of his wrist, the doors compressed and shattered by the stone walls.


    He was a storm. For each step he took seemed to shake and cause the marble floor to rise like sea waves. And Salome, the lone ship, a giant ferry in the middle of the white ocean. The marble all around her, rising and falling and crashing and snapping. She wondered if Floyd was even aware he was using his magic, if he even knew how much damage he was causing to the building with his simple tantrum. Maybe he just didn''t care, his look sure showed it. There was nothing to him but fumes and the tightened muscles of a frown. He walked with his unsteady gait, with his shoulders low and leaned forward, with locked eyes. The green hue - glow - emanating from his tattoo and his eyes.


    His eyes. Two piercing, wide eyes switching forth between their natural black to the more severe green, a sign of arcana.


    Salome looked at him. She was knitting something that resembled tapestry. It was a blanket. She was fixing characters on its design, Junior and Jezebel. She knit it with finesse, even with her gaze stuck on Floyd. She did not cry, did not shake. Age hadn''t killed her dexterity or her brutality.


    "I know you, and I know you have an idea on who killed them. You have the know-how and the connections. That knowledge means one thing; that you''re obliged to tell me, your son, who killed my sister. " He slammed his feet down.


    "I''m not telling you anything, not a lick. Boy." She knit faster.


    Floyd slammed his other foot down. A podium rose between her and him. It molded itself to a table with some time, one that Floyd put his hands down on. The surface was smooth. It didn''t last long though, he broke it with one slap.


    So he made another, and another, until he was just punching rocks of marble. There was no other furniture in the room, at least. He was creating his own. And destroying it. After a while he stopped, exhausted, with nostrils flared. His mouth was drooling, nearly, the wetness formed in the corner of his frown. His fingernails were worn down, like a jagged knife. He had been scratching himself, or something else. Judging by the grime, it must have been stone or marble or anything else with that kind of durability.


    "I can''t tell you who killed him." She said.


    "Who not?" He screamed. There was a birdcage in the corner of the room, it chirped and flew inside its small prison. Further from the cage, a door leading to an elevator and to Salome''s personal garden. Behind Salome, a king-sized bed. The purple sheets were neat and without ruffles. She hadn''t slept in days, after all.


    Purple satin window covers hid the light, allowing just enough to lend some visibility for the two. It was filtered, colored purple.


    "I can''t tell you because if I do, you''ll send yourself off to fight an enemy that isn''t worth fighting yet. We need to be more careful, we need to aim for the right targets and divide the right people" Salome said. "Jezebel''s already messed the plan up, she''s made them defensive -"


    "Who cares?" He created a slender pole of stone, just to section each one with a punch. Each punch working at inches of marble, throwing stone every which way. His knuckles bled. The pebbles and stone fell to Salome''s side, she felt the breeze they left as they disturbed the air, but she did not flinch. Maybe she even predicted this.


    "Your sister did not care. And she paid for it." She said. "My daughter died because she did not listen, I won''t have the same thing happen to you. I can''t afford to lose you,"


    "You already lost me," Floyd said.


    "I''m beginning to believe that," She stopped knitting, only for a moment.


    "Give me a name."


    "Would you even believe me if I did? One look tells me you don''t trust me, right?"


    He was quiet.


    his fool. This stupid boy of mine. She set down her pincers, two long needles. He doesn''t even care anymore who he kills, as long as he kills someone. As long as it makes him feel good. Always emotional, weren''t you? Do you even want revenge? Or is it just an excuse?


    "You wouldn''t believe me, would you? If I told you it was Aenea or Ritcher, if it was the Vicars or Turnus. If it was all of them or none of them."


    "Stop bullshitting me. Just give me a name," He pleaded now. His voice softened, became dire with its low pitch. He leaned on his vowels, so as to speak with a whine. "Just tell me how to fix all this. Tell me what to make this feeling go away."


    "Pain, sadness -"Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    "Shame!" He said. "Help me get rid of this shame. Embarrassment. Let me fix this, please."


    "I''m not going to give you anything," Salome stood. She walked over to Floyd and put her hand on his cheek. A hand he shrugged away. She tried again, he moved his face away, as if in avoidance of disease. An infection. The infection of compassion. He leaned back. "I won''t give you anything but time. You need to focus yourself, get a grip on your mind before you lose it."


    "Everyone here''s lost it but me," He breathed hard, there was snot, the formation of tears stopping his steady breaths. He was straining for air. "I''m telling you, everyone''s gone mad. You just don''t know it. You''re just hanging on too, pretending. Barely pretending,"


    He couldn''t even look at her then. As if all the anger in him had given way to some deeper sadness, something black, formless, a current of water that started in his heart and exited out of his eyes.


    She was disgusted. She looked away too, in shame. Hissed, in shame. Put on a fake, empathetic gaze, in shame.


    "This family is fucked, isn''t it?" He asked. "I''ve thought about it. But nothing works, it''s like trying to grip water. What''s the point? It''s just going to slip through - spill everywhere - stain you."


    "We can still win this, you know that? We have the numbers and the strategy. We have home base too." She tried her hands on his shoulders. That didn''t work either. "Ritcher and Turnus left. Aenea and her dogs are gone too. We''ve got the castle. We have it protected, and it''s ours. We just need to wait now. Just be patient, we''ll get ''em one by one."


    ¡°Fuck, one by one.¡± Floyd stepped forward, now facing her with mere inches of space between them. His tears dried, his eyes sharp. She respected those more. His breath smelled of something rancid, vomit? The crows feet on his eyes, deeper, more pronounced. He almost looked the same age as his mother. His forehead had three long cracks horizontal and deep. ¡°No more plans. No more pretending this is anything but a game to you. No more. I don''t care for the family name or the home-fucking-base. I''m here to protect Luanne and - and -"


    "Your son."


    He went quiet. He did not answer. He didn''t need to. They both knew what it was, that forbiddenness. And at this point, it didn''t seem like they cared.


    It was desperation for him and leverage for her.


    ¡°You¡¯ll run and die, is what you¡¯ll do.¡± She felt herself lose breath. ¡°Like Jezebel.¡±


    ¡°I am not my sister,¡± He said. ¡°And as far as I''m concerned, you''re not my mother. You''re something else, something vile."


    "I want revenge as much as you. I just want it the right way,"


    "There''s nothing right or wrong about the ways to get revenge, all that matters is that it''s done." He approached her. "Even if that means getting rid of people close to you."


    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t dare.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d do anything for a fucking name,¡± He said. ¡°I¡¯ll squeeze it out of you if I have to.¡±


    ¡°Shut your mouth, boy.¡± She slapped him. His coarse, unshaven face. He felt like a cactus. His eyes did not change expression, the insanity in him had not changed to anything reasonable at all.


    ¡°You think you''re hard, don''t you? You think you''re made of that concrete shit? That tough shit?¡± He said. ¡°I''m sure you think that of yourself. You''ve always had that vanity, that inability to see that you''re just be an old bitch glued to a shitty, wooden, rocking chair."


    ¡°Shut up Floyd.¡± She slapped him again. ¡°Shut the fuck up and listen -"


    ¡°No, you listen.¡± He put both hands on her shoulders. ¡°Give me a fucking name! Who killed her! Who!¡±


    ¡°Get off me,¡± She protested, light, without heat. But as she felt her neck shake and her bones ache, she got louder. She pushed him back. ¡°Get back!¡±


    He approached her again, hand to her neck.


    ¡°I will snap your neck,¡± He said. "Because you mean less to me than Luanne, do you understand? You''re nothing to me. Nothing."


    The grip tightened. Fear and anger both, she felt them grip her. It felt cold, the touch. As if his hand had no blood, certainly no Wolfe blood running through it.


    Next to her, all around her, pillars of marble rose from the ground.


    ¡°A name!¡± He screamed. The pillars shattered, the dagger-like crystalline stones scattered about the floor, pointed towards her.


    ¡°Dion,¡± She wheezed. ¡°The Vicar boy, Dion. The Asian one.¡±


    He let go of her.


    ¡°Where is he?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Even I don¡¯t have that kind of knowledge. A few cities away? Still in here, who knows?¡± She rubbed her neck. ¡°But I''m telling you - I''m telling you! Stay cool.¡±


    Her neck still felt hot. She coughed.


    "You stupid brat,"


    ¡°Stupid? No, just annoyed.¡±


    "You''ll mess everything up if you don''t do this in the order that it should be done. Turnus first, then Richter - then!"


    "Don''t lecture me, not when you''re half dead."


    "Arrogant shit!"


    "It''s not arrogance, just anger," He left for the door. ¡°Anger for all of them. And for you, too.¡±


    He started his way out.


    "Be careful. If you kill him, if you so much as mess one thing up, I''m abandoning you. You hear me, Floyd?"


    He turned to her.


    ¡°I''m glad we''re both coming to terms with all of this. I was just beginning to think about what I want from you.¡± His eyes glared down at her, still holding her neck and kneeling in front of her rocking chair. "If I see you ever again, I''m taking you out too, mother."


    The blanket fell on her legs. Jezebel and Junior, their caricatures at least, were face down.


    ¡°You¡¯re playing a man¡¯s game,¡± She said. ¡°And you''re just a boy without the brain to survive. But you don¡¯t care, do you? You don¡¯t care about the big picture. You don''t understand the importance of your actions, you stupid boy, stupid. Stupid. Stupid!¡±


    "The only thing I understand," He said, looking at her. "Is an old southern, poor bitch who got too attached to the high life she never deserved. Right, mother? You''ve always been ashamed of being poor. Haven''t you? You''ve always tried desperately to hold on to it, haven''t you?"


    She screamed at him. Profanities, mostly. But he wasn¡¯t there to listen. He wasn¡¯t there to do much of anything but walk out, walk into the elevator and down. The day had left them both into night.


    There were no lights to lead him, all electricity was routed to only the most important features of the casino. But he knew how to navigate the darkness. The rotting ¡®castle¡¯ as it was.


    And she was stuck there, holding her neck, composing herself with an unsteady hand. She looked up, trees of marble had grown from the floor, extended upwards by some simple flick of the wrist by Floyd''s behalf.


    It was just a flick of the wrist for him. Everything always had been. He''d leave a storm all right, but he''d never clean up after it.


    "You''ve always been messy," She said at the destroyed doors and the empty halls where the noise of falling debris came from. "And you''ve always slipped up on your messes too. Right, Floyd?"

 Boy Wonder 2

    He walks without purpose. Without aim. He only knows he is moving, not forward or backwards, but moving amongst the darkness surrounding him. A surge of light. Below, the strobing colors of red and black pronounce themselves with a coming glare. Blinded. He shields his eyes. They come from above now, lights. Now blinded, still walking. Black spots blind his vision as he recovers. He looks below again, numbers now. Then colored areas of black and red. He is on a roulette wheel. It is spinning, and him, the ball. Naked. He walks. Runs. And next to him, not appearing out of nowhere, for there is nothing but empty space all around him. No, as if always there, always waiting by the center of the wheel, his hand against the centering tower. He walks forward towards Apollo.


    The smiling devil, Astyanax.


    "It must be hard on you, all that walking?"


    He knows not why he answers, only that he does. A nodding no.


    "Do you even know what you''re doing? It doesn''t seem that way, heart-eater. One look tells me you lost your way through the Odyssey a few miles back."


    "I need to get out of here," He says, his broken almost. "This game is getting a little rough for me."


    "Which game?" Astyanax asks.


    "The game you put me in."


    "I put you in?" He stands, now side by side to Apollo. Apollo runs. He can''t out pace him. He never could. Astyanax still talks, his voice echoing though there were no walls for the echo to reflect from. "I didn''t tell you to hunt me down and I certainly didn''t tell you to kill me."


    "Did I have a choice? I couldn''t let Dion die," He says. His throat hurts. He has to hold it as if in a choke-grip. "Or the boy..."


    "Did you have to do anything? No, you just couldn''t suffer the thought of not doing anything. Guilt, don''t blame me for guilt. It''s disgusting,"


    "What is?"


    "That lack of change in you," He says. "It''s the same chapter, isn''t it? Another infant to sit. Another demon - or demons, it seems - to kill."


    "Things are harder now. I can''t tell if helping Aenea will be of any good," he says. "Going back to the Vicars, throwing myself to those puppeteers, playing their game seems worse."


    "Then stop, just leave her be and exit the stage,"


    "I can''t,"


    "Why not?"


    "I can''t." Apollo glares up. His fist is clenched, he feels the hot flash on his chest and his face. "Stop asking questions. You''re not even real."


    "The sound of a weight falling interrupts him, it''s behind Apollo. He turns, for a moment. Astyanax grabs his face and points it back to his own.


    "I''m as real as death, as the wind, as the dirt and maggots. I''m as real as vice and all your vile thoughts. The violence and regret, the memories of your friend and your teachers." He says. "I''m real. I''m inescapable. I''m you. You''re me."


    Apollo tries to retort. He opens his mouth but his teeth rot. They fall into his throat and he chokes and the ball is fast approaching and the rolling sound is louder and louder and louder. He looks back. A moving wall of black. He runs, the numbers flashing beneath his feet. Forty-nine, ninety-four, zero, six, six, six.


    His extends a hand. He sees a nob. How could he forget? He looks at his other. It''s turned to stone, only to fall to pieces below his feet. Rubble he steps over, rubble he trips over. He slams down on the moving floor, his face scrapes against the running platforms of black and red. The shadow covers him.


    Behind him, the ball.


    He opens his mouth and wishes to scream, but it''s choked out by his rotting, fallen teeth.


    And it approaches.


    And he cries.


    His eyes widen -


    "It''s your shift now, bud," He felt the hand before he heard the voice, it felt like something rough and lazy, like an unenthusiastic rake against his shoulders. It shook him up and down.


    Dion next to him, Aenea behind them both on a lawn chair. Both Vicars were belly down on the roof of some cheap burger joint, something along the lines of ''Mandos Mega-Burgers''. The caricature of the man was next to them too (the logo?), as a sign that glowed with the neon lights. A middle-aged-mustached man eating a patty with a buck-teeth smile. In front of Apollo was a brown paper bag and some binoculars. The bag presumably had food, though he had eaten it all and now it resided only to inspire the smells and pangs of hunger. He was hungry all the time now, hungry and still thin and lanky. He could visibly see the deterioration of his muscles and the veins exposed as his loose skin draped off his arms and stomach.


    The binoculars were of course there for a reason too. As was the tarp that Dion now crept under, that Aenea put over herself, that Apollo was fixing around his body. A black tarp that blended with the roof. He was spying. The lenses pointed at the casino.


    They were gathering intel. Perhaps keeping watch. It had gone like that since Aenea received a rather frightening voice mail from her brother Floyd.


    He rubbed his eyes and looked at a tape recorder next to him and pressed the play button.


    This would wake him up.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    ¡°You worm. Can¡¯t you turn that off?¡± Aenea asked.


    ¡°No,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I have to figure out if there¡¯s someone else or some other detail we missed.¡±


    So he listened to the voicemail left by Floyd. It was less voice and more... erratic. It sounded like a sieged village. Sounds of destruction, of walls falling and crumbling and then of silence. A laugh. A cry. More crying. Doors opening and closing, the hinges moving with ache. Then more sobbing.


    ¡°Why am I with you two again?¡± Aenea asked.


    ¡°Because you¡¯re defenseless,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And you¡¯re his target.¡±


    ¡°If he knew where I was, don¡¯t you think he would have come for me by now? You think you''re holding him back? Just listen to that recording," She said. "Floyd doesn''t care. He''d kill me on the spot.¡±


    ¡°Maybe he doesn¡¯t know where you¡¯ are at,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Or maybe he hasn¡¯t gone totally insane. He could be preparing as much as you are. In his own way, of course.¡±


    Dion began to snore. It sounded like a whistle with his pursed lips facing down towards the roof.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to keep at it until we see them make the first move,"


    There were two means of exiting the building, mainly. Or rather, two sides one could exit from and reach the freeway and main streets. The front of the casino and the parking lot, which was manned by Thaddeus who was on steady standby. The walkie talkie to his (Apollo¡¯s) rear reminded him of such. The Vicars then handled the front and Thaddeus the back.


    ¡°It¡¯s good to gather information, it¡¯s calming,¡± Apollo said. ¡°It¡¯s about the only break you¡¯ll be getting any time soon so enjoy it.¡±


    ¡°What''s there to enjoy?" She reached underneath her tarp and grabbed something. Whatever it was popped, snapped and fell to the floor. It was a bottle cap to a very large beer bottle. ¡°Getting killed? Babysat?¡±


    ¡°If you had any talent in surviving we wouldn''t need to be here, and you wouldn''t have half the problems you do right now.¡±


    ¡°Victim blaming now, are we?¡± Aenea said. ¡°You know I¡¯m the one being hunted right now, you should be more sympathetic.¡±


    ¡°That''s strange, considering I''m the one who ends up nearly dead through all these exchanges." Apollo turned away, then back into the binoculars. ¡°You don¡¯t hear me bitching though,¡±


    He mumbled it though she heard it. He kept true to the front door, there was no one. It was completely black, the windows didn''t even reflect light anymore.


    Behind him, she drank. A large chug. She threw the bottle, and it rolled on the floor lazily.


    ¡°It sure sounds like you''re bitching to me,¡± Aenea said.


    "I suppose to someone so desperate to look tough, everything sounds like whining and complaining," Apollo said. "I''m tame though. Very tame."


    "Tame," She said. "As opposed to being unhinged most of the time?"


    "Only sometimes," His face dropped. His binoculars rested on the floor for a bit as he pinched them, he felt a feeling. Something raw in him, a reminder perhaps of that which exists in him. Then he nodded his head and looked back up through the lenses and at the building before him.


    He had been doing this for a few days now. This warring inside his head, the visions appearing all around him. Even now, he could see small spiritual creatures, creeping and crawling on the floor. Human-eyed bugs, birds with the feet and bodies of spiders. Creatures that should have not have existed, and didn''t, for he was the only one seeing them. Even now, he could see the horizon and mountain range transmutate and produce small tender hands.


    No one saw it but him. He rubbed his eyes, and the visions disappeared.


    "So, talking about waiting and taking breaks," She opened a new bottle. "What''s the plan exactly?"


    "No plan yet, we can''t make a move. It''d be stupid. Floyd has the advantage." He said. "Sometimes doing nothing but waiting is the best strategy."


    "It''s a boring strategy." She said.


    "Being reactive usually is. But it''s the one that wins wars. Patience, it''s the best we can do."


    "Best, huh?" She put the tarp over her head, her voice sounded muffled."What''s best for me is going back to California. I owned such a pretty apartment, it was big and always clean, and there weren''t any fucking demons or demon-hunters or witches or anything like that. There wasn''t anything but me and my work and whoever I could convince to come up with me on the late nights. It was a good life,"


    "Yeah, I''m sure it was." It was the droning kind of affirmation, like he was there but not listening. His eyes were tired, he could feel them weighing down. Not necessarily the sleep-deprive kind of tired, more so a burning, annoyed, aching tiredness. The bags under his eyes grew, he felt them grow, stretched out by the weight of his puffy eyes.


    "I did so well, I made so much money and did so much. I was in the middle of an acquisition before this all came down at me. A small startup in the bay area, developing some kind of cheap, compact centrifuge. God, those idiots had so much and did so little with it. And I was going to take it all - and -"


    "No offense," He put his face down and turned to her, the tarp ruffled to the movements, to the wind now blowing over them, arid and woeful. "But I don''t give one fuck about your high class, rich girl fucking life,"


    "I wasn''t always a rich girl. I had to earn it you know -"


    "Yeah, kudos, great, keep up the good work." He turned back. "I''m not your father. Stop looking for validation, it''s trashy."


    "Trash," She threw the bottle at his direction, to his rear. "Trash is calling me trash?"


    She stood. The bottles around her seat fell and rolled to the side.


    "Yeah," Apollo said. "You''re useless, expensive trash whose only utility is acting as bait,"


    She stirred to life, hobbling towards him. He had to stand now, had to hold her before she did anything stupid or give away their position (he could hear the patrons underneath their little hideout now wondering, questioning, murmuring about the noises above).


    "Keep it down, would you?" He held her arms.


    "Don''t you ever call me trash," She narrowed the distance between them. He smelled the alcohol, it burned his nose hairs. "I didn''t work and bleed and sweat to be called trash, you sub-human. There''s nothing more infuriating than a peasant who can''t appreciate greatness. Nothing more shameful, too."


    "Shut the fuck up," He said.


    "Who are you to demand?" And she struggled. She twisted her arms and turned them against Apollo who by now could feel the sweat. She was surprisingly...tough. She had good strength to her. A good amount of it, which was confusing for him. Until he saw the glow, the piercing emerald glow coming from her tattoo, that made her face contort each time she excercised her strength.


    She turned her arm, holding Apollo''s. She nearly snapped his wrist. He couldn''t tell what it was that really hurt him. His own starved weakness, or her growing strength?


    He thought, as she pushed him towards the edge, as Dion was beginning to stand and ask questions, he thought to flip her and hold her down with his knee against her neck. It felt strange thinking this, even stranger was the fear he materialized in his stomach as he struggled holding her down.


    She slapped him across the face. His nose broke. He felt the blood in the corner of his mouth and spat it out. He wanted to flip her, crush her.


    Just about when he was going to get his hands around her, to throw her. As she elbowed him and his nose bled, and his anger grew, he received a call. A call, and a pair of hands that separated her from him.


    "What in God''s holy name is the matter with the both of you?" Dion asked.


    "Nothing," Apollo said.


    "That didn''t look like nothing," He said.


    "What do you know about looks and appearances?" Apollo asked.


    He walked back and picked up his phone, only peaked at it. Then he looked back to Dion, who, given his frown must have been expecting an explanation from Apollo.


    "It was just a little banter, is all." He wiped his nose of the bloody streak, something Dion did not appreciate. Aenea was still struggling to stand, her hair was a mess in a bun, her face glowed red. Her arm, the tattoo, returned back to dull blackness. And Dion began to lecture them.


    "In these tired times..." He started (maybe he started earlier? Apollo wasn''t there) and continued "We should band together and start to learn about each others..."


    Apollo looked down, to his phone, to the missed call. Then, to the litany of texts. The one letter texts, the one-word texts. From Thaddeus.


    He looked at them briefly. It was enough to make him run cold.


    The small line that read simply; help.

 Boy Wonder 3

    "Oh, how a woman gets around." Turnus stood at end length of the wide table, speaking to Luanne, who standing from her position opposite of him seemed like a small, blond thing, perhaps the last section of a Russian doll piece. The outer layers; courage, pride, self-respect, left elsewhere and far away.


    "But I must ask, why am I here?" Turnus twirled a glass of wine. She chewed on her inner mouth, her eye shift and posture low-bound. "I hope this isn¡¯t some ploy to kill me."


    He rubbed his arm, it ached, and he extended his fingers to stretch them out.


    She scooted inwards towards the table, the wooden legs scratching against the floor.


    "Naw, of course not. You wouldn¡¯t hurt a fly.¡± Turnus said. ¡°You were the gentle one, always. The one I trust the most, too. It¡¯s unfortunate that you¡¯d had to be the one to pay the moral tab for our degenerate kin.¡±


    "You''re included in that too - you¡¯re degenerate kin." She said. It sounded like hissing. Though, she did not seem too threatening, especially with the baby sleeping on her bosom. The blanket wrapped around her, a white blanket carried the small child, and that tied itself behind her neck. Her hands were flat against the table. On one, Turnus could clearly see the tattooed brand.


    He stared and she retracted her arms.


    "I''m here to make a deal."


    "A plea bargain? For what? For who?"


    "Don''t play stupid," She scratched the tablecloth. "I want the safety and security of my family."


    "We all want safety and security. None of us are guaranteed it, though,"


    "I want you and your brother to stop,"


    ¡°Stop what?¡± He drank half the glass of wine.


    "You know what. Killing that security guard, making sure my sister died.¡± Her nails dug deep. The chipped red nail polish on them gave them the appearance of bleeding. ¡°You played foul against her. You turned off the generations and moved the elevators every which way you wanted, didn¡¯t you? Admit it.¡±


    ¡°Did that crow tell you this? Your bitch-mother, Salome.¡± He took a sip. ¡°You know, plea bargains usually don¡¯t begin with accusations. It¡¯s bad for rapport.¡±


    Her eye twitched, and she receded back into her seat. Below her, the baby yawned. She rubbed his forehead, Flint was warm.


    ¡°I¡¯m willing to forgive this,¡± She took a deep breath, as if in labor. ¡°I¡¯m willing to forgive everything. I¡¯ll give you the inheritance. The casino. Everything. If you just promise to stop attacking me and my brother and my son.¡±


    ¡°You left Salome out of that?¡± He smiled. ¡°As a matter of fact, you didn¡¯t even defend her when I called her a bitch. Strange, considering you¡¯re her daughter.¡±


    She sucked in his lips.


    He sat in contemplation and perhaps that was the first moment in the thirty minutes she had been waiting there, in that dim room with the long table, that she had an opportunity to finally breathe. So she did just that, take the slow, careful breaths as if each could be her last and considering the tone and the speed of which she spoke, they might as well have been. At least, Turnus figured from the way he looked at her, like a mouse running around an endless maze. Her eyes passed across the room to the few doors that opened now and then and the servers who came through with plates of food. Stuffed mushroom, a refill of wine, some soups, bowls of water with lemon in them. The tablecloth dragged below, she pulled it and ran her fingernail through it until she felt a hole being made. Turnus had not said a word yet, only looked in contemplation with his hands locked below his chest and his piercing eyes directed at her and her child.


    It was neutral ground, this restaurant. Le Pierre, a French bistro that had hosted her family for years and out of that repetitiveness, had created a custom of giving them exclusive seatings in the back of the room with a wide view of the city off the lip of a balcony. She almost admired the little lights, like stars across the horizon. Almost.


    A revolving door moved. She jumped.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t consort with Salome before you came to me, did you?¡±


    A candle went out. Her shaky hands went to it and lit it with another candle. Hot wax drizzled on her arm as she held onto the stick. It didn¡¯t burn, not as much as she believed. Nothing really felt terrible anymore, nothing physical at least.


    Mentally, however, ¡­she had been stabbed and burned and forced to imagine the countless deaths of her infant son and lover, Floyd.


    Or at least Turnus thought. This is was his specialty, if he had any talent. He called it divination, which was really just a reading of another person. He speculated all this from her posture, from the shakiness of her body. This is what he loved to do, most of all, imagine himself as others. A kind of cold-handed empathy.


    She doesn¡¯t want to be scared right now, because now is the most important time in her life. Because now decides whether she lives or dies or even whether her child gets the chance to mourn her. He fixed his posture. She doesn¡¯t want to let me smell her fear, but she¡¯s done a terrible job, and now she¡¯s just hoping to skip over the grave that¡¯s already been made for her.


    "I don¡¯t want anything you have," Turnus said. "And the belief that you¡¯ve already claimed ownership over your wealth is part of the reason why your family is dying like flies."


    "I don¡¯t care about any of it.¡± She blurted. ¡°This - This is all mom. She¡¯s the one who cares about it. I say take it, I don¡¯t care for it.¡±


    "And how do you expect to give your false-throne up if you don''t even own it? I should be speaking to your mother for that! And I doubt she''d give it up, that old bitch will die hanging onto the throne, it''s a curse really. Born poor, raised poor, dying rich. I think she''s content with just that so long as it gets rid of the memory of being a peasant girl." He laughed. ¡°So what are you offering, really? It''s not like it''d be hard to kill you anyway, even if you did resist.¡±


    She looked up, the last figments of rebellion still in her eyes. They had a green tint to them.


    ¡°I have Floyd.¡±


    ¡°Ahh, Floyd.¡± He said. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m sure he¡¯d stop at nothing to kill me or Ritcher. But isn¡¯t he pre-occupied with the Vicars though?¡±


    He leaned in to reach for a fork and knife.


    ¡°But I¡¯m sure he¡¯d put everything down to avenge his love, isn¡¯t that right, Luanne?¡±


    The baby at her bosom began to shake in his little canopy.


    ¡°This is all your fault.¡± She said. ¡°Everything. This whole mess.¡±


    ¡°My fault? You¡¯re the one who killed dad. You and Floyd.¡±


    ¡°You know what you did. You lead us both into making that decision. You can¡¯t even call it a decision. What you did - What!¡± She slammed the table. Anger was foreign to her, this feeling was foreign to her. Her naturally pink cheeks flushed red, her lips lost color. Her eyes swelled with tears, sadness and anger coming both at once at uneven intervals through her cycle of hormones. They felt like pulses, one a higher frequency and the other low, deep, moody.


    ¡°Really? Was I the one who strangled him?¡± He ate a mushroom and talked while he chewed. ¡°What a nasty power, you removed the iron from his blood, didn¡¯t you? Oxygen couldn¡¯t move through him, and he eventually died from the deprivation. Why¡¯d Floyd waste so much time stabbing him afterward though, I don¡¯t understand?¡±


    He clasped both hands.


    ¡°Not like it matters, it¡¯s all the in the past , and we, are in the present. And here you are, my fathers'' murderer, wanting protection from judgment from father¡¯s sons. His first sons.¡±


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t killing Jezebel even? Wasn¡¯t she enough?¡±


    ¡°Me? Kill her?¡± He almost laughed with how high pitched his voice got. ¡°All I did was turn off some lights. Move some buttons, nothing serious.¡±


    She looked broken, turning and watching and thinking about walking away. But she couldn¡¯t decide how and from what direction, so it just seemed like she was being tugged by horses, ripped from every side. Finally, she looked back at Turnus, her eyes now red, the tears now streaked down, her face contorted and peeled back and tightened like a lioness in the heat of anger.


    "My son, Turnus." She said with exasperation. "My son, please. I just need him spared. Do whatever you want. However, you want. Play your game of chess, but please leave him alone, please."


    She raised him a bit, the little infant who in the whole commotion hadn¡¯t so much as moved. And who, as Turnus observed, judging by his pale color and his suckling noises and the difficulty of his breathing, was in the middle of distress.


    Fever?


    He ruffled a bit, then dozed off again.


    "He''s your nephew for God¡¯s sake. Your nephew!¡±


    ¡°God isn¡¯t here, you¡¯d do best to not invoke his name,¡± Turnus put down his glass. His face returned to neutral which was less hostile, surprisingly, than his smile. At least it appeared that way as Luanne eased her shoulders.


    "I can¡¯t protect him. I can only promise you I, personally, won¡¯t go after little Flint." He said. ¡°I can¡¯t speak for Ritcher - Actually, I can - I don¡¯t think he cares. I don¡¯t think he has a heart to care enough about little Flint.¡±


    He tried to reach over to put his finger in front of the infant, to play with it as he had done in the past before. But she moved him away, pushed the finger and the boy opposite of each other like retracting magnets.


    ¡°I can tell you when Ritcher is going to strike. I can give you that much mercy, though,¡± He said.


    It almost her comfortable. Almost. Until she asked, because she had to, because she couldn¡¯t shake the feeling cold and dreary that started from the bottom of her back, upwards to her neck, like a knife dragged against every bump on her spine.


    ¡°What do you want for that kind of knowledge. Tell me,¡±


    And he locked his hands once more and set them in front of him. One gloved, the other free. One tattooed, the other plain.


    ¡°Oh, you know. Just the same, really.¡± Turnus smiled. ¡°Ritcher for Floyd, Floyd for Ritcher. I just want to know what my little brother is up to, is all.¡±

 Boy Wonder 4

    They came like wraiths in the night. Brooding and dark with nothing to them but the silhouette of their ground-pointed guns and the low grunts of their drained breaths and the tapping of their steel-tipped boots.


    Hired guns. Mercenaries.


    They came, the stampede of wraiths, hell-fetched from a witch sitting atop her tall castle. Apollo looked at them from above the parking lot, they were like small black pens from the far distance. Blackwater? No, they changed their name a while back. Academi, was it?


    Whatever they were, they were tough. Based on their gear and the way they encroached and surrounded the building, a moat of black shadows, green lasers pointing at every which side, the tapping of their helmets as they bobbed up and down like rain. It was comical even, their efficiency. Like that gag the clowns'' play, the fleet of jokers that come out of their tiny clown car like an endless line. So here was the van, though not so tiny, and here were the clowns, though not as funny.


    A hired army. Salome had hired mercenaries. Not of the supernatural kind (must have been too unavailable). No, these were soldiers of the very common, garden variety. If garden-variety meant paramilitary and well-trained. And here they were, dressed to kill, guns strapped and tight-lipped and eerily stiff. Did they not breathe, you would not see them against the black background of the light-less casino. That was the only thing giving away their silhouette, their breaths, tired and rugged and heavy like panthers after the run.


    The four, the two Vicars, the witch, and the genius, watched from the third story of that damned garage. The parking lot that still to this moment caused Aenea to break into cold sweat. It had taken another beer and some insults to get her along.


    Apollo stood tall on the third story. His arms extended outward, past the ledge. Dion had the binoculars on him but did not use them. They hung by his wrist by a strap and dangled like a hanging body as he lowered his arms against the railing. Apollo watched, silently, Aenea behind him, still drunk and still wobbly with the fear in her glazed eyes.


    ¡°That¡¯s a lot of people,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°That''s how many it takes to secure the perimeter.¡±


    ¡°Her?"


    "Salome."


    "So you think Salome did this?¡±


    ¡°Could be Floyd, but I doubt it. He seems like a straightforward man, maybe to a fault. Too straight to let someone else do his dirty work. This leaves Luanne or Salome, and between the two, my money¡¯s on Salome.¡±


    ¡°Why invite civilians?¡± Dion asked. ¡°This is a family matter, let the family deal with it.¡±


    "Civilians? Hardly. They''re soldiers."


    "You know what I mean."


    Apollo sighed.


    ¡°When you¡¯ve got the money, why not use it, right? Get every advantage you can get. She''s got the tower, now she''s got the army.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll be able to do a damn thing. We¡¯ve seen what these people are capable of, the witches.¡± He turned to Aenea, hurling on the floor. ¡°Inhuman strength and speed, Arcana, the works. What can soldiers do about that?¡±


    ¡°Shoot ¡®em in the head.¡± Apollo smiled. ¡°Or at best, distract them. The generators are out still, so I¡¯m guessing this will be a means to detect any enemies entering her domain.¡±


    He looked up to the top floor, to the only shining windows in the casino, a garden sat above that level, lit even brighter as if a halo.


    Thaddeus coughed behind them.


    ¡°Guys, the soldiers weren¡¯t what I warned against.¡± He said.


    ¡°What was, then?¡± Dion asked.


    He walked over to them, hand on his elbows then he pointed down to some remote corner from the fountain plaza, leading towards a rear entrance into the casino. It was Ritcher. They knew, his breed have never been able to hide. That grand, stubborn, dangerous breed. His kind are obvious to tell, those behemoth-types. He came out of the rear almost as if materialized from the light fog itself. And he was invisible, would have been, had it not been for the noise of his cane. His blind eyes looking at each corner, to no particular place, to strange angles. He paused. He smiled.


    Did he spot us?


    ¡°That freak again,¡± Apollo said. Ritcher continued, towards the line of soldiers who all bore their guns at him like the teeth of frightened animals. Cubs.


    ¡°Freeze, no one allowed. Sorry, bud.¡± One of them said.


    ¡°I¡¯m a Wolfe. I should be allowed entry, no?¡±


    ¡°No one allowed in, buddy. Period."


    ¡°Must be Salome then, right?¡± He asked. No answer. The guns were still raised, barrel pointed towards his head. Though he had no eyes to see the threat. That was fine, Apollo saw it for him.


    ¡°I just hope they all kill each other off,¡± Apollo said, looking down, arms dangling from the ledge. "It''d make my life a hell of a lot easier."


    Ritcher however, did not back down. He took another step forward. A step that caused the soldiers to mutter whispers. They were all quiet really, something that caused Apollo to rear his head closer down to the floor. Heightened senses weren''t good enough now.


    It was a mistake. A gunshot. He flinched and backed away. Aenea dropped her beer, the glass broke, and they all wondered - staring down with nervous eyes - if they were spotted.


    Dion put a finger against his lips and looked at her.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    She fell on her ass.


    Another shot, another gun. Another step forward by Ritcher. More shots, the sparks flew across the floor. They left marks like a drawn line in front of Ritcher''s feet.


    ¡°No sudden fucking movements.¡± The soldier screamed, loud enough that the echo resonated inside the lot itself. ¡°Clear the area, fuckhead.¡±


    ¡°You would treat me with such disrespect, kin?¡±


    "Kin? I don''t even know you."


    "All warriors know each other, not by name but by virtue of trade. For trade is all a man is."


    ¡°Fuck. Off.¡± He said. His voice was confident, stupidly so.


    It was the type of confidence that made Apollo sweat, and he was just looking. It was as if they were all trapped in the trance of tension, where the air feels shaky and leaving or moving or staying still all feel like the worst play.


    His eyes were dry. He''d forgotten to blink.


    ¡°I¡¯m counting ¡®till three!¡± The commander said. Ritcher smacked his cane down on the floor with a pop so loud that three stories up, one hundred meters away, with a wall of grunting men between them, Apollo could still hear the loud tapping. He imagined that that must have been what the great meteor sounded like that ended the world some million years ago. That single, loud, bang.


    It was more deafening than the bullets. More dangerous, too.


    So they were left in silence, silence waiting to be filled. Ritcher raised his head, both hands rested against the butt of the cane.


    ¡°I understand what grave and urgent orders you must be forced to. But I am here to tell you that mine are worse - more severe. Mine are family-bound, direct orders from a father long since dead. He demands of me to finish something, and this has been ordained, as much as the stars and the heavens and the deaths of all men before and after me. I must enter this building. You¡¯re free to stop anyone else, but allow me entry, for I have a higher calling to attend to, that needs no invitation, nor demands any attention. A quiet, private affair of the utmost importance between Salome and I.¡±


    The commander looked around for a moment to read the faces of all the confused and strange men around him. Behind his balaclava, his mouth must have grimaced. It was hard to tell for Apollo. Ritcher certainly had no emotion to himself.


    The commander shot into the air.


    Ritcher did not move his head or stay away his hands from his cane. He stood on it, tall and stiff as the residual echo of the gunshot remained.


    ¡°How many different ways can a man tell you to fuck off before you get that ass of yours and turn it right the fuck around.¡± He said and walked towards Ritcher, and all of them, Vicars and mercenaries alike believed him dead that very instant. As if he had stepped into a coffin or hole, and the gun he carried was nothing more than a spade dug into the dirt. He carried his rifle across his chest, pointed to the ground now. He walked until the hot metal, still smoking, gun touched Ritcher against the chest.


    ¡°You sound like a priest, but you''re built like a damn linebacker." He said. "I don''t like that. I don''t like your face. And if you won''t listen to me, then pretend me to be God, because I sure as hell carry his vengeance. Respect my gun, son. Get the fuck out of here, or you will be shot dead."¡±


    ¡°A gun demands no respect. Only fear, which is poor imitation of that quality that is dignified, respect.¡± He said. ¡°I respect no gun. And certainly not the handler - not you.¡±


    That was about the time the commander jerked and grunted and put his hot barrel against Ritcher''s forehead, the smoke trickling down from the muzzle. It looked like Ritcher was smoking a pipe from the vantage Apollo stood from. He didn''t notice in all the thrill, staring at the two in their Mexican standoff, that his fingers were dug into the concrete. For he hoped, briefly, kill the son of a bitch, make it easier on us.


    Thinking that, but knowing in that deeper chasm that was his soul, that Ritcher could not die this easily. Certainly not here.


    He was right. Ritcher took a step back and nodded his head up and down and said, softly.


    ¡°It seems you will not cooperate today. Tomorrow then, maybe? Later? Perhaps if I arrange a meeting with the matriarch?¡±


    ¡°What do I care what you do? Just clear the god damn area, maggot.¡±


    His cooperation made Apollo''s shoulders rise high. They were feeling funny, cold.


    ¡°You ought to be courteous, commander. It is a virtue." Ritcher said. "Often the first discarded virtue, a marker for the beginning of the end of the human soul," He turned, clacking his cane against the floor. ¡°And with virtue gone, respect of the self and of the other usually goes with it. And with that - with that first and noble virtue; courtesy, beaten and killed leads to the loss of that final virtue - the fear of God. You are certainly men who do not feel reckoning; who don¡¯t see it or hear or live for it. That must be corrected.¡±


    ¡°Fuck off.¡± An off-hand soldier said, and the rest began. With nervous laughter and quick jerking movements of their guns.


    ¡°Yeah, fuck off.¡± They rallied. They laughed. They joked and mocked Ritcher.


    It was funny, maybe. It could have been funny if Apollo didn''t feel nervous. If his stomach had not dropped. For Ritcher stopped at once, midway out to the street across the casino, looking out at the horizon (At what? He was blind, wasn''t he?). Then Ritcher looked up.His muscles slow moving and ancient, as his neck angled and turned to the Vicars.


    Apollo saw his face. One look at the wrinkled chin and the scars underneath his high raised cheeks that seemed like little smiles, one look and he felt frozen.


    It was the kind of fear that made Apollo strengthen his grip and break the concrete. A kind of fear that incited aggression, like the feral animal.


    He wanted to kill Ritcher. Out of pleasure? Safety? He couldn''t tell.


    This was the second time he wanted to kill someone. The first was Astyanax. Astyanax who know spoke to him.


    Yes, yes. This is a good one, isn''t he? Someone worth living for. Living and waiting to kill. It''s been worth the months and weeks. Hasn''t it, Apollo?


    Ritcher walked away without a smile. Without heat or animation. He looked like a slideshow with how slowly he progressed down the street and disappeared into the haze of mist.


    And him, Apollo, slapping his face and getting stares from the people around him who also looked with wide and frightened eyes.


    He came back to reality with a bit of a snarl, turning and fixing his suit, limping and opening the van and pushing himself with shaky arms up into the car.


    ¡°It won¡¯t be long,¡± Apollo said, looking for a cigarette and slamming the door in front of him. Like a horse call, Dion ran across. Fear turning to annoyance. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it to the floor. It wasn¡¯t even in there long enough to swell with saliva.


    "Don''t smoke, you''re sick."


    Apollo took out another.


    "They''re waiting for us like the guillotine. Aren''t they?" He said, struggling to ignite his lighter.


    ¡°You know, I really hate when you talk like a damn fortune teller. Give it to me straight, none of that weirdo psychobabble garbage..¡±


    ¡°What I mean to say is that It''s an inevitability we''ll fight. There''s no way around it. That Ritcher guy, Floyd, all of them. There''s no peace to be found between us. It won''t be long. I don¡¯t know how or why but something¡¯s going to set them all off, I feel it. This has all been a preliminary war. The real fight is soon to come. I don''t know what''ll set it off...the devil himself...passion."


    "What''s going to set it off? Come on? Give me something to worry about."


    "What the fuck, I don''t know. Just something. It''s a feeling, don''t you read it in the air? Something like dread, the taste of ash and blood."


    "Taste? What? You''re on that weird stuff again."


    Apollo sighed. "I don¡¯t know what''s next only that there will be something coming up next. Something bad." His hands shook. ¡°Then they''ll come for us, then you,¡± He pointed his cigarette like an index finger at Aenea. She was sobered, tired, and looking but not talking or even seemingly breathing. She only existed in that space, in deep contemplation.


    ¡°What do we do next then?¡± Dion asked.


    But he had no answer. Nothing even remotely concrete.


    "We ask questions, that''s all. Maybe learn why these people are doing the things they¡¯re doing."


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s for power. Right? Money? All that witch and demon promise-stuff.¡±


    ¡°No, I doubt that,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I don¡¯t think most of them are petty enough for it. Some of them, sure. But not most.¡±


    ¡°Then what else are they doing it for?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯re here for, right? The mystery? Why did Thomas Wolfe Sr die? Who killed him?¡±

 Boy Wonder 5

    She walked to the line of black guardians. The men with guns and without patches, with no insignia or banner or name. Mercenaries. Who upon seeing her, opened a small gap for her to enter. No words were exchanged. They didn¡¯t even look at her walk in. Their faces were stiff and forward, their rifles grabbed firmly and pointed down.


    She walked into the empty casino. Up the elevator, the light haphazard turned on. Mostly off. The sun hit her from the backside, and each level cut it off with a thin black line where the elevators support beam was. Her baby was awoken to the light and the shadow, grumbled a bit on her chest, then went back to passive sleep after spitting.


    And she looked up as the elevator numbers increased. The dark rings were wide around her eyes and only got wider as the red-neon number rose.


    He¡¯ll kill us, I know it. It doesn¡¯t take anyone smart to know that, that Ritcher will kill us. He¡¯s never cared about our side of the family, never even tried to talk to us. Why we aren¡¯t much to him but flies. Flies on the corpse of our father, dwindling and prancing and pretending our noise means anything.


    The doors opened.


    Well, I know better.


    I know that Turnus can help us. He¡¯s a piece of shit, but he¡¯s not a liar. Not to me at least. When he said, for example, that he¡¯d show father the pictures. The pictures that lead to this all. Why he did it. I didn¡¯t believe him until he did. And when he said father would be furious, I didn¡¯t believe him until he was. And when he said, finally, that we¡¯d have to kill him. Why.


    Why¡­


    Why, I doubted him up until the last moment, when father looked us dead in the eyes and said we are not his seed and no kin to Wolfes. Then I went along and did the thing. Fathercide. I guess that¡¯s what it¡¯s called. I think. I wasn¡¯t the smart one. I wish everyone was as simple as me. I wish I didn¡¯t have to wish for things. I wish I hated Turnus enough to stop myself from trusting him. I wish.


    She looked down at her child.


    But the things I hate and the things I love don¡¯t matter much anymore. Some things are more important, deeper than hate or petty love. It¡¯s legacy. Legacy is important, dad knew that. And if Turnus can promise me my legacy then I might just have to consider what he wants; Floyd.


    But it¡¯s hard. It really is. I can¡¯t do it. Not yet. I don''t think.


    She shook her head, the blonde strands caught in her mouth. She spat them out. She went up the elevator, her neck aching and the growing fever causing a pounding in her head, waves of hot pain. The elevator dinged. The lights turned off for a moment. Then on as the doors creaked open half-way. Half-way only.


    She walked into the lobby leading Floyd¡¯s room. What she presumed was his room. Her heart beat fast, her eyes danced along the floor, then to the child and then, finally, to the door.


    Where it should have been at least.


    Because what she found could only be defined as extraterrestrial. Like some cosmic, otherworldly locale. A meteor¡¯s surface, an alien, stalagmite-covered planet. She saw pillars of black crystal. She saw them congested at the door leading to Turnus¡¯s living room. Ornate, white doors, now broken down and stabbed through and shaded black from the semi-transparent crystal. It looked like a pitchfork straight from hell, grown out of obsidian.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°Don¡¯t touch it.¡± She heard her mother¡¯s voice. She almost seemed camouflaged by the crystal for Salome¡¯s body was all black. Her dress, her large hat, the shadow cast across her pale skin.


    ¡°What¡¯d you want with him?¡± Salome asked. ¡°I hope it¡¯s something I can do too. For as you can see, Floyd isn¡¯t here anymore.¡±


    ¡°Nothing,¡± Luanne said. ¡°I wanted nothing.¡±


    ¡°No, you wouldn¡¯t be here for nothing. What¡¯d you need from him?¡±


    ¡°Some hope.¡± She moved her head up and down and held her mouth with her hand and turned to leave. Salome grabbed her. The bony hands sunk deep into Luanne¡¯s arm, like the mechanical clench of those toy claw-machines. She felt grabbed. Pulled. Lifted. Dragged back.


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk to me like I¡¯m trash like I¡¯m just another fool down the lobby with bad luck worn all over my face.¡± She said. ¡°I am your mother. I demand some patience. I demand your respect.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s too late for me to care about your formalities,¡± Luanne said.


    ¡°You¡¯re talking back? You never did.¡±


    ¡°Times change.¡±


    ¡°Yes, yes they do. Didn¡¯t they? Just a month ago, maybe two.¡±


    And Luanne looked at her, her eyes strained and squinted, her hand hard pressed against her infant''s body until his fat-fleshed cheeks bulged in between her fingers and until the infant shook in her arms.


    She eased her squeeze.


    ¡°But whatever was done back then, whatever nasty, dark thing was done.¡± Salome approached her. ¡°Needs to forgotten. Forgiven, even. Because the things happening now are more important, certainly more pressing.¡±


    They both looked at Flint.


    Salome¡¯s bony fingers touched him. Luanne stepped back, taking the child with her.


    ¡°So you went to Turnus, hmm?¡± Salome asked. It was then that she felt the isolation. The chill of loneliness. The black crystals in front of her, barring her from Floyd. The elevator, some meters of red carpet away. Too far to run, to big a staircase and length for her to carry her child with through. And Salome, like a spider with her elongated fingers and the rings that looked like hoola-hoops around them and the pale face and the black dress. The great hat, hiding fangs, and thin eyes.


    Why you could call her a black widow.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t have to. I could protect you. You¡¯ve seen them outside, right?¡± She said. Luanne looked around to small busts of her father, and her father¡¯s father and men she was related to but did not know, all staring at her like a jury. ¡°You¡¯ve seen those armed soldiers. They were expensive, but good warriors cost good money. They¡¯ll keep us safe for a while, long enough to think about something. A plan maybe¡­¡±Her voice drifted. ¡°Maybe Turnus should die first. I get the feeling that he¡¯s a bigger threat now. Slimy little shit isn¡¯t he?¡±


    Luanne¡¯s eyes darted. The words like empty noise, static. Acoustic abrasions that stirred nothing in her but the growing coldness in her belly. That¡¯s what it was, she realized all of a sudden, what all of this was; a madhouse. And the Asylum was open to all. Free for all. Home to all. Wardens, prisoners and quack-doctors, all dancing to some insane tune.


    She looked at the black crystal, a tree from hell sprouted at the wall, stabbing through its ornate doors. She looked at her mother, finger on her chin as she thought and thought and thought.


    Planning and setting her web.


    The baby cried.


    ¡°I went to assess my options because I need to,¡± Luanne said. ¡°Not everyone wants the same thing you want, mother. And I get this feeling that you getting what you want would mean me losing something important to me.¡±


    ¡°All you want is the safety of your family, right?¡± She stepped towards Luanne, the clack of her heels like a shotgun cock.


    ¡°Yes and I don¡¯t think you can provide that.¡±


    ¡°And how can Turnus, exactly?¡±


    Luanne turned to Floyd¡¯s room. The barricaded room. The quiet room present behind the wall of crystal. It was she was staring into one of those museum pieces, the large ones where the figure of interest is encased in ice. As if she was staring into an old, lost hope, like a museum piece. Do not touch. Do not take pictures of.


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t banking on Turnus.¡±


    ¡°No?¡± She asked. ¡°You weren¡¯t. But you are now?¡±


    ¡°Turnus can keep away the monster that is coming for you.¡± She walked back. ¡°That¡¯s coming for all of us.¡± She had been walking back, slowly. Making her way to the elevator. ¡°One of them, at least.¡±


    ¡°And who¡¯s the other?¡±


    She pressed the button behind her. The door opened, ding. The lights flashed on. She stepped into the center, looking at Salome square in the face. Her grey hair protruding out like cut cobweb. It seemed to move without wind. Really, it seemed Salome lived without air. She made no deep breaths, no sudden movements. As if all of her was some kind of ethereal being.


    Salome took a step forward. The doors closed.


    It made Luanne glad, as the metal wire screeched and the cart moved down, and her stomach dropped. It made her glad.


    And then Flint started to cry.

 Boy Wonder 6

    ¡°You¡¯re not supposed to be here-¡± The soldier choked on his own tongue as the crystal blade rode up his throat, and stabbed through his tongue and into the top of his head. Floyd retreated the blade from the base of his neck. The blood squirted out in spurts. He let the body drop before dragging it along and stealing the clothes. The nude corpse was left somewhere, only he in his insanity, believed to be a safe spot: a small cart of dirty laundry made dirtier by the fresh blood.


    It made it easier for him to escape, it made it easier for him to find a sewer and to take off his getup and make his way into the heart of the city.


    He wandered into darkness.


    "You were never meant for anything short of this," Thomas Wolfe Sr. said, standing in front of his folded chair in front of a setting sun. The incomplete construction laid beneath him, only the final bits remained; paint, some accessories, signs, small things that would be done before the year ended. His hands were wide open, side to side as if holding the level sands within his grip.


    "This is what we were born for, made to do. By God, who else?"


    Floyd stood there, ice cream in his hand, sitting in a green lawn-chair with the vanilla dripping down his hands and his face smothered white.


    "Oh, I''ve suffered, lord knows I have. But what can be bought without suffering? Nothing of value. Oh, I have suffered. Your mother knows it. And I waited patiently, the Lord knows it. I was virtuous. Loyal." He turned to Floyd. "And now the bounty of my patience has given me proper deliverance. My new kingdom."


    The crooked neon lights hung by cable wire. ¡°El Rey Casino¡± were spelled out crookedly across the front.


    It was going to be built soon.


    Thomas Wolfe Sr. knew it. Knew the name too, far before the creation was even there in his heart. Knew the casino would be his long before he had any desire to even own one. It seemed like Thomas knew everything, at least to little Floyd who sat and gawked and paid idle attention to his supposed birthright. Why, after a while, little Floyd even began to believe it. Because it only takes a little bit of effort and repetition to get a kid to believe anything. So after a while of Thomas preaching the good Lord and His gospel and pretending Thomas was more than just lucky - terribly lucky - that even Floyd began to feel as if...above. As if royalty.


    He bought it.


    He didn''t know how they were royalty. He wasn''t related to no king, no prince, no fancy European family. Southern families usually weren¡¯t. All they had to their name were plantations and bad history. He learned that in the history books.


    But apparently, they were kings.


    And in the matter of children, no amount of book-learning could out teach father-splaining.


    He was royalty, dad said so. He was a prince, dad say so. This was their kingdom, dad said so.


    This large expanse of sand, the tower standing center of it all, looking down at the little houses like coves of cockroaches and dens of parasites.


    The metal girders to his side blocked the wind and caused it to rise above them, lifting Floyd''s hair. Thomas approached the ledge, never fearful. For what does a servant of the Lord fear? Only the Lord, of course.


    "I have made this empire for you, son. Your mother, your sisters, you. And I hope to see you extend this past my life," His voice suddenly slow. "We all don''t live forever, and we barely live long enough for one thing. I''ve lived most of my life then, for this, for the beginning of our legacy. And I hope you live through its apex."


    Floyd kept licking his ice cream. A boy of twelve, only recently home-schooled with no friends but his sisters and no blood connections (he wouldn''t know of his half-brothers until three years later) past them.


    "You can do that for me, right? Floyd?" He asked. ¡°You can take over when I leave, right?¡±


    Which was really too much to ask a boy.


    "Uh huh," Floyd said.


    "Good," Thomas lowered his hands, the sleeves of his white blazer coat lifted a bit, the tattoo pronounced black underneath. He had sweat coming off that area, his arm, and his armpits and the back of his neck.


    "I hope you¡¯ll never live like I did," He said. ¡°Like rats.¡±


    Like a rat.


    He slipped out of the manhole, his hair shaggy and drenched with filth. It clung to his skin.


    He had nothing on his person, nothing that differentiated him from the rats and the trash. Nothing that made him different from the men hanging by the sides of walls with old vomit clinging to their cheeks, and their faces downtrodden towards the floor. The sojourns, with rattling wheel-broken carts and the empty looks in their faces as they went any which way. And though they walked, it was as if they did not move at all, for they always congregated in their same alleys, in their same hell with no hope and perhaps no motivation for anything more. Like compasses with broken needles.


    Maybe that¡¯s what made Floyd different. He walked past a slew of these homeless, they spat in his direction. Perhaps they were envious.


    He knew where he was going. He was poor. Dingy. But not lost. He knew exactly where he was going, where it was that pushed his heart a certain direction over another. He approached a thoughtful looking homeless (he was cooking something over a barrel of fire). From his own pocket, Floyd picked a photograph.


    The chef said nothing. So he pointed the picture downwards, to another homeless man near him.


    "Have you seen this woman?" A picture of Aenea. The homeless man with the beret and the wheelchair gave a long drawn out no, then began to cycle away towards another fire, a small one where a pot of water was being boiled.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    The darkness was setting, cold long since coming before. The streets were struck first by the wind. It pushed clothes on laundry lines in one direction.


    "Do you want in on this?" One of the homeless asked. He gestured towards the pit fire.


    Floyd walked away. He left the channels and the broken boulevards. His face risen high to the neon lights of Vacancy signs and strip-malls. Nothing kept him still, nothing save for a pay phone some miles into his trek through the city.


    "Do you know where she''s at?" He spoke into the receiver in a tone that could only be described as impatient.


    "Maybe," The voice on one end said. "We''ve tracked her credit card spending at least."


    It was a familiar voice. Old, busy. An investor''s voice.


    "Now, you will go public with the casino, right?" The voice asked. ¡°When you own it?¡±


    "Whatever you want. I don''t care. Just find her."


    "Well, alright." The voice was giddy. With a dry cackle, like an old witch. "Wherever she is, or her credit card is, the last we''ve seen her spend was on some burgers and fries. Believe it or not. A...Mandos mega burger?"


    He didn''t say thank you. He didn''t say anything but press the button on the box and let the receiver dangle by its metal cord. He stepped out the phone box, the sides of the glass were warped. The floor was warped. Every step he left small foot sized craters. Within the cavities; traces of black and white marble. Crystalline substances. Shiny dust.


    His gaunt eyes looked across the horizon, across the strip clubs, across the apartment complexes with the noisy couples arguing and the sounds of heat and want.


    Everyone was inside. And no one was out but the alcoholics (who confused Floyd for an apparition with the way he moved as if shackled) and the homeless (who knew better than to look the crazy sonofabitch in the eyes).


    Sometimes, when he walked through, he even found insane people.


    "You look lost buddy." One of these types said. He laughed from behind a bottle. He wore a sweater with two holes at the heart and the chest. Bullet holes. An old sweater. It smelled like rancid garlic.


    Floyd looked around. There were two of them, a friend with a crutch that he used as a pseudo-white cane. He had black sunglasses and khaki shorts and was bald at the top of his head. He was grabbing onto the drunks arms, which could not pry the bottle of whiskey from his mouth.


    "Let''s go, come on." He said.


    "Maybe I can help you, bud." The more courageous of the two said. "Or maybe the streets are too rough for you. As it is for most rich fucks, right?"


    He threw the bottle, and it rolled, cracking as it did.


    "It¡¯s cold ain¡¯t it?¡± He said. ¡°The type of cold that makes you wish for a bed, huh?¡±


    "Henry, stop fooling around."


    "Naw, I ain''t fooling. I''m pissed." He said. "I¡¯ve got too good a memory to be kidding."


    ¡°Let it go.¡±


    The bottle rolled unto Floyd. He stopped it with the ball of his feet. It clanked against the sole of his shoe. He stepped on it.


    ¡°I¡¯ll never let go,¡± The stout man said.


    "Alright Henry, you''re on your own then." The blind homeless said. He didn¡¯t seem so blind as he ran off with his cart with precise cowardice, dodging all ramps and nooks.


    "Do you even know who I am?¡± Henry said.


    "No," Floyd said.


    "Of course you wouldn''t. I was your floor manager. Remember that?¡±


    "No." He stepped forward into a puddle, the splash broke a reflection of the two, reverberations driving down the street and towards the homeless man. "I don''t remember trash."


    ¡°You don¡¯t remember your cunt sister firing me? You don¡¯t remember all the people I beat the shit out of? Did you even care when I was left out?¡± He asked. ¡°Did you even care what happened to me?¡±


    He took out from his pocket a knife, at least Floyd presumed it to be. And it must have been a knife with how much pride the homeless man carried it with, with the kind of security that only a weapon could give you; stiff shoulders, a low head and an extended hand as if in stance for fencing.


    "I¡¯ve gone through hell," he said. "And you don¡¯t even care. Well, I¡¯ll make you care. You¡¯ll know what it means to lose everything."


    "I don''t need to know that." He said. "I''ve known that feeling for a while now."


    The man did not hesitate. The muddy, dirty water splashed beneath his holed boots as he ran full stride at Floyd. His knife was forward.


    The stout man, ferocious, steadfast and so terribly - terribly - slow.


    Slow enough to not even spur Floyd to attention. Slow enough to let him think.


    For a second, Floyd thought about how to kill him, and felt his arm burn and the crystals of black form at his fingertips, as if black particles collected at the points. Then he clenched his fist. They dispersed like spores, ephemeral black mist. The man came forward. His stabbing arm extended out. It was a piece of glass, bright pink.


    Floyd grabbed him by the wrist. Turned, and flipped him.


    Henry landed on his neck, onto the water. Floyd put his foot against his neck. He extended the arm with the knife and twisted it once, at the bicep. He heard a bone pop. The man let out all his air into a long, silent sigh. His eyes were open, the water drowned them, his open mouth was facing the floor. The water seeped in to fill the gap of his toothless front gums.


    He didn¡¯t close his mouth to stop the dirty water. Henry kept it open as Floyd kept twisting. The pain was too great to fight against, and too great to even scream against. He just left his mouth agape and exhaled air like a dying balloon. All courage, all momentum, drained from him.


    A second bone pop. This time at the wrist.


    Floyd let go. He felt his arm heat up again and the particles collect into a blade in his arm. He raised the man, who was less a man and more a rag. His clothes dragged against the floor and dripped. One half of him was a giant wet spot, the other side was dirt and green colored.


    The homeless coughed. The scent of alcohol filled Floyd''s nose.


    ¡°What was this worth?¡± Floyd asked. ¡°Anything?¡±


    Henry¡¯s eyes were dizzyingly circling. Floyd slapped him then pinched his nose. The man coughed again.


    "Who fired you?" The knife came up to his neck. "What compels a man to look for death? Who compels him?"


    "I hate your face," He laughed. "I hate it so much..."


    Floyd let him go. He landed on his knees and laid out like a broken doll.


    ¡°I hate your cunt sister. I hate all those bitches. I hate you.¡± He cried. He tried to speak again, then hesitated. He looked up to Floyd and hesitated again; to cough, to spit, to taste the blood in his mouth. He hesitated, because Floyd¡¯s look was too much.


    ¡°Aenea?¡± Floyd said. ¡°She¡¯s been ruining people this long then?¡±


    Henry tried to scream. He looked to crawl with his one arm. Floyd caught it. Twisted it. Twisted it until there was nothing but skin holding it together.


    ¡°Oh, how curious. That messy bitch couldn¡¯t even finish this job right.¡± He said. ¡°What a pity.¡±


    The man waited there. Waited. He did not spur, did not scream, did not do much. Pain had knocked him unconscious, which perhaps was a good thing.


    ¡°Well, we better leave a letter of resignation. No? Shouldn¡¯t she be informed about you? Henry, was it?¡± He said. ¡°She needs to know you¡¯re here. Needs to know, I¡¯m here. Yes. Yes.¡± His breath was heavy, the glint in his eye had died as the night receded. Sirens were far off, ever approaching, like a looming invasion over the horizon.


    And from his hand came out the small black spike. A little short of a foot with a point so small it seemed like a fencing sword. And with one quick movement, he impaled it into the man¡¯s eye through the back of his skull. It struck the floor, that crystalline blade. Like a kebab of a human¡¯s skull; first bone, then brain matter and at last at the end, the severed eye.


    Then he went again. With another spike¡­and again¡­and again¡­


    Until his bated breath had him knelled over and his arm burned with concentrated intensity and the veins in his body pulsed and bulged. A fatigue, magical fatigue, perhaps. Or maybe he had just gone insane and it finally left him tired.


    Whatever it was, he fell on his back and kicked his feet off from the floor to push himself into the alley. He knew where to go. Or knew where to begin, Mandos mega burger.


    A stupid name. The kind of name that made his tired face smile as he receded into darkness as the red and blue light approached.


    The body was left there, crucified on the broken streets with careless aim. As if the man had been eaten by an iron maiden and spat out. He laid there, bleeding, waiting to be found.

 Boy Wonder 7

    Thomas Wolfe Senior was a failure for most of his life, except for the last ten years before he was stabbed in the chest. He met his second wife twenty-eight years ago. His first wife died, though the body was never found. And somewhere in between the chaos and misreporting of her existence, he fucked a prostitute. That sin made Aenea. When we look for a murderer, the first step is to look for motivation. There¡¯s the second family, who in all this rage and murder, could have gotten the most: the casino and whatever devils promise. It could have been Aenea too, I guess. But she doesn¡¯t seem to want anything to do with this god awful town and her god-awful parents. I think she¡¯d rather have another bottle than a fucking casino.


    I guess it could have been the older brothers. I can¡¯t even figure them out though. Ritcher¡¯s a walking terminator who talks in pretty words, like if Arnold found God and Whitman half-way through the carnage and destruction.


    The other, shit, I don¡¯t know what he has in his head besides sex and drinking. Maybe that¡¯s what scares me most, not what he shows but what he doesn¡¯t. He doesn¡¯t seem like the type to be entertained by debauchery for long, but that¡¯s all he shows. Makes me wonder what he¡¯s hiding.


    He looked at the board of newspaper clipping and pictures. They say photographs are worth a thousand words. Well, he sure got a lot of words as he looked at Thomas Wolf. Sr. An old man, a bitter man, a youthful man with high-raised cheeks and a wide jaw and raven black hair receding to greyness until his death. Why, these pictures were worth a million words. Not a single one was an answer though. Not one.


    ¡°Hey, Apollo,¡± Dion asked.


    He turned from the desk and now the official evidence chamber of their small apartment. They chose a different motel, something near the burger joint, something near for them to continue their reconnaissance on the tower.


    ¡°Yeah?¡± Apollo put down the morning paper, it was eerily void of any mention of a militia or explosion or any happening at the casino.


    ¡°Do you think people change?¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Change?¡± Apollo put a finger against his and rubbed the scruff. ¡°I knew a fat guy who lost fifty pounds. He swore by eating cabbage soup,¡± He turned away. ¡°Never liked cabbage.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not talking about changing like physically. I mean, do you think people change? Their essence, or something.¡±


    He looked back to Dion who stood flipping through television channels and its myriad of sounds; golf games, cartoons and action films with sex scenes that would make porn stars embarrassed.


    ¡°Can a person change? No.¡± He said. ¡°People are like clay, flexible for a while but then they just harden and stay whatever nasty shape they are. Just don¡¯t ask me when.¡±


    ¡°I think I¡¯ve asked this before, about free will. And you talked about balls I think.¡±


    ¡°Billiards, sure.¡±


    Dion turned off the television and threw the remote on the bed. The television screen flickered once. A white bar appeared center of the tv. It made a sharp static sound. Behind them, beyond the two red-rose blankets sheeted beds and the faux-leather sofa, behind a small white door, Aenea vomited. They waited for a moment just to hear her. It sounded like the Niagara Falls. Along with the screaming of twenty women screaming at the drop from the edge.


    ¡°Fuck!¡± She screamed. Then vomited some more. It hit the floor this time, they could see it leaking from below the door frame.


    ¡°Do you still feel that way?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°God,¡± Dion turned his head. ¡°I really wish you¡¯d be a smart ass with answers for once.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t just say yeah. Come up with something smart at least. A rebuttal or something.¡±


    ¡°What is there to debate? I don¡¯t know.¡±


    Dion looked down at his hands. They shook. He gripped the chair and rocked it back and forth. The two back legs hit against the floor, an irregular beat, like a mishappen heart.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°I was scared to shoot my gun only two weeks ago like my hand was poisoned or something because it couldn¡¯t even flinch. a few weeks ago,¡± Dion said. ¡°Then I fought. And it felt natural. Then I killed someone. That felt natural too.¡±


    ¡°¡¯Someone¡¯ is a bit of a stretch. You killed a witch. One who was hell-bent on stabbing our friend over there,¡± He pointed to Aenea who flashed in the thin slit of the door, her blond hair dipped into the toilet and came out brown.


    ¡°I killed a witch, huh,¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a Catholic, so they might give you a medal for it.¡± Apollo laughed.


    ¡°You can joke around, but I took a life.¡±


    ¡°Then feel guilty and pray, that¡¯s very Catholic too.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the problem,¡± Dion said. ¡°It¡¯s how little problem I have. How little guilt.¡±


    ¡°First you bitch about being too afraid to fight, now you¡¯re bitching that you¡¯re not scared enough?¡±


    ¡°I just¡­I just thought I would have more apprehension. I just thought that my heart would be heavy and my head scattered¡­like the first time,¡± He said. ¡°But it¡¯s easy now. Maybe I felt sad¡­maybe¡­But it¡¯s just so much easier to ignore it. To move on. Like I didn¡¯t even care in the first place. And that scares me. Wouldn¡¯t it scare you?¡±


    ¡°If I killed without feeling guilty? Yeah, it¡¯d mean I¡¯m a psychopath, probably,¡±


    ¡°Exactly!¡± Dion shouted.


    ¡°Did it feel good?¡± Apollo felt his neck hairs rise. He felt the ¡®other¡¯ stir in him, like a hot knot in his stomach, bustling and stretching out his stomach lining. He wondered if it was even him asking that question.


    ¡°It felt fun,¡± Dion said. ¡°Fun, like a game. Like my sadness wasn¡¯t much of anything. Or rather, like killing took away the sadness. Is that messed up?¡±


    Apollo looked him straight in the eye, though Dion kept his gaze lowered and down.


    ¡°Completely fucked, actually, yes,¡± Apollo said. ¡°But, who¡¯s normal, right? And what is normal? Seems like a pretty arbitrary standard, impossible to be met and impossible to define.¡±


    ¡°Can you take this seriously! I¡¯m freaking out,¡± Dion said. ¡°I have fun killing? Doesn¡¯t that worry you? It worries me.¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re feeling worried, it¡¯s a good sign that you¡¯re not completely fucked.¡±


    ¡°What do I do then?¡±


    ¡°And how would I know that? I¡¯m not a serial killer.¡± Apollo said.


    Dion turned his head up, frown wide and heavy across his face.


    Apollo sighed, ¡°Look, I don¡¯t know the answers to everything. No one does.¡±


    ¡°Lord forgive me, but I must curse,¡± Dion took a deep breath. ¡°You¡¯re a real son of a bitch, you know that?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a lifestyle, really,¡± Apollo stood from his chair. In front of him, some binoculars, a short book called ¡°The Corrux,¡± about half a dozen caffeine pills and a straight-shot gaze right to the center of the plaza in front of the casino, where the men looked like small black dots from this distance.


    He went towards the half-open door to the restroom.


    The vomiting ceased. The toilet flushed. Then it resumed. He dropped two Alka-seltzer tablets into some water and left the glass next to Aenea¡¯s feet, somewhere on the bathroom floor.


    Dion kept rocking, louder now until the beat of his chair drowned out the small beeping sound of the broken television and its static screen.


    ¡°There are no answers in this life, just changing questions.¡± He said. ¡°It¡¯s arrogant to think otherwise. Thinking you know anything is a good way to get disappointed. I learned that,¡±


    The fan spun, the draft blew down against them, the air was cold, and breathing stung their lungs.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t think a psychologist could run around raising a cult. I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d get sent to hell. I didn¡¯t think I had it in me to save you and that kid back in Havenbrook, but life surprised me. I surprised me,¡± He said. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re going to do to deal with this little quirk of yours, and maybe you won¡¯t be able to change. But the effort might be noble enough if you ask me.¡±


    Apollo put a hand on Dion¡¯s shoulder.


    Dion¡¯s head turned left to right. The fan, the spieling woman, the constant head throbbing sounds, small and big. It was like a screw being tightened. And when Apollo put his hand on his shoulder, that seemed like the final twist.


    ¡°That¡¯s not good enough,¡± He brushed his shoulder off. ¡°That won¡¯t suffice. That¡¯s not gospel, that¡¯s not truth. That¡¯s nothing, worst than help. I have a problem. And there is no solution? What?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re just anxious, get some rest,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Rest? Rest?¡± He said. ¡°There¡¯s no rest. Not for me. Never.¡±


    He took his coat from the hanger and opened the door with one hand and put his clothes on with the other.


    ¡°Where are you going?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Don¡¯t try to stop me,¡±


    ¡°Trust me, I wasn¡¯t.¡± Apollo fell on the bed, tired. ¡°Last time I did, you punched me in the face.¡±


    ¡°I said don¡¯t stop me!¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Apollo sighed. ¡°Just make sure you bring your -¡±


    The door slammed in front of him.


    ¡°- Bring your cell phone.¡± He exhausted the words. To Apollo¡¯s right, the cellphone laid. Apollo picked it up, inspected it. He rubbed his temples and threw it against the pillows.


    ¡°You couldn¡¯t have waited a couple of days? This is the worst time to have a mental break down,¡±


    From the corner of his eye, the door opened. Aenea stepped out her shirt a brown mess. The particles stuck in her bangs. She hiccuped, swallowed something (her eyes widened for a moment like a frog expanding her cheeks) and looked around the room with blood-shot eyes.


    ¡°I can handle another one,¡± She said.


    ¡°Go to bed.¡± Apollo sighed.


    ¡°Give me another beer you cheap bastard,¡± She walked over and shook his chest. ¡°Lemme have another.¡±


    She shook him and shook him and did not let go, nor did Apollo make an effort to break free. Though he should have, and in hindsight, wished he had. Because in half a second, that¡¯s all it took, for her cheeks to blow up and for her to discharge across his chest and chin.


    And he wished he pulled her away sooner.


    And he wished too - in hindsight - that he had tossed Dion¡¯s cellphone back at him when he had a chance.


    He wished. It would have saved him the heartache later on, so much of it. So, so much.

 Boy Wonder 8

    ¡°That¡¯ll be fifty bucks up front, fifty later.¡± She said in a voice monotonous and dreadful. Dion could smell the cigarette smoke coming off of her, the musk of which stuck to his nostrils and kept still there even as she maneuvered down to his pants. She began to work. Unzipping. And him, thinking.


    It¡¯s always like this, isn¡¯t it? Like an addict running to a familiar high. Like each time I feel even a little bit bad in my life, it feels like the end of the world, and I just can¡¯t help myself. Maybe that¡¯s my problem. I just can¡¯t control anything, at all, any time, anywhere. That scares me. But here I am, doing the very thing that scares me.


    The prostitute went up for a kiss. She pursed her lips, the red almost like a poisonous flower or fungus to Dion.


    ¡°No, sorry, I¡¯m not kissing,¡± He said.


    ¡°What¡¯re you, stiff?¡±


    ¡°I have a girlfriend.¡± His voice was low and shamed.


    ¡°Oh,¡± The prostitute let out. It was the most surprised she had been all day.


    That was all the exchange they shared. She didn¡¯t even look at him much prior, during, and after the act. It¡¯s not like he was there either. He just put his hand against her head and thought, it was like stroking a dog in a way or at least offered that same degree of meditation.


    The same habit. Why is that? I don¡¯t get it. Why am I like this? I just get scared, and the thing I want most is a woman, doesn¡¯t matter which or why. And it¡¯s always the same thing I want too. It never goes away either, it never helps. But I do it as if it¡¯s part of the repetition too.


    He came. That¡¯s about the only thing that stopped him from thinking. She spat. She wiped her face and stuck out her hand started signaling with her fingers.


    He looked at his wallet. He only had thirty.


    ¡°I¡­sorry¡­¡± He opened the wallet up for her to see.


    ¡°Are you trying to cheat me?¡± She asked. ¡°Are you trying to play me, mother fucker?¡±


    ¡°I - I forgot to take out money. My friend - he,¡± He paced his head around, expecting someone. ¡°He usually has the money, and I - well, I don¡¯t have much. Just the thirty.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re trying to screw me, aren¡¯t you?¡± She slapped him against the head. ¡°Punk ass bitch, you¡¯re trying to fuck me. Huh?!¡±


    She slapped him again then paced the room and dialed on a phone number. Dion looked past her, past the flimsy peeling wallpaper and towards the curtained window. There was a shadow amongst them, it went across the horizon then stopped. He figured it was the pimp, but no one knocked on the door. Though he could hear the footsteps below the door frame. They went away after a while, replaced, by the pimp who stormed in.


    ¡°Is it this bitch?¡± He asked. He didn¡¯t look like the stereotype. The rings and the purple coat and the fedoras, no, this man looked simple. A simple gold chain, a simple white shirt that went down to his knees, some jeans and high top shoes. He didn¡¯t look particularly exceptional, though he sure felt it, especially as he flashed the gun on his waistline.


    ¡°Get the fuck out of here,¡± He slapped the girl around. Her wig was falling off, a natural brunette forced platinum blonde. Pink skirt, black top. And heels that dragged down the stairs.


    ¡°Who are you, then? The bum who can¡¯t pay?¡±


    ¡°I forgot my money, sorry,¡± Dion tried to stand. The man pushed him down. The chair moved a bit back as he fell on it.


    ¡°You forgot, hmm?¡± He asked. ¡°And you can¡¯t get your money here soon, can you?¡±


    Dion checked his person with his palm. There was no cell phone. It made him bite his lip.


    ¡°I pay what I owe,¡± He said.


    ¡°You know,¡± The pimp said. ¡°You¡¯re the first guy to try and fuck me in six years. For six years I have never had someone as stupid as you, do you wanna know?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t figure why,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Because I¡¯ve never had stupid customers. I don¡¯t get stupid customers, they just seem to avoid me. Do you want to know why? How do I screen for stupidity?¡±


    Dion looked up to him. He was buttoning his pants. The man drew his hand back and punched Dion square against the face.


    ¡°By reminding them who owns this place.¡± He punched again. ¡°Because I have a reputation. And reputations scare people. Do you know what I do?¡±


    He jumped onto Dion¡¯s lap.


    ¡°I beat them. Then I take this knife out,¡± He brandished the blade, made it gleam in the moonlight. ¡°And I rip their fucking eyes out. Do you understand me? No one fucks me, because if they do, I make them blind. Do you really want to lose your eye for twenty? Shit, we can call it twenty/twenty, for twenty.¡±


    Dion¡¯s head was cocked back, hanging by the lip of the chair support. He brought it back in and grabbed the pimp by his arm and twisted.


    ¡°Are you going to lose an arm for twenty?¡± Dion asked. He let go, perhaps out of pity, or shock towards himself. He forgot his eyes were even glowing red, that the man¡¯s face was contorted in fear, that he was shivering.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    He let go and ran out. Not so much a run, really, but a brisk jog down the walkway where the prostitute was smoking and looking wide eye¡¯d that he was still scar-less. Untouched.


    The pimp ran out, holding his arm.


    ¡°You think you can just fuck me, huh?¡± He screamed down the hall. Window binds lifted themselves to the noise. Curious eyes skated across the stained glass of motel windows. The pimp brandished a gun, his posture was injured, he looked low and hollow. Shame weighed him down, that and the bleeding of his twisted wrist.


    He cocked his gun and pointed it at Dion, who only sighed.


    No one really guessed that his head would explode. Not the spectators, not Dion, not the prostitute and certainly not the pimp. His brains had come out of his skull, evacuated from the perforated hole out his forehead. Behind the skull and the brain-scatter on the wall, pierced through the wood and thin wall-paper, a black crystal shard hung.


    His eyes went wide. His face tightened. His shoulders compacted themselves, elevated past his chin. He looked every which way. He held the prostitute by the hand.


    ¡°Get down,¡± He said.


    She was impaled and pinned to the wall. A shard like a crucifixion nail went right through her bosom. She reached for it, tried to free herself for a moment. There was futility. Certainly, one she was aware. She didn''t struggle long or try at all after a short while. Then her eyes went still, then her body went cold, and the blood dripped down her limbs like faucet mouths. Down her fingertips, amongst a silence that emboldened the noise of the droplets.


    It was like a waterfall to Dion who hung low. He did not blink. Did not move past what was necessary. He put his back against the wall. There was clatter and fear amongst the full apartments. He reached into his coat. Out came the mask. Then the guns. Putting the mask on was hard with how much he shook. Underneath it, the sweat collected. He tasted the salty water. His body leaned back, counterweight to the guns now taking most of his strength to lift.


    ¡°Who did this?¡± He asked. He felt stupid for asking. Especially when no one responded.


    "Which one of you is it?" He asked, no one answered. Maybe he whispered too low.


    A shadow, wind flexing. He ducked. The crystal cut the air above him, into shingles that clung. They trickled down on his shoulders. Past the shingles and the roof, the crystal continued on, stabbing through one tree and two sets of brick walls before it stopped ceremoniously on a vacancy sign. The tree slumped over, half-dead already, now seemingly fully committed. It fell. The dried leaves scattered about.


    Thin limb-like branches clawed on the floor as the tree fell. Scraping the side of the motel and in the flutter of black leaves and sticks, Dion could see the figure. Something with green eyes, with a marking across its limbs like a snake entanglement. And in the growing darkness of the motels (for the lights were dying with loud pops each minute in the presence of the witch) he saw the silhouette at work. The low crawl of this thing, with hands, extended out and palms pressed against the floor.


    He was compelled to watch, mesmerized almost. His mouth opened, his cut running across his face, from his chin to his temple. The blood dripped down the floor. He shot at the figure, who by now was gone.


    And he was stuck again, staring every which way, his head circling and searching for moving shadows.


    His fingers pressed softly against the trigger. The lights exploded all around him. Decanted of all light and hope. It was dark, even his red eyes could not pierce through. Cars whistled off in the distance with honks, then dead silence. Overhead, somewhere behind him, a vacancy sign taunted him with its glow. Dion turned around, the heat of neon pressed against him. Amongst the sign, in front of it with a slumped body, the witch waited. He took up the slot where the V should have been.


    "Do you know why I''m here, heart-eater?" He asked.


    Dion maintained quietness. No, not just maintained it. He sucked his lips in and grit his teeth. He hung onto quietness, grabbed it like an impoverished soul to food.


    "A hunter being hunted, what strange situation you and I find ourselves in," He said. "Strange. But no surprise. You expected this as much as me, you must have. Right?¡±


    Dion moved his pistols up to face the witch.


    ¡°Putting a bullet in my sisters head. Taking her life, without prejudice, without heat or pride or care. You should have known that kind of arrogance would come back to you. No?"


    The witch moved from the sign, his figure slender and lethargic amongst the pink-lighted horizon. He looked as if skating across the rooftop, the glow hot behind him.


    "So here we are now, heart-eater. Dancing, playing. You¡¯re very quick on your feet, I should have expected that. I should have killed you earlier, there was such a time.," Dion could hear the sharp crystal clanking against each other. "But I can¡¯t help but want it, mother fucker! I want to hear you scream.¡±


    He wasn¡¯t shouting, not with aimless villainy or cockiness. He was crying. His voice cracked.


    ¡°I want you to feel what my sister felt,¡± It was almost a whimper. ¡°I want you to struggle. To feel it so close and to lose it all. I want to bleed you. You hear me?!¡±


    He threw a black shard. Dion dashed. It cut through the guardrail, down to the floor below where it struck a car and ignited it to flames.


    ¡°I need you to feel pain. I need it more than your death, more than my violence. I. Need. It.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s crazy¡­¡± Dion said it beneath his breath, wide-eyed.


    Floyd shot out again, with a wound-up throw. A simple, meter long black crystal, frighteningly slow. It must have been easy to dodge for Dion. Must have been. Until it extended outgrew - midair. And the small crystal ended up being a long cylinder. A pillar, that pushed Dion back. His arms braced against the meteor, his feet sparked against the metal catwalk. His back struck the guardrail - through it, onto the floor below. The cloud of smoke was immense, a deep mist that made his lungs sting with every breath taken.


    His arms hurt, his back was burning. He moved a finger - thank god, he could still move his fingers.


    He cleared some smoke with a wave, raised his arm. Shot. Twice, where he last remembered Floyd standing.


    He missed, hit the sign. The A letter shot out sparks and dangled like a man at the noose.


    "Dance, then, little heart-eater, dance," Floyd said. And Dion ran towards the sign and the noise. He ran into the light of the apartment complex. He ran towards a small glass box where the cashier was. She was dead. Her cold finger at the dial of a cell phone. It was vacant after all. At least now, as people ran out. They were all stabbed, with cold, calculated throws. Through the sternum or the head.


    ¡°Stay inside!¡± Dion screamed at the remaining open doors. There were only a few left, he could hear their broken breaths.


    He shouldn¡¯t have turned. Not to scream, not to lead the sheep.


    Another crystal came at him. He jumped, it went in between his legs. Two cars were struck on the parking lot. They exploded almost instantly, the shrapnel fell and blew over him. He could feel the splinters. Glass, metal. More than that, the concussion of the explosion itself left his head ringing and shoulders bruised and heavy. He struggled with both hands to lift himself.


    He had to lift himself. Fast. It was coming again, fanned out, an array of black bullet-speed crystals. As if a sick game of darts, and him the lonely red target.


    "Run, little man, run," Floyd said, his voice morphed and incomprehensible, booming as if the Devil himself


    "Dance, dance for me," The witch said. "Dance for Jezebel, for the Wolfe¡¯s"


    He looked up. The blood covered his left eye. He could only see the blur. It was the blur of a monster, standing high above him. Deformed. Green. Vile. With great wafts and strokes of his hands, it rained black.

 Boy Wonder 9

    "God damn," Her face faced down to the stained toilet interior. The porcelain bowl dripped with brown, her hair clung to her face from the wetness; either vomit or toilet water or sweat. She retracted her face off the bowl, like a dog. And like a dog, she curled up in the corner of the bathroom. Her knees touched her chin, her body rested against the bathtub.


    "This feels wrong," she said. Repeated. Water fizzled to her rear, it smelled of that fruity medicine and tasted sour and metallic. "This isn''t a hangover,"


    "What?" Apollo said from behind the door.


    ¡°This doesn¡¯t feel like a hangover. It¡¯s worse. Like¡­like I¡¯m fire.¡±


    ¡°Are you still drunk?¡±


    "No. No. No!" She winced and held her right arm with her left. It was limp.


    "What''s wrong?" Apollo asked.


    "My arm." The sweat pooled on her brow. ¡°It feels like it was cut open with a razor blade.¡±


    She drove her fingers down her arm. A mistake she suffered. A mistake that made her shout and push herself back onto the wall and tub. She hit her head. The walls shook, banged. An indent was left at the point of impact. The paint chips were stuck in her blond hair.


    "What the fuck is going on?" Apollo opened the doors.


    She saw him, or tried to, behind blurry eyes stinging from sweat. She didn''t know when she decided to lay on the floor, but she was there. And she didn¡¯t know when she decided to writhe, but there she was, going in circles.


    "Get a hold of yourself," His touch was cold. But to Aenea and the open pores all around her body, it felt like liquid nitrogen touched her shoulder.


    "Get away!" She lashed out. She laid on her arm, the pressure of her weight seemingly stopping the throbbing heat. By now it didn''t matter. Not the sweat or the tears or the vomit or the shame and disgust she littered the floor with a few drunken moments ago. Now, all that mattered was her and her pain.


    "Aw shit," Apollo rubbed his forehead.


    "What?" She screamed. Her mouth was open, tongue out. Drooling.


    "You got it, didn¡¯t you? The curse finally came your way."


    ¡°Curse?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s like getting the flu. An exclusive flu.¡± He paced. ¡°Nice going, you won the lottery.¡±


    "What fucking lottery?" She did not understand. Could not even hope to, not in this pain. But she felt it, at least the wrongness of the words.


    "Do you know how a witch is made?" Apollo said. Her eyes didn¡¯t even look up at him. She was too busy grabbing her arm.


    "Witches are made from bargains. Bargains made with demons. What you¡¯re experiencing now is that contract, or bargain, or pact, whatever you want to call it. And it¡¯s finally come to get you. This is your fathers'' gift,¡± He tried to touch her arm. She slapped his hand away.


    ¡°How do I make it stop?¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t do that. Only one thing can do that,¡±


    ¡°Who?¡±


    ¡°Well the monster that your family owes, of course,¡± He said. ¡°Now you¡¯re really going to start believing in demons and magic. Trust me,¡±


    ¡°What does that mean?¡± She screamed.


    ¡°You¡¯ll find out. Don¡¯t worry about that,¡±


    ¡°When?¡± She began to bleed now. The blood traveled through the cracks of the tiles.


    ¡°Who knows.¡±


    "I didn''t sign up for this." She grit her teeth. It made her voice go a tone deeper, more pained, more desperate.


    "You did the moment you were born, without your consent or care," He knelt down. ¡°And no one can you help you now, not even me. I don¡¯t even know if you¡¯ll survive.¡±


    He lifted her. By now, her cheeks were flushed, and her body was limp and tired, and the fever all across her body was so intense even he was beginning to sweat. He dropped on the bed and put the covers over her.


    ¡°It¡¯s just you know.¡± He said, in a voice, she had never heard before. It was low. Slow. Maybe even a bit sad. ¡°You and whatever thing is coming after you, and all I can say is good luck.¡±


    She heard his voice, but her eyes were so tired she couldn¡¯t even try to see. Instead, they opened slowly, at long intervals. It was like watching a slideshow. Her body shivering, her fever high rising. She saw him in his chair. The cigarette in his mouth. The cloud of smoke rising in a long stack of clouds, up and out the window.


    She blinked. And blinked. Until finally her eyes closed stubbornly. The veins in her arms bulged, the fire flowed through her like poison. Into her chest, until breathing became painful and her fast-beating heart became a burden. The pain of existing rose and rose and rose - until finally - even thinking about it became difficult. By then, she was unconscious and only living in dreams. And it felt like she drifted, like the cigarette smoke, up and out the window to leave her writhing body down under the thing sheets below.


    ?


    "Where are you going?" A black rod shot out. Dion dodged, his back against the wall. He was running the opposite end of the walkway. Floyd approached with the heavy clanks of his steps, slow, steady.


    Floyd was precise. Even if he looked shaggy, rough, insane. His instincts were sharp enough. With a wave of his hand, a black pillar would erupt the floor. With a clenched fist he would break through, chip away little shards from his black tree trunk and fling them out like daggers.


    Dion was outmatched.


    All he did was dodge. Get a shot in. Miss a shot or have it blocked. Then crystals flying back.


    He must have made it to the end of his hall. There was nowhere left to run but down the stairs. Instead, he chose a door. He put his foot beneath the doorknob and pressed down. His body landed with a thud on the brown carpet floor.


    He was lucky to have ducked.


    Three crystals zoomed past him. They impaled the wall in front of him.


    He closed the broken door, it wavered in and out. Dion turned his head. A frightened couple with floral patterned clothes were face down on the floor, whimpering.


    He felt his stomach drop.


    "Relax," Dion said. "Get some cover, alright?"


    They couldn''t hear him. They just kept repeating, ''this isn''t happening,'' like glitched robots.


    A crystal shot through the window. It struck the lamp in the room, then the shelves, through the bathroom and out of the room altogether.


    He felt the breeze left by the hole.


    Dion reached into his pocket and found his mask. He put it on. His hands fiddled again with his pocket. They were shaking, and the ammunition was falling between his fingers. He ran his hands through the carpeted floor, looking for the cartridges. Then found one, in particular, one with a red marking around its body. He filled the last chamber with it.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    He dragged himself with knees to the window and peeked outside, to the oddly silent world.


    It was more a war zone than it was a parking lot. More a battlefield, than a hotel. Half the doors across the extensive motel were open. There were screams off in the distance. Certainly, the police had been called. Right? Yet they weren''t here. He could use them, use any help he could get.


    He ran his hands through his pockets. His cell phone was missing.


    "Oh, god," He slapped his forehead. He put his back against the wall, straightened out.


    Something was wrong.


    There were murmurs. Pouts. Whimpers to his rear. And something...else. He put a finger to the lips of his mask.


    "Be quiet," He whispered. They tried the couple. They put their hands over their mouths, but they kept making noise. At least it was muffled, and it wasn''t like he could blame them.


    He put his ear against the wall.


    Something was crawling. Creeping.


    In some slow rhythm. It sounded like the prow of a wolf. The lone animal, stalking, with a barkless antagonism. It sounded like death. Death was always quiet.


    Dion pointed one gun up. The footsteps stopped. His other gun was pointed down at an angle, like a cane to walk.


    The sweat made his mask slide.


    Creak.


    He licked his lips.


    A step.


    His cheeks went numb.


    It crashed down on him. Rooftop, wood, light bulbs, darkness. A hole in the roof the size of a small car. He shot twice. Nothing. The crystals came down on him like arrows, the wood, and the tubing and the water and the night sky all collapsed onto him. So he pushed down on his other gun, almost vaulting off the length of his barrel. His shoulders were cut up. He rolled onto the floor, out the broken door. The whole room caved in.


    The windows broke. The glass cut his ears and the side of his head, blood dripped down his hair.


    Standing in front of him, upon the wreckage, a black pillar. One conveniently where he was sitting at. One that collapsed the room and reduced the man and woman into bloody mist and rags of a floral shirt. Their bodies sunk through the hole made by the pillar. He could hear them drop, the weight of their fat and flesh, down to the first floor. Then he heard whoever was down on the first-floor scream.


    Now in the walkway, he looked up to the gap in the roof. Floyd was there, eyes green and arm even greener. He was holding the shaft of a spike. He had it wound up, behind his head.


    "It''s over," Floyd said. "Clear shot, you don''t even have your gun pointed."


    "I''m still breathing,"


    "Then I''ll make sure to get you square in the lungs," Floyd said.


    Dion''s shoulders rose.


    "Careful, heart-eater. This isn''t the wild west. You can''t outshoot me." Floyd smiled. "But you can try. I''d love to see the look on your face when you miss."


    "You''re really insane, aren''t you?"


    "Me? I''m not the one wasting my last words on taunts." The lights behind Floyd broke. "Madness - Clarity. They''re weapons just like anything else, and I chose the weapon that would win me the fight. Could you call that true madness?"


    "Yeah, you''re crazy," Dion said. "You''ve massacred all these innocent people. And you''re going to get caught, put all over the paper. And when everyone else - the church - the bounty hunters hear about you and how you''ve jeopardized our secrecy they''ll -"


    "They won''t find out," Floyd''s smirk widened. His yellow teeth flashed for a moment. "Mother''s bought them off. I never really could hide anything from her. I''m sure she knows by now that I''ve escaped, and I''m sure she knows by now that I''ve come here to kill you."


    "That''s a bluff."


    "Who cares what it is? It won''t save you either way."


    Dion felt the sweat come down on him again. It made his body sticky. All his clothes felt heavy, his shoes and his shirt and his pants and his coat. His guns especially. Flinching, twitching felt like a struggle. It was as if his whole body was made of stone. He certainly felt that way, at least. He stared at the black spear, a wide rod like a harpoon, arrow-pointed on one end with small fins opposite.


    "I''m not going to beg," Dion said.


    "I wouldn''t expect that," Floyd said. "So draw, cowboy."


    One beat. Two beats. Three. He couldn''t count his heart rate but heard it all across him, like he the throbbing acoustics of his chest right against his ears. He couldn''t hear or think or feel. His eyes narrowed, and his hearing focused to this single moment, to this single picture in front of him.


    Floyd, pointing his damn spear down to him.


    One.


    His ears went hot.


    Two.


    He held his breath.


    Three.


    He did not point his gun. He did not pull his trigger. He threw himself to his rear, his whole body in that single conviction. He rolled on the floor, hoping to dodge.


    The spear went through his thigh. He didn''t feel the pain at first, but he felt his body move. He went through the metal rail guard, down a floor, into the asphalt that shattered. The spear pinned him to the floor. It was unsplintered.


    Hell, it hadn''t even lost its edge.


    Dion screamed. He grabbed his leg with one hand (one gun had gone flying somewhere along the trajectory), and he put pressure. It only seemed to push the blood out of his wound. The pain shot through him. He leaned back with a broken cry.


    "Hurts, doesn''t it?" Floyd said from amongst the clearing smoke. It was a voice so warped and cruel that it was hard to believe it came from a human at all. Dion pointed his gun up, towards the walking shadow. He looked as if materializing, as his body wafted in through the smoke.


    "Don''t waste your time, heart-eater."


    "It''s Dion. Remember it," He said.


    "Dion? Dion." He said. He had a finger to his chin. "You expect me to remember your name? Did you remember my sisters'' name?"


    "Can''t say I did," Breathing was hard. Talking was even harder. His voice broke every word of the sentence.


    "Yet you expect them courtesy," Floyd said.


    Dion cocked his gun.


    "I said it once, I''ll say it one last time. Don''t waste your time." He said. "I can make pillars rise from the floor faster than your bullet can reach me,"


    "That''s not possible," Dion said.


    "There are many things I''m sure you thought were impossible. Dying must have been one of them,"


    "No, I accepted death a long time ago." He said.


    "Then accept it now. You''re out-armed. Out-skilled. Out-smarted."


    Dion flinched. The spear went through his thigh, and a little through his shin and the feeling of his joint struggling to move through the skewer made him lose his breath. His gun wavered for a moment.


    "Aha," Floyd laughed. "I thought heart-eaters were something special. Killers of demons. But here you are, skewered, struggling to breathe. They say it''s hard to find men who match their reputations, but you really are a special kind of disappointment, aren''t you?"


    "Keep talking," Dion rotated the cylinder in his gun with one index finger. He was going through each chamber, searching.


    "I will!" Floyd said. "And take your shot while you''re at it. That''s the fun of it. That''s where the pain is for you when the hope leaves and your future dies. I can''t kill you when you''ve got that stubborn look in your eyes. You need to feel my suffering, you must."


    Dion took deep breaths. His aim faltered. His body tried healing, tried to resolve the wound in his thigh. But the black spear would not budge, would not pull out. It was stuck firmly, pinning Dion.


    "You should have brought your friend. You could have died together, at least."


    Dion groaned and angled his leg. With one gun still pointed at Floyd, he used his other to remove his leg slowly from the black spear. He felt the quills cut his open wound as he approached the end of the skewer.


    "But this is good too." Floyd clapped. "It''s a beautiful gift isn''t it?"


    The blood shot out of the hole in his leg.


    "Gift? That''s what you call it? Gifts don''t come with a price tag, but looking at you, I can tell how much you had to give," Dion''s armed hand shook. "The abuse on your body is second to the abuse of your soul."


    "My soul died a long time ago." Floyd approached. His eyes feral, teeth protruding. "I''ve done what I''ve done. I do, what I do. All, for love. Love of what was lost, love of what I stand to lose. You could never understand that. You could never understand the pricelessness of defending that kind of thing."


    Dion looked him straight now. Floyd stood only yards away from him, his metamorphosis now visible; Hollow cheeks, gaunt eyes, a strange almost toxic glow.


    "I am no demon, heart-eater," Floyd said. "I''m above your pay-grade."


    "No, you''re not a demon." His finger felt the trigger. "You''re too dumb to be one."


    Floyd flinched at the words. His eyes widened. The bullet fired out, sparks and fire exploding into the air behind the cartridge. The pillars rose high, into a dome around Floyd. The bullet traveled, slower than the others, but oddly more menacing. With a trail of blue, it went along the straight path, a giant cannonball almost with its large caliber.


    When it hit the dome, it did not break it, did not shatter or even bruise the shield. But it exploded. Fire erupted out of the cartridge. Blue flame that went every which direction. Blue flame followed by black smoke that covered everything around the two in a thick veil.


    It was a good thing too - not the fire, which burned Dion - but the smoke. The smokescreen her traveled through.


    "Where are you?" Floyd shot out his daggers every direction. It was too late though. When the smoke cleared and his anger finally visible, Dion had disappeared. And behind him, unnoticeable in his rage, a manhole spun and jumped and finally settled into its slot.


    Dion''s body landed with a thump. It felt detached from him. He was too numb and tired to even accept he was alive. He was, barely. All around him was the smell of piss and bile and shit and around him was the feeling of crawling things. Animals, bugs, webbing. He dragged his broken leg through the shit-piles and dirty water. His red eyes flickered on and off until they finally receded. When that happened, it was almost impossible to see. He could only notice small fragments of light from gaps above. They were like landmarks, small torches in the winding path. As he went deeper in, even those disappeared until finally he was left in absolute dark. Then, when vision failed him, he simply followed noise. Running water. And after a while, he stopped moving altogether. When tiredness finally caught up to him. When his legs finally broke down, and his body leaned over. When he was so exhausted even the smell or the chills of crawling bugs could not bother him anymore, he rested. He put his back against the cornerstone. His body plopped down. His head slanted against a metal gate, and he fell asleep to the calm sound of running water. Curled up, like a dog.

 Episode 8: The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 1

    "We''re going to get in t-t-trouble with dad again," Ritcher says from above. His voice is trying to whisper, but given the distance, he must shout even if only slightly. "You know how dad gets when he''s drunk,"


    It''s not like Turnus cares. He''s at the bottom, with his grin and shoe-less feet and skipping gait. Turnus darts across the field. A vast stretch of flat plains, dandelions and wild grass grows here and nothing much else around the house. Past it, a shielding of elks and pine. The grass blades must feel like nothing to him. Though they itch Ritcher, who at the thought, scratches his ankles. It must be like walking on sand for Turnus, he''s done it so long. Clothes were always too restraining for Turnus.


    That''s why dad beats him up when he doesn''t wear his tie to church. Because Turnus can''t help himself but not to wear it and dad can''t help himself not to beat him.


    It''s made him calloused. His feet, that is. He struts and prances, bent over so his hand can glide between the grass. Dandelions shoot out from the line he runs through, they look like little parachuting troopers.


    "He''s going to catch you," Ritcher cups his hand.


    "If you keep screaming, he will," Turnus screams back.


    "You''re louder..."He whispers beneath his breath. Ritcher braces himself against the window frame. He looks left and right.


    "Don''t be a chicken shit!" Turnus screams.


    "J-j-jeez! Be quiet," Ritcher whispers.


    He takes a deep breath and finds the gutter pipe. It looks like a grey worm. He puts both hands, hugs it. He whimpers.


    "Hurry up," Turnus says. He stands by the edge of the tree line. Ritcher looks down, it makes him want to vomit. So he looks up instead, dark has only begun to encroach. There are still fireflies that roam the sky like flares. It''s confusing almost, what is a star and with is a creature. The gutter pipe creaks.


    "A-ah," Ritcher works his way down, squared and fidgeting as he shimmies down. Creak.


    "Ah! It''s coming off, it''s coming off I swear!"


    "I hope so. Falling would be a lot faster than waiting, hurry up!"


    He doesn''t know how he makes it down. He closes his eyes, puts one leg down and works his way. His ankles are scratched. He can''t feel it, his legs are too cold to feel anything.


    "Come on, hurry up," Turnus screams again. One of the bolts comes loose, it makes a screeching noise. So Ritcher jumps. He lands on his ass. It''s only a five feet drop, but it felt like parachuting.


    "I could have died, Turnus." He chases after his brother. His breath is tired already.


    "Die? You were one inch off the floor."


    "I could have broken my foot,"


    "And hopefully it''d make you a little tougher."


    "I''m tough!" Ritcher says. Turnus smiles, and they stop at the front of a shed. The door is locked, but the doors are just loose enough for the wind to blow and shake planks. Turnus puts his hand against the chains, rattles them. From behind the door, something moves.


    "I''m tough..." Ritcher gets behind his brother. "I''m tough. I''m tough."


    "What''re you scared of?" Turnus asks.


    "If dad finds out he''s gonna kill us."


    "You take dad too seriously. What''s wrong with talking with him?" He asks. "You''ve got to make your own decisions one day, you know that."


    "He''ll kill us. He''s the word of God, he''ll send the flood after us."


    "Yeah, the flood, uh-huh." Turnus shakes his head and kicks the chains. They rattle. There''s moaning now. "Dad also thinks Jerusalem will be the landing pad for God''s wrath. You shouldn''t take him seriously."


    "He''s God''s chosen!"


    "Every Christian thinks they''re God''s chosen," Turnus says. "You need to learn the difference between a drunk and a messiah."


    "What''s a messiah?" The moaning increases. Ritcher yelps.


    "Later..." Turnus pushes Ritcher away at the same time the footsteps behind the door approach. They''re dragging, careful, gentle...somewhat...childlike."You haven''t met him in a while, have you? He''s gotten bigger."


    "I''m scared Turnus."


    "Don''t tell dad, alright?" Turnus finds a key in his pocket. He reaches for the lock.


    "I''m scared, Turnus." He doesn''t understand the warmth dripping down his pants. Or the wet spot. And it doesn''t seem like Turnus cares, so Ritcher figures why should he himself? He swears he doesn''t care. Says it, over and over and over. But he can''t help himself from jittering, he can''t help his teeth from clattering.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    The lock falls down with a thump.


    "I''m gosh!" Ritcher runs across the field. Trips. His knee bleeds, and between the urine and blood, he smells like metallic ammonia. Like rust thrown into toilet cleaner.


    "Hey, take it easy!" Turnus runs after him. Ritcher is too fast, or his fear too great rather. He runs for the gutter pipe. He puts one hand up, starts rubbing and pushing his way up.


    "Wait! Wait, Ritcher, wait!"


    It''s too late. He''s halfway there. He puts one hand on a window frame.


    Then the bolt comes off. A screw flies past him. His eyes are wide. The gutter pipe starts to shake and bend. The noise of steel crashing down, of destruction.


    Watery trash explodes from the pipe; wet leaves, dirty water almost mucus in texture, a sprinkle of soggy pine needles. The tube is cut halfway, Ritcher rides the lower half down, all the while screaming, all the while thinking of Armageddon and Jerusalem and the fireflies and of the flood and of the fury.


    This is Armageddon, isn''t it?


    The flood and the fury.


    Then of Turnus. Briefly, as he sees his face one last time before he hits the floor.


    He looks at him, almost proud. Because now, with his body falling and his head hitting the floor and the blood coming out his skull, Turnus doesn''t look so tough himself too.


    Turnus looks mighty scared as he riles Ritcher to stand, as he stands and then kneels and hugs Ritcher. And he doesn''t look so tough when both of them look up, and the window to dad''s room lights up.


    Why¡­ neither of them look so tough after all.


    ?


    It was hard to see with the light bearing down on him. Turnus covered his face with the sheets and lowered himself into his bed.


    "What day is it?" Turnus asked.


    "Tuesday. You have an appointment with your brother." Dorothy said, either tired or annoyed. She was stroking her hair.


    "Weird, I just dreamt of him." Turnus yawned. "I dreamt I was him, at least. It was a bad dream."


    "Dream or memory?"


    "I don''t know anymore," He plops his head down on the pillow. "The meeting can wait for me to get some more damn sleep."


    "No, I don''t think it can," she said.


    All around them was the quaint interior of a very simple (boring) room, and simple (boring) was the only thing anyone could use to describe the decor. It seemed like Grandma''s Grandmas'' house With the vinyl laced table clothes that draped every piece of wood. From the wardrobe dresser to the desks. It was a place so antiquated that even the dust was beginning to collect dust.


    The bed was big, but Turnus took every inch of it as he sprawled out with every limb extended to each corner of the bed posts. His girlfriend or just lover or just transgender novelty... sat in a chair, with the mirror in front of her and the set of makeup below her. She was working on her self, adding blush to her cheeks. He looked, not at her, but to the reflection. He touched the bruises on his face, most of them were healed save for one in the back of his ear. He poked it and flinched.


    "I hate making promises."


    "Then stop making them," she said.


    "But then I won''t get anything I want,"


    "Then break them?"


    "Keeping promises is the cornerstone of civilization, and I am no animal,"


    "Whatever," She put on lipstick.


    "You''re in a mood today, aren''t you?"


    "I don''t like these deals and secrets you''re working on. They make me uncomfortable."


    "You''re worried I''ll die?" He smiled.


    "Or worse," She turned to him. They shared a moment before she retracted.


    "All I have to do is save Luanne, for the moment at least. That''s it. Keep her straight." He said. "I always liked her,"


    She eyed him.


    "Don''t worry, I''m not Floyd. I don''t fuck my sisters." He laughed. "And maybe like was the wrong word. Maybe it''s more like I pity her and my nephew."


    "Who cares if you pity her. I thought you wanted the whole family dead?" She stopped. "Or are you running away from your dream? Like you always do?"


    "Oh, you are in a mood," Turnus turned to her. His eyes were narrowed, his brow lowered. She knew the face well and turned away from him, brushing her hair. Turnus walked up to her, one hand to the back of her neck and the other grabbing onto the brush. He took his time as his face approached her, letting his breath fall on her. She couldn''t breathe it looked as if poisoned by his very breath.


    Then, with a slow movement, he put the brush against her black hair. He went up and down in long strokes, unwinding the knots in her skull.


    She smelled of coconut.


    "What''s got you so mad today? You''re never this angsty,"


    "Jezebel died. The Vicars killed her," she said. "I thought you told me they wouldn''t be a problem."


    "They''re not, they''re a convenience," He said.


    "I''m scared they''ll get to you through me,"


    "So in the end, you''re just worried about your life?"


    "I can''t..." She looked down. "I can''t fight and no offense, you can''t either. And even when you do fight, you never win."


    "You were never the courageous type, were you?" He said. "You needed my push, my help, my resources to turn yourself into the person you are now. You never could do anything by yourself. And here you are - unable to even run away by yourself." His hand approached the top of her head. His face came around to direct opposite of hers, then, with one firm grasp, he clamped down on her hair. He felt the black straws stab and peek through in between his fingers. It felt like a ball in his fist, all her hair wound up. "The audacity in you to even entertain angst. To be mad at me. What right do you have?"


    "I''m sorry...I''m sorry!" She cried. "I''m just scared."


    "And people do stupid things when they''re scared." He pulled her head back. "And even dumber things when they''re mad."


    "Please don''t hurt me. Please,"


    "They all say that, don''t they?"


    He tossed her head. She hit the glass, and it broke, and the blood began to fall down from the dressing window. It didn''t hurt much, not really. But the sight perhaps, or her broken visage in the mirror, was enough to set her off into tears.


    Or maybe she was just coming to realization - the stop at the long line of bad choices that led her here.


    Turnus looked for his clothes.


    "I''m doing all the hard work of planning, trying to get every piece in their right order and I can''t have you undermining me at the homestead. You must understand."


    She lowered her face and put her palms to her eyes. The mascara stained her arms as if she was cut across.


    "Hey, hey!" Turnus looked at the mirror. His face fell, his anger too. "You said you wanted to go somewhere when this was all over, right? Germany? Japan? Remind me. What do you want?"


    She nodded her head.


    "Hey, I''m talking to you." He grabbed her arm. She looked away. It made his gut drop. He let her go, gently, trying to grab hold of her palm. She wouldn''t allow it, as if she was allergic to his very touch.


    He was a toxic man through and through. Breath and touch and attitude. Poison to her very soul. What great deterioration he caused in his presence, what great waste.


    He put on his glove. It covered his tattooed hand. He fixed his tie. He looked at her in the silence of the room, where whimpers were so lonely in sound that they might as well have been screams. Where he could hear his own heartbeat in his swollen ear.


    "The plan hasn''t changed, Dorothy. I just need to make it work. And sometimes that means negotiations, and sometimes that means waiting. I know you''re nervous, I am too if you would believe me." He said. "But you have to have a little faith. This isn''t murder I''m trying to commit, it''s revenge. And revenge has to be patient."


    She sniffed and walked towards the window and looked out.


    "I''m sorry," He said. I''m sorry.


    He stepped out, lunch was waiting for him.

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 2

    The knife came down on Dion''s skull.


    And then he woke up gasping. His face was flushed and all across his body was the feverish heat of his strained sleep. HIs muscles felt cramped. Looking down he could see the point where he had been cut, a small scar now on his thigh. It was still difficult to move the leg, it could barely move at all. Bending it any way left him with a numbing ache. Nothing that particularly shot pain up his nerves, but that left him slow and annoyed and tired to even move. He turned his body around from the wall, day had only lit up the sewers slightly. Above, the droplets of water were hitting him against the face. He felt the dirty water streak down to his chest.


    "Well, that would do it," He stood. Four bones popped; his hip, his ankle, and both knees. He looked around himself to the light that bent around the narrow tunnels. They were sparse within the thicket of darkness.


    "Where do I go now?" He asked. He tried to look into his pockets for a cell phone he only remembered he didn''t have. He found something much worse, or rather, could not find something. One of his guns was missing, possibly lost in the fight the previous night.


    He tried his coat. He stuck his hand into the arcana symbol but could not feel anything but ammunition in the caverns of his pocket dimension. So that was it then, with his singular gun now gunked with shit. The smell was repulsive, it was like he was barely becoming conscious to it or perhaps, it was only in security that he could finally be conscious of it.


    He walked in a straight line. Hopped, really. One hand to the wall, one leg bearing most of his weight. He walked until he saw a fragment of light from a little hole above and then he climbed. He chased after the light. Up, removing the manhole and finally...breathing...


    It was donuts? Hotdogs and plenty of gasoline. A truck stop.


    The snacks were glistening from the window inside.


    His stomach grumbled, but he had no wallet.


    "Well god damn, a rabbit out his damn hole." A trucker screamed, his head outside the window. He lifted the brown hat from his head to wipe the sweat from his forehead. His hands were dirty, oil, which smudged against his tanned skin. He was a dirty man, though not as dirty as Dion. His truck hauled to a stop, and he came out smiling, and Dion noticed one of his front teeth was missing. His tongue was sticking out from between the gap.


    Everything around him smelled of oil and the scent only got stronger as he dragged himself out the manhole.


    ¡°I need help.¡±


    "Yeah you do,¡± He said. ¡°You a tweaker? I ain¡¯t go cash for tweakers,¡±


    It was the first time in sunlight and the first time today that he could finally look at himself. His arms were brown and green and yellow. His face felt caked.


    "Do you know where we are?" Dion asked?


    "Edge o¡¯ town." He said. "About fifteen miles off the casino. Which...I figure would be the center,"


    "I''m too far then," Dion¡¯s legs slithered out like the tail end of a snake. His pants were tattered and what wasn¡¯t, reeked and had spots of brown and green and yellow and sometimes, red.


    "This yer fetish or something?" The trucker asked. "Shit-divin''?"


    He looked up, his eyes strained into a glare. He felt goop slide down his cheek.


    "No,¡± Dion said. ¡°I had an accident at work."


    "Yeah, and I''m the mayor Tallahassee." He laughed. "Listen if you''re going deep sea shit-diving, you shouldn''t wear a business suit. Or come out spookin¡¯ strangers,"


    He drunk from a big straw from his big cup, that was much too large for his grip and whose loose hold made Dion anxious to even watch. The condensed water dripped down his hand.


    "If you¡¯d be so kind, I¡¯d like some quarters."


    "I don''t give no money to no tweakers. Or perverts.¡±


    "I''m not a tweaker and my perversions -¡± Dion stopped. Guilt stopped him, really. ¡°My perversions are private.¡±


    "If you want, I can call the cops." He suck out the straw, it made a noise so abhorrent to his ears he couldn¡¯t help but frown. This fat trucker, with the Superman blue and red shirt too small to cover his pot belly and the jeans too long for his stocky legs. They were ripped at the bottom where they caught with his boots.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "Listen, buddy," Dion stepped up to him. He wasn''t sure what made the trucker move back, the intimidation of his shit-caked glare or the smell. "I''ve been through a lot, and I would greatly appreciate some quarters, just three."


    A truck screeched behind them. The horn and noise so massive, Dion could feel his body vibrate.;


    "Just three. Three isn¡¯t a big deal, right?" Dion said.


    "Sure, sure, just get the hell away from me." The trucker said. Dion extended his hand. He threw the quarters onto the floor. "I ain''t touching you either, dirty pervert."


    He picked them. Bending over sent pain in his lower back like a needle stab. He fell on his knees, his breath collapsing to gasps, his lung strained into a burning sensation. He coughed twice. On the second cough, he spat out bloody mucus.


    "Thanks a lot," Dion wheezed. He paused and looked up to the sun. With one breath he straightened his jacket, with another deep breath he heaved his body upwards. He yelped when he stood upright. His knees felt broken. People gave him, their eyes glaring mostly. Suspicious, worried.


    Dion walked over to the payphone by the edge of the street (if you could call it a highway, it looked more like a dirt road). Cars passed him, there was no glass for privacy. The payphone was pinned onto a power line pole. Every now and then, a fool or a young man (which are the same thing) would honk at him, scream a profanity, and drive by slick and sharp with words.


    Mudman. He heard the nickname twice.


    He was too tired to care. Too humbled to fight back.


    "Apollo," The phone rang. "Apollo."


    "What?" The intercom responded. Dion sighed, relieved almost to tears.


    "You have no idea. Oh my god! Lord forgive me for taking His name in vain, You have no idea-"


    "Where have you been?" Apollo asked. "I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re desperate if you¡¯re calling me, so much for leaving on a high note,"


    "I got in some trouble."


    "I knew it. You always find a way to fuck things up. You can¡¯t even leave me correctly.


    Dion sighed and let him continue.


    ¡°You left crying like an infant, you¡¯ve come back crying like an infant.¡±


    "Listen, I''m doing real bad, Apollo. Real bad."


    "What? Why?" Apollo asked.


    "I met Floyd,"


    "Oh," Apollo¡¯s voice went low as if his body had been dropped into a deep well. At one moment loud, at the other dissipating. He went quiet until all Dion could hear was the short breaths he took. Then, with even more time, it sounded like Apollo wasn¡¯t even breathing.


    "We had a scrap outside some shitty motel. Doesn¡¯t even matter now, both of us left the area.¡± He tried to recount. With the memory of the event came the memory of pain, of loss. He closed his eyes and struggled to speak.


    ¡°I lost one of my pistols," Dion cracked. "He got away. So did I. But I know he¡¯s coming back, he wants to finish me. And he doesn¡¯t seem reasonable at all, as if he¡¯s not even human anymore. He looks like a demon -"


    "I can''t help you."


    "What?" Dion screamed. He looked around for people wandering the streets, he was getting more stares. He leaned into the phone, close to the wooden pole.


    "What?" He whispered.


    "Listen," Apollo sighed. "Aenea got sick. Well, it¡¯s hard to call it a sickness, really,"


    "So get her some chicken soup, this guy is literally chasing my rooftop from rooftop. He looks like a damn panther," Once again he looked around. An old woman in a wheelchair scorned at him.


    "Sorry,"


    "For what?"


    "Nevermind that,," Dion said. "Floyd isn¡¯t human anymore. He¡¯s not even rational, he¡¯s dangerous like you wouldn¡¯t believe it."


    "No, I believe you," Apollo said. "But what I think is that you don¡¯t understand how sick Aenea really is. I''ve had to change her sheets. She keeps wetting the bed. Sweat, urine, blood. Vomit everywhere. I don¡¯t know how she¡¯s alive."


    "What? I thought she just had a cold. Take her to the doctor then,"


    "It¡¯s not a disease," Apollo said. ¡°It¡¯s her curse. Mammon¡¯s curse. Only she can help herself now, lord know how that¡¯ll manifest.


    "A curse," Dion said. "I think I get it. Oh, no,"


    "Yes, Oh, no," Apollo said. "She can barely talk or function. And right now would be the best time to kill her. So I have to be here, period. That¡¯s just the way it is. If she dies, then we go no leverage with the Hospitallers. And if we get no leverage¡­¡±


    ¡°Our heads come off,¡± Dion exhaled loudly. He looked at the floor and stomped on cracks. ¡°I get it. Right,¡±


    "I mean, I wish I could just let her die and kill these freaks-"


    "Alright, I said I get it," Dion said. "What can I do then? Do you have any ideas?"


    "Well, how''d he find you?"


    "I don''t know. It was a sneak attack."


    "Where were you?"


    He felt his cheeks light up.


    "T-that isn''t important," He said. "I was tailed. I think he was stalking me."


    "Is that your guess?"


    "I mean, what else could he have done? If he knew where we were exactly, he would have gone straight for Aenea. But he targeted me,"


    "Maybe he does know where we''re at. Maybe he wants you because you''re the one that put the bullet in Jezebel''s head.¡± Dion said. ¡°You did say he was irrational, right? It¡¯s common for the insane to use someone or something as the shrine of all their pain and suffering. He¡¯s transferred and projected everything bad in his life onto you,¡±


    "So he¡¯s obsessed," Dion said.


    ¡°He¡¯s obsessed with his idea of what you are, not the reality. For you are more than Jezebel¡¯s killer. You¡¯re also the orchestrator of all his misery throughout his life,¡±


    ¡°Well then, he¡¯s had a lot of misery considering how crazy he was acting,¡±


    ¡°You can use that,¡± Apollo said. ¡°He¡¯s going to hunt you down. Maybe you shouldn¡¯t worry about finding him at all, just worry about how you¡¯re going to beat him.¡±


    "I don¡¯t like admitting this,¡± Dion said. ¡°But he outmatched me pretty easily. He¡¯s got like¡­crystals and stuff. Harder than diamond. It¡¯s ridiculous.¡±


    ¡°I wish I knew what you were talking about, really do, but I don¡¯t want to give you advice when I¡¯m as ignorant as I am about the enemy,¡±


    ¡°So who can help me?¡±


    Apollo paused.


    ¡°Thaddeus,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°He can¡¯t fight,¡± Dion shouted. ¡°He¡¯s an egg-head. All he does is numbers and stuff,¡±


    ¡°He also does armory and stuff,¡± A slew of coughs were heard in the background of Apollo¡¯s end. They sound clogged, almost as if the person coughing was drowning or suffocating. ¡°He might have a spare gun and some ideas.¡±


    ¡°Gosh darn it,¡± Dion tapped his forehead against the post. ¡°Alright, tell me where he¡¯s at,¡±


    ¡°Alright,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And be a little sensitive with him¡­¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s been scared since the whole Blackwater incident,¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 3

    Even behind the sheet of glass in the small room high above the arena, the sounds of fists and of bells and of that wild crowd filled the room with vibrations of passion.


    "Why''d you call me here?" Ritcher asked. Two women followed him in, scantily dressed. One blonde, the other brunette and with curly hair and who took special measures to rub Ritcher¡¯s chest.


    ¡°Get away, whores,¡± He slapped one of them. She turned to face Turnus, who waved her away. She ran, the blonde holding her, guiding her as she faced the floor and cried out.


    The door closed; well, slammed shut really.


    ¡°She looked a little like the whore you were seeing, didn¡¯t she? I thought you¡¯d like her,¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about,¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure the police don¡¯t either, you didn¡¯t really leave much a clue after you killed her, did you?¡± He asked.


    ¡°I fear no false accusation, truth serves as its own tribunal and jury. Let it speak for itself.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a politicians answer,¡± Turnus said. ¡°Or a priest''s,¡±


    Ritcher slammed the floor with his cane. Turnus wasn¡¯t sure what was louder, the tapping or the crowd.


    "This used to be a bar. Then it grew into a strip club, and finally an illegal fighting ring. I helped it, a little bit," He smiled. ¡°Just a little smudge,¡±


    ¡°You often corrupt, I¡¯m not surprised,¡± Ritcher said. ¡°Gambling, alcohol, sex. You always knew how to graduate yourself to the next class of sin. A deviant, still, what would father think?¡±


    ¡°Have I ever cared what father thought?¡±


    ¡°To a fault,¡± Ritcher said.


    Turnus laughed or at least played it off as laughter. His hand gripped a glass. He pressed down, unaware of course, more so distracted by his anger. The glass cracked from his grip, and he set it down. Whiskey pooled underneath the metal tray he rested it on.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t call you here to talk about dad,¡± Turnus said. ¡°I came here to make a deal, that¡¯s it. A deal for someone we both know,¡±


    ¡°Why would I make any deal with the devil?¡± Ritcher asked. ¡°I should just come around this table and choke the life out of you, it¡¯d save me the trouble of doing it later.¡±


    ¡°You could, but you¡¯d make your life harder,¡± Turnus said. ¡°You do want to kill Salome, eventually, right?¡±


    Ritcher found a black leather sofa to sit on. The corners of the room had small potted plants that extended halfway up the glass wall before slumping over. There was a monitor above them, trays of snacks and drinks.


    ¡°Speak,¡±


    "Always in a hurry, aren¡¯t you? I remember a time when you were just my little brother when you used to have fun,¡±


    "I''m not nostalgic." Turnus¡¯s voice was brief. Eerily so.


    "Unfortunately, I am," Turnus said. "I don¡¯t like being haunted by my memories, but that¡¯s just my nature and who are we to fight our natures? You certainly don¡¯t try,"Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    ¡°I told you to speak, not to ramble. Get to the point,¡±


    ¡°Heh.¡±


    He looked out to the ring, two fighters struck each other, one with a leg kick to the head, the other with a kidney punch. They both rebounded off the impact, almost reaching opposite corners. The pain was obvious on their bloody bodies, the struggle in their punches as they sluggishly went at each other. It was nearing its end.


    "Luanne wants me to convince you to not kill her,"


    ¡°I can¡¯t do that. Rapture waits for none,¡± Ritcher said.


    ¡°I know that you¡¯re a psychopath, but not stupid,¡± He said. ¡°I want you to delay it at least, two weeks.¡±


    ¡°Why would I do that?¡± Ritcher asked. ¡°She¡¯s weak and perfect to lure the other two,¡±


    ¡°From one professional to another, you probably shouldn¡¯t tell anyone your master plan,¡±


    ¡°If I was afraid of you, I wouldn¡¯t,¡± Ritcher said.


    ¡°You¡¯re something special, aren¡¯t you?¡± Turnus said. ¡°But you¡¯re not special enough to go through those soldiers to get to Salome. She¡¯s got a private army, and even if you do wipe them out, they can buy her enough time to evacuate. So as far as I can tell, your options are limited.¡±


    ¡°She wouldn¡¯t leave her daughter and son,¡± Ritcher said.


    ¡°Then you don¡¯t know her. Floyd is already a liability and Luanne is a traitor. Half-traitor, at least. She wasn¡¯t keen on giving me all the information I wanted, but she gave me some.¡±


    ¡°What information would that be?¡±


    ¡°None of your business,¡± Turnus said. ¡°What is - is what I can get you: an in. I can get you access to the casino,¡±


    ¡°How would you do that?¡± Ritcher asked.


    ¡°With money, of course. Bribery. I already have a spy, some poor sap with a baby on the way.¡± He said. ¡°He can get you in and more importantly, get you in without getting noticed.¡±


    ¡°The only plan I need is God¡¯s plan. What drivel you speak of,¡± He stood. His shoulders wide, his cane nearly half his width.


    ¡°You expect too much of that woman. You and I both know that when the chips are down and her options gone, she¡¯ll throw her children out to dry. You and I both know that, don¡¯t be stupid. This is the only opportunity you¡¯ll get to kill her. You do want the head of the snake, after all, right?¡±


    Ritcher walked over to Turnus, pushing every piece of furniture out the way.


    "And the only way you¡¯re talking to my guy is if I stay alive," Turnus grinned. He didn¡¯t know why it wasn¡¯t like Ritcher could see it. But perhaps he could feel it, the arrogance in his tone. He was sure Ritcher could feel it. He clenched the edge of his cane and struck the floor. It bounced, and he caught it in the air.


    ¡°You can get me in?¡± Ritcher asked.


    ¡°Yeah, but I need that , and I need you to keep your promise,¡±


    ¡°The boy too?¡±


    Turnus felt his stomach turn. That he would even think that, that it could appear in his mind as a thought worthy to bespoke.


    ¡°Of course, the boy too.¡± Turnus grit his teeth. ¡°He¡¯s an infant. Our nephew.¡±


    ¡°And he carries Wolfe blood, which makes him kin to our progenitor¡¯s sin. Our blood flows down the river time and little Flint too swims along the ebb.¡±


    You¡¯re sicker than I thought. He wanted to say, but couldn¡¯t.


    ¡°The boy stays safe as well. Two weeks.¡±


    ¡°Fine.¡± He extended his hand. ¡°I swear on my faith, on my reputation as an acolyte. I swear.¡±


    It was tempting for Turnus, to kill Ritcher here and now. To deteriorate. To reduce this monster of a man. To completely kill off Ritcher, if he could until even the memory would become dust in his mind.


    But that wasn''t the plan.


    There was more to what he wanted, more than this singular kill. It had to be all of them. All or none. So he took a deep breath and straightened his back and tightened his stomach until the butterflies were suffocated from his abdomen until the little prickly feelings disappeared almost as quickly as they appeared. He clenched Ritcher''s hand and shook.


    "You''ll be coming after me eventually, right?" Turnus.


    "Yes, you are a threat after all,"


    "You really aren¡¯t stupid, then," Turnus said.


    Ritcher left. Turnus turned around, waving around at the guards who seemed more afraid than he was, who had their hands on the handles of their guns all the while Ritcher took to walk down the steps and out the underground club. Turnus looked down at the fight. His chosen champion, taken onto a stretcher, sprawled on the bed with one leg sticking out and nearly touching the floor. Two men carried him out, a third pumped oxygen into his unconscious body.


    He stood watching at his underdog, a bit saddened, a bit in humor.


    "Well, there goes a hundred thousand," He laughed. His voice seemed to taper off, along with the audience until it all disappeared into awed and terrified silence, for the victor stood in the arena still, blood in his hands and his tightened face pointed directly at the high-beam lights above.


    Turnus stood there, in his loss, curious.


    "It must be blinding," He said.


    He reared his head down and drank from his broken glass.

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 4

    The mountains of junk clogged the skyline from compass end to compass end; broken down cars and piles of tires and the swollen lumps of chairs that bled cotton from their punctured bodies. They all stacked in giant piles.


    "Why¡¯d you ask me to meet you here?" Dion asked.


    "To help me, you need a favor and so do I. That¡¯s how this works," Thaddeus roamed the stretch of dirt, going car to car and inspecting each.


    "I have a murderer chasing after me, how in the hell could your problems be worse than mine."


    "I get it, you''re in trouble, but you should be more considerate for me, okay?" Thaddeus said. "I¡¯m scared too. I had no idea I was getting myself into when I came over here, no idea! We¡¯re both in trouble,"


    "We?"


    "Yeah, you think I wanted to come here? I''m in the same boat as you, I¡¯m an outcast!"


    "What does that mean?" Dion asked.


    "It means I¡¯m a bit screwed w-w-with the c-c-church," He coughed. ¡°Sorry, I s-s-stutter when I¡¯m n-nervous.¡±


    ¡°Sorry,¡±


    ¡°You think you¡¯re the only one with problems?¡±


    He was ashamed to say yes, though he did feel that in his heart. For a while, he had felt like no one but him mattered in the world. And maybe Dion was indulging in his narcissism, but it seemed fair to him. He started counting down his problems; the addiction to sex, the fear of losing violent control, the flying spike-throwing witch. Yeah, it seemed fair to only think about himself. Which was weird to him, considering how much he cared about others in Havenbrook. It was all weird and all new to him.


    He sighed. Havenbrook. The boy, the people. He leaned against a junk car, some shitty rusted Toyota. The people at the motel too, all slaughtered.


    He wished he wasn¡¯t guilty. He wished he could just forget that other people even mattered, and maybe he was close to forgetting, but it always seemed to come back to him again.


    "No, I''m not the only one with problems." Dion¡¯s muttered. His breath was long-drawn. His eyes, tired.


    "Yeah, buddy. I got banned from the church too," Thaddeus said. "Excommunicated, and if I don''t help you, soon-to-be-executed."


    "What''d you do?"


    "What¡¯d I do?¡± Thaddeus put his arms up. ¡°What¡¯d I do?!¡± Dion regretting asking. Is this how Apollo feels most of the time?


    ¡°I did my good Christian duty of not inventing f-f-freaking weapons!" He said. "They wanted me to make a gas. Quicker killer than nerve gas, twice as terrible. Can you believe that? Weaponized gas! Geez. It was too brutal. Too. T-t-too brutal.¡±


    ¡°Who asked you to do that?¡±


    ¡°Some god awful woman. I think she called herself A-a-amelia. Real scary type, never laughed, never smiled. I don¡¯t think she even had a pulse. Ice c-cold bitch.¡± He said. ¡°I shoulda¡¯ known someone like her had connections. Should! Have! Known!¡±This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    He kicked a tire. Then he winced, grabbed his shins and hopped on one foot. "Damnit," He shouted. "Goddamnit,"


    Thaddeus sat down on the seat of a broken down car, the leather had holes in them, a rat retreated back inside when he landed.


    "Life''s hard when you have principals. Sometimes it gets so hard you even wonder why you had them in the first place. It¡¯s not like other people care. It¡¯s not like other people are even half as fair. But you have anyways,¡± His shoulders slumped. ¡°And you spend your time wondering, still. Till you die, probably.¡±


    The pause was unsettling. Dion could not respond. He just let it pass, like a storm almost.


    ¡°Is this a bad time to ask for a new weapon?¡± He muttered.


    ¡°What?!¡± Thaddeus scream. ¡°Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.¡±


    "Now hold on, let me tell you the situation, okay? This green-guy thing was jumping around like a grasshopper. He was armored up, throwing black¡­things! Like he was god damn Odin. Struck like thunder, really hard stuff."


    "Then call the police! Ask Apollo, not me!¡±


    "I have to kill him, and it has to be alone. That¡¯s that." Dion slapped his thighs with some finality.


    "K-k-kill him? Oh, geez. I didn''t want to know that," Thaddeus stood up, put his palms to his ears and walked around the graveyard of cars. "I do not want to know what you do to these people,¡± He turned to wag his finger at Dion. ¡°And they are people! Don¡¯t forget that.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± Dion stood. ¡°Believe me. I know. But sometimes¡­ you have to kill people.¡±


    ¡°Oh gosh. Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh,¡± Thaddeus shook. ¡°I gave you those weapons with the belief that you¡¯d kill demons. Monsters! Not people.¡±


    "It¡¯s a stretch to call them people, I learned that yesterday. I saw into their eyes, saw what little humanity was left in him. He¡¯s not a person, that - thing - that nearly killed me."


    "No, no, no,"


    Dion walked over to him and put his hand on Thaddeus¡¯ shoulder.


    "You don¡¯t need to know the details. But you said it yourself, you need to help me. And in doing so, I help you,"


    Thaddeus looked around. The owner of the junkyard sat in a small room chewing bubble gum. He was listening to the radio, with his legs kicked up to a counter. Thaddeus looked the opposite side. A rear light fell down from one of the cars atop the mountain.


    ¡°Goddamnit,¡± Thaddeus said. ¡°W-w-what do you need?¡±


    "A new gun, I lost one of my pistols. Or...it was captured, I don''t know." Dion said.


    "You lost one of my - what? You know what that means right? Remember that story? Justiciar L¨¦ona. Remember what happened? The church will kill us!" He was in hysterics now, running around in circles. He could have made a hole in the floor had Dion not stopped him. ¡°They¡¯re gonna kill us. They¡¯ll really chop our heads off this time. Don¡¯t you care?"


    ¡°Just relax.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t tell me to f-f-fucking relax!¡±


    ¡°Thaddeus,¡± Dion said. ¡°Think about the short time for now. We¡¯ll concern ourselves with the long-term later, alright?¡± He said. ¡°I need firepower, right here, right now?¡±


    He rubbed his temples.


    ¡°I can¡¯t give you more explosive power,¡± He said. ¡°But I can give you some¡­things I¡¯m testing. It¡¯s experimental -¡±


    ¡°Great!¡± Dion said.


    ¡°It¡¯s dangerous.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, I need dangerous,¡±


    ¡°It might melt your hand off, you hear me? I can not be held liable to your safety.¡±


    ¡°Well, we all have to take chances, huh?¡± Dion smiled and started out the junkyard.


    4


    ¡°Wait, wait, wait,¡± Thaddeus said. ¡°You¡¯re still helping me.¡±


    ¡°With what?¡±


    ¡°Looking for an engine,¡±


    ¡°Alright, I can carry that out pretty easily.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯ll be carrying all of it out.¡± Thaddeus pointed up, to the very tip of one of the mountains. A van stood there, half broken, half compressed. Only it¡¯s front seemed operational. It must have been the length of ten fully grown men tall and looking at it, with how high it poked the sun, forced Dion to cup his hands.


    ¡°Can¡¯t the other guy help you?¡±


    Thaddeus pointed to that ¡®other man.¡¯ The owner, in his little chair in the small room with the radio and the foldable lawn chair. He was drunk asleep.


    ¡°Alright, alright,¡± Dion said. He walked past Taddeus and tested the footing to climb.


    ¡°Oh, and take a shower when you¡¯re done, alright?¡± Thaddeus walked over to one of the shaded, rusted cars and sat. A bit worried, a bit humored. He tapped his leg like a metronome beat until it became a kind of hypnosis until even the sound of Dion busting and bending rusted steel went deaf to him. Then he fell into it, the trance of deep thinking.


    What were they going to do?

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 5

    It resembled the hazy smoke of dream or a nightmare, but it felt nothing like it. Maybe it was because it felt like something more severe. That the ocean she was falling into was not just pretend, that the water entering her throat and drowning her lungs was more than just a projection of them. It didn¡¯t feel like a dream to her -her being Aenea- who at the instant of falling couldn¡¯t even remember her own name. She couldn¡¯t remember anything. Her eyes stung. The salty water pressed down on her. She sank, all the way down, as if her body had no buoyancy at all like she was lead. Though the strange thing was - like a dream - she also felt weightless, and though - like a dream - she struggled to avoid her death, struggled frivolously with flailing arms, she couldn''t move even just slightly back up.


    She was done.


    After a while, her arms tired and she decided to stare down below.


    She saw lights, confused them for those angler fish. She was close. Attached to the bulbs of lights were people, faces in her past and present. The Vicars, her father, her family, the businessmen. Last, her mother. The real one. The one whom she loved and hated all the same like an indecisive deep-ocean volcano.


    Volcanoes. Was that where she was going? Her eyes wandered to the floor. They widened, the red glow reflected off her pupils. Burning, glaring at her. She put her hands in front of her to block as much of the light from. As if that was good enough, just keeping her eyes blind from inevitability.


    She fell. The gallery of faces judged her descent. She screamed.


    ¡°God no! God no!¡±


    The voice did not travel far in the ocean.


    By the time she started crying, her body was already absorbed into the light. It was blinding.


    When she woke up, she found herself in her bed. Not the one in the casino. Not the one in California. It wasn¡¯t any expensive, or strange looking room. It was her room. Her childhood room, the baby blue paint that was only beginning to chip away, the hole in the wall that she had made when she tried playing baseball indoors. The streak on the floor near the door where she had tried closing her door on her mother, and where the heel of a boot had stopped her and dragged along the floor.


    She looked to her sides. The single bed, raised only inches off the floor (because she was always afraid of falling in her sleep), some toys. Mostly dogs, she loved those animals as children.


    Aenea ran to the door. Opening it revealed nothing. Quite literally, nothing. The door led to a black space speckled with little stars. It had infinite dimensions from what she could tell. She tested it, she got on her knees and put her arm through the space to see if she could touch a floor. She was almost dragged back, another force pushed her back inside. The door shut closed then locked itself. Not that it helped her already rising heart pulse or the sickening feeling in her stomach.


    ¡°Where the fuck am I?¡± She asked. She bit her nails and chewed the flesh off her thumbs, spitting it out every so often.


    She took small steps around the small room.


    Opposite the bed was her study table. She had piles of books there. Near the stacks, broken glass and the picture frame, they once covered. Turning it made her eyes swell, then her mouth drop. She saw a picture of herself, and of her mother, and of her father. Their heads were decapitated.


    Further along the picture, she saw herself. An eight-year-old girl, smiling, as her parents head rolled beneath her.


    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± She dropped the picture. The wood frame broke this time.


    She looked up, back to her study and the mirror in front of it.


    He was waiting there, smiling. The creature with the black lips and the black eyes and the sickly-green skin, with the suit and the soft-spoken voice. He appeared in the mirror, and she stumbled back. He stuck his hand out and gripped the edge of the mirror as if to pull himself, and with one dragging motion, got his whole body through the mirror frame.


    ¡°You¡¯ve had a rough night, haven¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Wh-what?¡±


    ¡°Your drinking, of course,¡± He snapped his fingers. The room flipped upside down. She fell, screaming. She landed on a bar stool. The creature appeared again, amongst a crowd of faceless people, as a dealer. He was drawing cards.


    ¡°It isn¡¯t good to drink to excess. Excess, after all, is not good,¡± He said. ¡°I would know, I am he who deals in excess, Mammon.¡±


    She looked around. Her breathing tense and swift and relentless. Mammon pushed a martini glass in her direction. She took it and gulped. Her shoulders slumped, her cheeks flushed. She felt calmer, and as she analyzed the room, she felt easier in it. Or maybe felt easier being drunk. Even with the sickly monster in front of her.


    She closed her eyes and exhaled, it felt like knots of tension pulled around her neckline. She stood up straight, her feet firmly ground in the carpet below.


    ¡°Mammon? Am I supposed to know anything about you?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Just a little if you intend on living. But if you want to win, you must know more, ¡± Mammon said. ¡°Not too much though, of course! Even knowledge can become excessive, burdensome. Just ask Jezebel,¡±


    ¡°What¡¯d you do to her?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Me? You¡¯re the one who got her shot, no?¡±


    "I got her shot?" She dropped the glass with a thump. "I didn''t do anything. I just existed, and she wanted to kill me, God knows why,"


    "God knows why," He smiled, and his yellow teeth expressed themselves wide on his face. There was no heater, the room was cold, but no steam came out from the demon''s mouth. She felt the lights narrow down on her, all other color and space and anonymous people fading into nothing. There was nothing, but the small stool and the empty glass and the table, and of course, Mammon. He lifted his hand, a long crooked finger with a chipped black nail at the end. He spun poker chips in his finger gaps. Over and over...


    And Over...


    And over again...


    Until her head spun.


    "I did nothing to her but offer her a solution to a problem she had conjured up in her head," He said.


    "What problem? I didn''t do anything."


    "She didn''t seem to think so. In her hysterics, she believed you, and the two little heart-eaters you have with you, as the sole orchestrator of her misery. Her misery being the death of her younger brother, of course. The slow manchild," He said. He dropped the chips down, they rolled down towards Aenea. "Bringing two church dogs to your family of witches wasn''t a smart move, you know? It''s a good joke though."


    "Those devil-worshipping witches? My people? Where were my people when I was a kid? When I was growing up? It seems to me they''re only my people when it''s convenient for them," she said. "I''m no witch! And I sure as hell am not at fault for anything but self-defense,"If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    She nudged the table. The barstool fell behind her into empty space. It made no noise, not even a woosh as it descended into oblivion.


    Mammon angled his head to the rear, he sighed and from his sleeves came out a roulette ball, that he rolled with his index finger. It ran around the floor. He stopped the ball. He looked up. He pushed it forward.


    She felt the sudden pain of her muscles convulsing, the veins bulging from her left arm prompted a yelp.


    Her arm lifted up on its own as if pulled. Then he rolled the ball back again. Her head slammed against the frame of the table. Once more. Three times. The bloody imprint of her face was left on one side.


    "Have enough?"


    She spat out blood. Her head rose, the hair now strewn wildly.


    "Guess not?"


    Her face fell down hard on the table, one of her teeth loosened and bounced around, hanging barely by a nerve.


    It wasn''t the only thing she felt, but certainly the grossest. Next was the mucus she coughed up, and the pain of her lungs as she wheezed. Her sinuses swollen, her cheeks red and bleeding.


    "Don''t be as stubborn as Jezebel, you''re a lot smarter." He said. "But if I have to break you, I will,"


    "Alright, stop, stop," she said. The force dragging her arm and head ceased. What relief to be let go, Aenea almost cried at the thought. Her body slumped. She grabbed herself on the side of the table before she fell.


    "What do you want?" Aenea asked.


    "Just some truth, I can''t read minds after all," He said. "Be honest with me, why did you bring those hunters with you?"


    She looked at him, the only expressive thing left to her being her eyes. Her cheeks and jaw couldn''t much move.


    "Because I didn''t trust my family,"


    "Good answer," He said. "Did you think it would cause problems?"


    "No," Her head rose. Her eyes widened. It slammed back down on the table. "Alright, alright!"


    Her breath was heavy with the pain burdened on her. She gasped, imbibed blood was clogging her throat.


    "Maybe, I thought ...maybe they would cause problems, but I didn''t care. I just wanted to protect myself,"


    "Do you like any of them?" He asked. His finger was on the small ball before her.


    "No," She said.


    "Did you feel anything when Jezebel died?"


    "Of course," Her head hit the table. Then her body was dragged along the edge like someone was pushing her face along a skating rink. She stopped moving only after she made it a foot away from Mammon. Then her head rose, he grabbed her chin.


    "Did you feel anything when Jezebel died?" His voice went hoarse.


    "No," Hers, broke. Everything broke in her.


    "I felt fear at first, a little excitement too." She closed her eyes. "But I didn''t care that she was dead,"


    "She was your sister."


    "She was a stranger,"


    "That''s good," He let go of her. "Good," She dragged herself back to her spot, falling promptly on another stool that seemed to reappear from the darkness. "Very good! I like that in you, sociopathic tendencies are good in small doses" He clapped.


    "This is real, isn''t it?" She grabbed her twisted arm, rubbing the red markings on her wrist. "I thought this was just a bad dream but this...the feeling.." She rubbed the blood from her nose. "It''s all real, isn''t it?"


    "Who cares? What''s reality, anyway?" Mammon laughed. "It''s all just perspective. What''s yours?"


    "That I''m scared. Because I''m in a very dangerous position, with someone who I can''t quite understand," she said. "Why am I here?"


    "Because it''s your turn," He said.


    "Turn? Does this have to do with my tattoo?"


    "Tattoo?" He scratched his head. "Your brand, you mean?"


    "Whatever it is," She said. "Are you the thing that put this on me?"


    "I understand your hostility, you''re not looking at the gift correctly, that''s your problem." He said. "You''re in my world, the world Jezebel now occupies. Though you''re just a visitor and she''s...well..."


    "So I''m...dead?" She did not twitch or cringe. Her eyes were dead set, the blood settled and hardened across her mouth.


    "You recuperate quickly, though we really need to work on your dramatics. Too emotional, sometimes," He fixed his suit and bow tie. "Regardless, yes, technically you''re dead.


    She rested both hands on the table. The ball rolled to the side, leveraged by her hands.


    "You don''t seem too concerned," He said.


    "I always told about this curse, or whatever it was." She said. "Always told that it was the reason wild things happen around me. I''ve just kind of accepted it,"


    "I hear people your age are very open-minded," He laughed.


    "I''ve been through a lot these past few days, I think I can believe anything now,"


    "Oh, I hope not. It''s not good to be naive." The distance of the table immediately narrowed. It shrunk until she was staring directly at Mammon, their faces only inches away. He grabbed her hand. She did not budge.


    "Don''t believe everything. As a matter of fact, don''t believe anything." He said.


    "Anything but this, so listen to this story well,"


    She wiped the blood from her lips and rubbed her clogged nose and kept quiet afterwards, until on the buzz of the light and the teeter of the table were left.


    "There was a man of your kin, long before you were born, who needed my assistance during some terrible trouble in his life," Mammon said. "What he asked for though, was too great for what he was giving me; his life. So he thought, though not very hard - that perhaps another''s life would suffice. Not so much one singular life, but one singular history of one singular family. He gave me his kin, all lives after him, that was what he bargained with. Your souls,"


    His eyes rolled around in his head, unnaturally, up and down, turning a complete circle before they came back.


    "I believe his name was...? Ezra...ezo... Ezekial! Ezekial Wolfe. Maybe? I tend to forget. Living forever does that."


    "So I was raised for this then? All of this?"


    "All of you were, but don''t feel too glum. It comes with its perks," He turned her hand and exposed that tainted flesh. The brand glowed. He put his hand over it, the touch immediately burned her. She bit her lip and suffocated her want to scream. "The witches mark. My mark, specifically. Every prince has his own. There are many like this one, but this is mine alone. Mine and yours. It''s like marriage. Lovely, isn''t it?"


    "Yeah, really nice," The blood fell in between the gaps of her teeth.


    "Sarcasm isn''t nice, young lady." He let go of her hand. She rubbed it immediately. "That is what enables your arcana. It''s a gift as much as a curse, and it''s the source of all the bizarreness you see around you. It''s what makes you unique,"


    "It''s what everyone is fighting for." Her voice dropped. They narrowed like wolves with distant prey.


    "Very keen, yes."


    "This never reacted until now, until Jezebel died."


    "Yes, naturally. I only have enough power to give, it only makes sense I''d split it amongst all of you. So what happens when one of you dies? The arcana gets spread to the survivors. Simple, no? It just so happened that you got strong enough to trigger your awakening. Nothing more."


    "So I''m here as a prize for killing my sister," Her voice came out, exhausted. The exhaustion of epiphany, the exhaustion of an expectation of worst things to come.


    "Yes, it''s your turn."


    "So when each of us dies-" She began.


    "The strength of your power - whatever power you manifest, increases. Until..."


    "Until there''s one left," She rubbed her forehead.


    "Would you like another drink?"


    "No, I''ve drunk enough,"


    The martini glass appeared from the sky. She looked up, there was light, but it had no fixture to originate from. It was as if - like everything else - formed from nothing. Mammon took the drink and chugged it down.


    "I bet you''re wondering what your power is." He asked.


    "No," She looked up. "I''m wondering what it''ll cost."


    "Ahh, that''s good. Thinking ahead. Though you really should be more excited. Floyd was," He said. "But maybe he''s a bad example. I''ve been told that he hasn''t got much stock up there," Mammon pointed to his skull, where his brains must have been. She wondered if his grey matter was even grey if it was black, green, gross.


    "It''s like a drug, you know?" Mammon said. "Take too much, and you go mad!"


    His voice was dry. His cackle felt like chalk against a board.


    "Back to you," He said. "I mean, what can you really offer me?"


    "What did the other sacrifice?" She asked.


    "That''s a doctor-patient confidential, young lady," He said. "But if you want, I can give you some ideas on what I want,"


    She stood quietly.


    "How about you kill those heart-eaters? Slit their throats right in their sleep, rip their heart outs right after."


    "No." She said. "They''re stupid, but they''re not bad. Uncaring, but not bad."


    "They''re all the talk amongst the peasants in purgatory. They''re cursed themselves...though...theirs is much worse than yours, to be honest,"


    "I already said no," She put both hands in front of her, clasped together. She looked like the businesswoman she knew she was.


    "What if I don''t want to take your offer? Can I decline it?"


    "You can. I can kill you right here and end your problems," He said. "Your choice. Life with me, or death." He leaned in to whisper, with one cupped hand. "To be honest, death is a lot easier,"


    "I can''t die. I live too much, I can''t die to you or to anyone else.


    "That''s some nice drive. You must have inherited that from your father,"


    Her eyes narrowed.


    "Feisty like him too, does that bother you? Resembling, so much, the man you hate, so much,"


    She slammed the table. Blood dripped from her teeth. She grit her mouth shut, her eyes hot and almost glowing underneath the light. Her breath slowed. She stood, leaning into him, the wild in her eyes a cool emerald green.


    "I have something in mind you can have," she said. "It''s something I don''t want or need,"


    "I hope it''s good," Mammon smiled.

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 6

    "Don¡¯t talk. Don¡¯t even look at them. Listen to me, and you¡¯ll get to your damn elevator. But that¡¯s as far as I¡¯m taking you," The man said. A sergeant by the name of Joyce, it said so in the name tag he kept underneath his sleeve. He was like the rest of the black-uniformed soldiers, without medals or tags or association to anything, really. They were ghosts.


    "Allow me my cane," Ritcher said to the traitor.


    "No, no way. That''ll give you away in a second." He said. "Just stay near my shoulder, and I''ll lead you, even a blind man can do that, right?"


    "I need the cane," His voice was low. It felt like the dry wind of a desert, crackled and scraping.


    "Shit," Joyce worked the cane into a duffel bag he flung over his shoulders. They both left the black van in the parking lot. He tapped Ritcher on the arm. "Fine, keep your cane. But understand this, I had no association with any of this. The deal is to leave you at the elevator, understand? After that, it¡¯s all on you.¡±


    "I know,"


    "What did I say then?"


    "You''re only to lead me to the elevator," Ritcher took the lead. Joyce had to run to catch up to him, both of them came from one of the garages. Heading towards the rear door of the casino. There, two men waited. And further off from them, two more on the separate levels of the garage. They had sniper rifles against the concrete edges, standing atop folded bipods, their red dots pointed at the two. Friendly or not, did not matter to the unbiased red beams.


    "Hold it," One of the guards said. "Show me your ID''s."


    Joyce unfolded his sleeve. His part was easy because he was actually part of them, familiar with all of them. Not familiar enough to convince himself not to betray them, though.


    The man looked at his tag, then Joyce undid his balaclava to sell it.


    "Well, I was wondering where you were at sarge." The guard said, he had a jaunty tune to his voice.


    "I was going around the perimeter, I saw a couple of hooded figures. Turnus might have been one of them,"


    "Did you catch him?"


    "Nah, he slipped," Joyce said. "Don''t know where to. Wish I put a bullet in him."


    "Yeah. I was hoping that was a body bag," The man pointed his rifle on the duffel bag. The cane ruffled underneath. "Bag ''em and tag ''em, am I right?"


    "Bag ''em and tag ''em." The nervous twitch of his finger was starting again, he had to press it against his body to stop.


    "It¡¯s been boring lately. I feel bad for forensics, they¡¯re not going to get any work. Haven''t seen the enemy in weeks. I''m wondering if this old bitch is just senile, it feels like she has us guarding against rumors and lies,"


    "Just keep watch," Joyce said and wormed his way between the two men. Ritcher followed. A rifle stopped him.


    "ID please," The second of the two riflemen said, less joyous this one. His voice carried that tone of false authority, like an amateur dictator. He must have been newly promoted, must have been desperate to delegate his rule.


    "He''s with me," Joyce said.


    "ID. Those are the rules," The man said. They all stood in awkward pause, Joyce looking around and speculating odds. How quickly he would be shot. The imaginations were sickening, though he did not sweat. He was so anxious that it seemed his body was in pause. There was nothing left to him, not even thought, as they stood underneath the glare of a crooked light. A red beam crossed his face, he saw it scan the circle and fall on Ritcher.


    He was scared most of all for Ritcher, wondering if he would break. If there was anything behind those dead, lazy eyes. Maybe he was too blind to see how bad a spot they were in? He hoped. He never wished for stupidity for anyone or anything as much as now.


    But Ritcher flipped his hand and rolled up his wrist, without any sort of commotion or awkwardness.


    "Barry," The man said. He scanned the bar-coded tag into a steel-cased phone. He tapped a couple of times. "You''re new, aren''t you?"


    It worked. He regained some feeling. It actually worked.


    "Yes," Ritcher said.


    "Let me get a face picture for you, this will make it easier in the future,"


    "Stand down, he''s with me," Joyce said.


    "That''s not protocol,"


    "Is disobeying your superiors protocol too?"Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    "W-well," He quieted immediately. As all amateurs do. He had the loudmouth, but no spine to hold it up. If he had spent time thinking, perhaps he would have pressed for a picture. Instead, he pointed his rifle down. And obeyed. And stood.


    "I must apologize, I don¡¯t like pictures," Ritcher said. "I''m scarred, you see. I find myself unsightly to show in public."


    Ritcher pulled up his visor until the strap slapped against his metal helmet. He flashed one of his eyes, only for a moment. The single eye with the wild cuts and markings slathered against his skin. His eyes were gouged out. It was a look that left them all speechless, even Joyce, who at that moment should have pushed him along. He was quiet too. The deep cuts left his skin multi-shaded between rotten black to diseased-yellow. Infection. Bruises. Scars. His eye had seen it all, must have.


    He put back on his visor.


    "C-can you see? I mean, can you shoot?" One of the men said it was a question all of them wanted answered.


    "Of course," Ritcher said. "I can see very clearly,"


    They both walked in. And behind them, in a voice almost stupidly loud, one of them said.


    "Sarge sure knows how to pick ''em,"


    The doors closed.


    "Alright, we''re through at least," He said those words but seeing the legion in front of him made them hard to believe, even for himself. They were everywhere, the soldiers. Some had established headquarters on top of poker and roulette and craps tables. Their wires and surveillance equipment and big black boxes, and brightly lit screens throw a top of stools or the bar or the cash-out tables. It was like they were all staring at the same thing too, the same images and the same camera angles on the same screen. That perhaps, even if one pair of eyes failed to see something, then the other twenty would make up for it.


    More than the surveillance cameras were the guns racked against the sides of the walls.


    Some alcohol off the cabinets to the side was missing. The place as a whole was completely soiled too. Mud footprints, broken glass, and furniture were strewn about.


    It looked like a bathroom, to be honest, one that hadn''t been cleaned for years.


    "What a mess your people have made of my father''s legacy,"


    "It''s the business," Joyce said. "HQ says that as long as we keep to the goal, everything else is disposable. That includes your father''s legacy."


    "You should be more careful. This is a tomb of my history as much as your playhouse," Ritcher said.


    "It''s a casino," Joyce said. "Where drunks and addicts go to forget they''re drunks and addicts. If your legacy is pretty girls and fast games and even faster fights, then you really need to rethink your what you consider valuable,"


    Ritcher turned to him. He could tell he was glaring with those blind eyes of his and imagining the scars again incited a quick shiver.


    "Come on, let''s try not to make a scene now," Joyce walked forward.


    The rest of the trek up the stairs was a nightmare. Really.


    Between everyone who tried to talk to them and everything Ritcher stepped over without care or caution, Ritcher seemed to be actively trying to thwart his own secret invasion. Just imagine the thought, of two burglars walking into a family well-awake, in the middle of a party even, and breaking every plate against the floor.


    That¡¯s how they were, it was farcical and slightly mad, and all the training in the world really didn¡¯t prepare Joyce for the stupidity of it all. Mostly because of his position, mostly because everyone had seen so little violence and had gotten too comfortable.


    Everyone gets bored. Even elite soldiers. Especially them.


    They got away with it, walking up the stairs and towards the elevator and finally seeing the lights shining and bright, the sun setting to gloomy dimness behind them. It gave way for the yellow LED light fixtures to turn on, they were at each corner of the large casino room.


    Their light was harsh. A judgemental harshness. Joyce was sweating. Finally.


    ¡°Now, you gotta understand. There¡¯s not much power going through the casino,¡± Joyce said. ¡°This is very much a one-way trip up because the minute they find whatever...you''re going to do, they''re going to hunt you down. Get it?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, will you be among them?¡±


    ¡°Fuck no, I¡¯m getting out the minute you get in,¡±


    ¡°Smart man,¡± Ritcher said. ¡°What¡¯s your name again? Your full name?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m smart enough to know not to tell you,¡±


    ¡°Oh, you''re more than smart. You¡¯re wise,¡± Ritcher¡¯s voice seemed amused. It was a gross sound he didn¡¯t want to hear ever again. ¡°But only a hindrance. Good luck to you, sir,¡±


    ¡°You really have no problem saying any of this shit? Doing any of this shit?¡±


    "Problem?" It was a genuine question by Ritcher.


    It was also the answer to something Joyce wondered. If Ritcher was even human.


    Joyce took a step down, staring up only for a moment to see where Ritcher would go. He was a massive figure, the biggest in the room. The sinews of his clothes could barely contain him and seemed to stretch out, though they were baggy and loose on every other man and woman here. It was like he wasn¡¯t even made as a human, not designed as one at least at first. It seemed like the afterthought. A consolidation by God. He looked, simply from his silhouette, to be the byproduct of an experiment. Not necessarily the monster of the experiment, but the leftovers all put together into a Frankensteinian creation. Chimera. That was the word for Ritcher. Broad shoulders. A small head. Tender hands. Large biceps. Small, almost crooked feet. By the wide stride of his wide thighs.


    He was big. Yet patient. Blind, but omniscient. He was smart but ruthless.


    And he didn''t seem to care or feel any remorse. Yes, that''s what scared Joyce.


    Maybe sin wasn¡¯t even on his mind right. Joyce could understand that all killers had that switch.


    But the difference between him and Ritcher was one simple fact. Joyce adopted the killers'' instinct, activated and deactivated it at will. Ritcher lived it. He had lived his whole life under the impression that it was sinless. That''s what he got out of his speech, out of his stride and conviction. A straightforwardness, stubborn and scary.


    He watched Ritcher come down the elevators. He watched him head towards the doors where the neon red lights read the number ¡°FLOOR 1¡±. He watched him press the button and watched him get accosted by two guards. They asked for his ID, at least Joyce figured because Ritcher undid his sleeve.


    God damnit.


    He was sweating now.


    And he watched how the two men looked at the screens of their laptops and turned their heads in thoughts.


    ¡°Come with me,¡± The words were calm, stern.


    They made Joyce shake and hold his gun. He noticed a lack of sound in his duffel bag and unzipped it for a moment. The cane was missing. When was it taken? By who?


    I know who.


    And when he saw Ritcher stand still, amongst the two, without so much as breathing or moving a finger, he realized he didn¡¯t want to stay and watch what happened next.


    He jogged. When he hit the big two doors. He ran.


    ¡°Where are you going, sarge?¡± The jovial of the two asked.


    Away, far, far away.


    The air was cold in his lungs, and the sounds were distant. It almost felt like he was waking up to a nightmare, even though he was stepping into one.

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 7

    Perhaps it was by pure instinct that Floyd found Luanne. Or maybe it was the gathering of two halves of a broken soul as the philosophers say.


    Romantic, but wrong. The truth was Floyd always knew where Luanne was, it was the little house they had bought in the city to consummate their forbidden love.


    Though even that was an exaggeration. There was no nobility in fucking your sister, even if you were both of noble origins.


    Floyd approached the little summer home. It was a single-floor enigmatic house with slanted, wavy orange tiles and a little pale beige color about it. It seemed to be made of an era long dead, something you would find across the border in small Mexican villages. They liked the look though. The poor man¡¯s villa, Luanne called it. Cute and pass¨¦, and Floyd just agreed because he didn¡¯t care what or where it was, so long as he had four walls to hide the sex. Now, it was different. The house was less of a homestead. Less of anything hospitable and kind and warm.


    Now, as he looked at the gated windows and their curtain drops and as he slammed down his fist the front door, screaming, seething, ¡°Open the fucking door, Luanne.¡± He realized how truly cruel the building was.


    He could have blown it open, but that would be like killing a memory and with what little left he had to him, a memory was like a gem in a vault to him. He had to have that, at least that. The memory of the nights spent here, he had to preserve that if anything else. Him, Luanne, their son. He had to.


    He put his forehead against the mesh-door. His hand dragged from the top of the door to the bottom until it limped by his side. An arm, now elongated and deformed, he nearly touched his ankles with its extension alone.


    ¡°Please,¡± He pleaded. ¡°Open the door,¡±


    ¡°Are you calm now?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Floyd said. The residual green on his arms fading into soft gray. His hair fell, teeth receded, and the growing fingernails stopped for a moment. He tapped the door gently.


    ¡°You¡¯re talking to Floyd, Luanne. You¡¯re talking to the man you love. Remember? Give me a chance,¡±


    His voice broke.


    ¡°Won¡¯t you?¡± He asked.


    The door opened, seemingly by itself. Floyd looked inside, and she appeared, behind the door. The baby was in her arms.


    ¡°What did you do?¡± She cradled the infant. Floyd shut the door behind him.


    ¡°I did what I was supposed to do, I stopped things from getting worse.¡± He went into the fridge and grabbed some water, a jug that he poured into his mouth.


    ¡°What does that mean? Stopping things from getting worse?¡± She asked.


    ¡°I met one of the Vicars. The one with the guns, the Asian boy. I beat him.¡±


    ¡°You killed him?¡±


    He set the glass down. It slumped over and spilled. The water went along the lines of the table until it fell on the floor and drip-dropped to the creaking wood flooring below.


    ¡°No,¡± He turned to her. ¡°I didn¡¯t kill him. But I¡¯m going to tonight,¡±


    ¡°How¡¯d you find him? Did he find you?¡±


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter,¡± He clenched her by the arms and hugged her. ¡°What matters is that you¡¯re safe and that you¡¯re here with me,¡±


    She didn¡¯t react. Her face was full of that desperation, and womanly prudence that comes from witnessing men lie for so long. He knew that face, maybe he didn¡¯t care though, not with her in his arms at least.


    Floyd planted two weak kisses on her forehead, she was cold. They were quick, made with anxious haste, and dry like rubbed sandpaper. His lips chapped against the pressing. He had to take another water bottle. Then some milk, then some juice and finally some wine cooled in the freezer.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on with you?¡± She asked. ¡°You don¡¯t look right, I can¡¯t even tell it¡¯s you, Floyd,¡±


    ¡°My actions are what defines me, not the way I look.¡±


    ¡°Your hair¡¯s grown out. Are those fangs?¡± She reached her hand to touch his face. He slapped it away. ¡°Jesus, what have you done?¡±


    ¡°Jesus has nothing to do with it. I¡¯ve got someone else that¡¯ll give Jesus a run for his money,¡± He laughed.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t funny, Floyd.¡± She said. ¡°You said actions define people? Well, let''s look at your actions. You locked yourself in for a week, you ran away and caused a mess in the city chasing after one guy with a gun. A guy - who - by the way, makes a living killing people like you and me.¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Him and everyone else. Who doesn¡¯t want us dead? Who? No ones ever been on our side. You know this.¡± He said. ¡°So why is it that all of a sudden you¡¯re mad I¡¯m fighting back?¡±


    ¡°Because the killing you¡¯re doing isn¡¯t any good?¡± She said.


    ¡°Was killing father no good either? It didn¡¯t stop you from helping.¡±


    The consternation was apparent on her face. Her brows collected, her eyes darted to some corner. When she brought them back, there was a kind of renewed anger. Her cheeks were puffed and red, and her ears lit up. She slapped Floyd, the baby nearly fell from her hand, and she recovered him.


    ¡°You¡¯re more a monster than a man. I can see it in your veins, that green. In your eyes, in your mouth. The way you talk and the things you say.¡± She said. ¡°You know I had no chance last time. But here? What you¡¯re doing? You have a choice, Floyd.


    He broadened his shoulders. She felt small like his shadow was stomping all over her. She walked back until she hit the wall.


    ¡°What I do, I do for you. You could appreciate that a little more, couldn¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t do this Floyd,¡± She said. ¡°The man I loved didn¡¯t act like this.¡±


    ¡°The man you loved didn¡¯t act.¡± He said. ¡°Now I do.¡±


    ¡°Then stop,¡± She said. ¡°Just throw everything away, the anger, the abuse of your body, throw it all away and leave it in this town so we can move on. We have time. We can do it.¡±


    ¡°Time? Ritcher¡¯s going to gun us down after I¡¯m done with the heart-eater. What time do we have? It¡¯s better if we try hitting them all as quickly as possible.¡±


    ¡°No, he won¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t he?¡±


    She wiggled herself out and away from him. In the living room, where the picture frames and the cheap tube-television was, a cradle sat near a sofa. The spinning cradle toys went along in a steady rhythm until she set the baby down and upset them. They rattled. The toy horse and the toy sun and the toy dog. It looked like a nest with all the brown blankets laid out, or perhaps fur. As if smothered by the wood forest creatures. The gentle child, who hadn¡¯t cried or yelped or so much as made a sound. Who slept gently with warm, red cheeks.


    ¡°I know he won¡¯t come after us,¡± She turned to face him. ¡°I made a deal with him,¡±


    He walked up to her.


    ¡°With who?¡± His face went tense though he didn¡¯t mean to. And he didn¡¯t mean to grab her arm. He didn¡¯t mean yanking her and holding her close.


    ¡°With¡­¡± Her eyes shifted to the sides of the room for some imaginary (and delusional) help that did not come. ¡°With Turnus¡­ I made a deal with Turnus.¡±


    ¡°For what?¡± He asked. ¡°What can you deal him that he¡¯d even want?¡±


    Her eyes started to swell. He knew that face well, and a bit of him wanted to dry her tears, to halt them if only for a moment.


    ¡°What did you tell him?¡±


    He shook her.


    ¡°What did you say?¡± He slapped her. ¡°Huh?¡±


    She nodded her head no.


    ¡°What did you tell him about me?¡±


    ¡°Nothing,¡± She said. ¡°Nothing important. I just told him you left the casino. I told him that you were looking for the Vicar¡­the guy! You know. I knew you were, that¡¯s it. I swear.¡±


    ¡°You told him where I¡¯m at?¡±


    ¡°No, I told him where you¡¯re not at. That¡¯s all!¡±


    He shook her.


    ¡°You-!¡± His voice rose. The baby shook. ¡°You¡­ you sold me out?¡±


    ¡°I bought me and Flint two weeks. I bought us some safety. Turnus doesn¡¯t know where you¡¯re at either. We¡¯re in the clear to leave. What more could you want?¡±


    ¡°You told them¡­I¡¯m not with mom?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± She stopped breathing. Her hand rubbed her cheeks, though they stopped as the realization set on them both. They both looked at each other, her eyes slowly falling and widening and falling again. They swelled. ¡°I told him mom is alone. Yes.¡±


    It was like he wasn¡¯t even there anymore. It was as if he was looking at himself from a strange new vantage, hovering above his own body. He looked at himself, Floyd. And he saw this Floyd-doll move in a way that shocked even him. His whole vision went red, shaky. His heart palpitations rose until the blood turned his ears burning hot. Then he grabbed Luanne. The moment was like a shock, one that brought him back to reality. His hands rode up her arms, around her shoulder, until he had a firm grip of her throat.


    The cradle shook.


    Floyd worked his fingers on that neck he so loved.


    Then he pressed. He went hard on her until her flesh began to turn red.


    He worked at her until her eyes rolled to the back of her skull.


    The baby sniffled, he shook.


    He threw her down on the floor and put the weight of his body on his hands. The nails grew, the fangs grew, the hair grew. Animosity grew.


    ¡°You killed mother,¡± He said. ¡°You stupid. Fucking. Bitch.¡±


    He rattled her head. She tried to run, her feet wiggled, and he put his knees on them. She looked like a fish, desperate and fleeting.


    She stuck her hand out and tried to pry his face away. Her nails bore deep into his green eyes.


    ¡°Ahh,¡± He screamed and bashed her head once more.


    ¡°It¡¯s me,¡± Luanne said. ¡°It¡¯s me-!¡± She spat out foam. ¡°Luanne-!¡±


    The blood came down her forehead, to her neck where Floyd¡¯s pale arms were.


    And the baby cried, finally, shaking the cradle and knocking the toys over. He yelled, desperate and loud.


    Floyd stood up, his eyes wide. He looked down at her, his grip still firm, then up to the baby.


    He let go. She grasped at her throat, finally breathing. He stood up, took steps away from the scene. He had to put his guilty hands behind his back, the feeling of her flesh was still very clear in his memory. It made him embarrassed and afraid.


    ¡°You¡¯re staying here,¡± He cried. Authority did not come easy with his broken, crying voice. Luanne was still clenching her throat and coughing and spitting and struggling to breathe.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to stay here, you understand?¡± Floyd screamed. He looked briefly to baby Flint, he flailed his arms in the air. ¡°Wait until I finish everything, got it? I¡¯ve got to fix your fucking mistake,¡±


    She wasn¡¯t even registering his voice. He just felt the need to talk.


    ¡°Mom isn¡¯t nice. But she¡¯s still mom. And you backstabbed her, get it? You did this, not me.¡±


    No response. Just coughing, crying. He was talking to himself and realizing this, he took a few nervous steps and shaking his head between the two scenes; his lover and sister on the floor struggling to breathe and the baby, his child, crying in fear to his own father. It made his heartbreak.


    It made him leave the house, it felt like a punch stronger than he¡¯d ever taken. It felt like emptiness. He couldn¡¯t look behind himself when he approached the door frame, he just got the doorknob and slammed it behind him. He had to get away, had to get to mother.

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 8

    Beyond the stretch of houses, further past the prostitutes and the lit-motels and the ecstasy of degenerates shooting up in dim-lit alleyways, was the crowning jewel. The Casino El Rey. And like satellites, the orbiters of armed black men were flooding the doors and rushing inside, for a reason Floyd could not understand. Though he watched it from afar, his body nearly at all fours and grown to inhuman form. Demonic was not the word, though it was the source of his troubles.


    He looked feral, deformed, elongated with arms twice their lengths now and legs reaching a tripling, the kind of man that looked like he was put through a medieval stretching torture device and left for days, months.


    His clothes barely fit him, he wore his pants like shorts and his suit like a small tube-top vest. He thought to leap off the building, to another, and approach the Casino that was in the midst of its own chaos. His pocket rang. He answered, had to.


    "Hey, hey, hey, where do you think you''re going?" The phone said. Floyd had it pinched between his ear and his shoulder as he ran to the next rooftop.


    "Where do you think? Home," Floyd grabbed onto the ledge of a window sill, he dragged his body up and onto a balcony ledge, then with one great leap, jumped off with a kick. Part of the balcony chipped, it fell and collapsed on a vacant black car. The hood caved in, the lights flashed on and off, and the alarm would not stop yelling. Now on the rooftops, he could see the city clearly. The contours of the flat rooftops and the big signs like a sort of mesmerizing circus. He saw the figures, the plastic giants, he saw the dingy metal-sheets covering whorehouses. He saw the soldiers driving by in armored vans, not even hiding their intent to a growing crowd.


    Floyd readied himself to leap off from the ledge.


    "I wouldn''t recommend that," Turnus said. The voice was clearer now.


    "Of course you wouldn''t, you want my mother dead," Floyd said, "And let me tell you something if anything happens to her-"


    "Yeah, I hear that all the time," Turnus said. "If I do such and such to the such and such person you love, all hells and all fury''s will fall down on me. I hear it all the damn time, and when you hear something so often, it becomes hard to take seriously,"


    "Oh, it won''t matter how you take it. When I''m done with you, you''d have known I was serious."


    "Now that''s some fine spirit, but a little ungrateful considering I saved the mother of your child," Turnus said.


    "You didn''t save shit,"


    "Oh? Had I not intervened, Ritcher would be hunting down Luanne. She''d probably be dead by now,"


    "So what? Let him come," Floyd leapt onto the next rooftop. His movements so aggressive and so careless that he didn''t even realize he cut a cable satellite in two as he ran past it. Or that an electrical wire had tried to close-line him, but by brute force, he had caused enough tension to have it snap. The shock didn¡¯t even hurt anymore if there was one. He was just so damn fast.


    "You''re very stupid, aren''t you?" Turnus said. "It was a trade, Floyd. Luanne for Salome. That was the exchange, that was the deal, and if you ask me, it was a good deal."


    "Shut the fuck up,"


    "By virtue of being on the line this long, I''m going to guess you''re interested in what I¡¯m saying. So I won''t shut up, sorry," Turnus said. "What I will say is this; what has your mother done for you?"


    "Everything. She''s my mother, she birthed me. You obviously didn¡¯t care about your mother, but I do about mine,"


    ¡°Oh, I loved my mother more than you can imagine,¡±


    ¡°I find that hard to believe,¡± Floyd said.


    ¡°I love her so much it¡¯s easy for me to spot the difference between love and fear. And you fear your mother. Or at least, respect the fear she causes in other.¡±


    Floyd breathed heavily into the intercom. It sounded too loud and too raspy for any human throat to make.


    ¡°Ahh, you have questionless respect. The worst kind of respect,¡± he said. ¡°But how much does your mother respect you?¡±


    "Be careful with what you say, I might come after you ahead of schedule,"


    "Your mother tried to control you and Jezebel and Luanne. It failed. But she did try to control you, no? Because she cares more about winning than you, right? That¡¯s been her goal. To win. That¡¯s a ruthlessness you don¡¯t have,¡±


    "What are you getting at?"


    "Luanne and I...had a long chat,"


    The words struck his stomach like flint-made-spark, and the fire brewed and stewed his blood. It came to a boil on his face. He felt his ears light up, his nose-tip burn. His eyes turned green, his tattoo glowing with seeming contempt.


    "Luanne told me about how Salome really saw all of you. All the plans...and all the lies and all for...victory, Luanne said. Salome just cared about winning," The phone said. He stopped atop a building, the smoke collected around him from the exhaust pipe blowing to his rear. "You were always just a means for her. It makes sense though, right? She''s always been the type of person to care more about herself and her reputation. Everythings an act with her, a means to make you move. Right? The act of being a brooding mother. The act of being a mournful mother. The act of being a supportive mother. All acts. And behind her masks, there is nothing."This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    He held the phone close to his ear.


    "She''s always treated you like a piece to her game. You know this, I know this. I''m the one playing opposite of her, after all."


    "What point are you trying to get across?" Floyd asked. "She''s my mother. It doesn''t matter how she sees me, what matters is what I do for her,"


    "You say that, but do you mean it?" Turnus asked. "For example...if your lover was in trouble, at the same time your mother was. Who would you choose?"


    His eyes grew iridescent. A color of bright algae, of toxicity.


    "If you hurt her-"


    "Jesus, you''re so unoriginal," Turnus screamed. He sounded frustrated, which only made Floyd angrier. The shags of his robes dangled, brushing his feet from the hot wind. "The Vicar, you idiot. You didn''t kill him,"


    "How do you know? I might have crippled him."


    "Your stunt last night drew the police, the only bodies you left were Hawaiian shirt wearing drunk idiots. And prostitutes. You didn¡¯t kill shit worth all." Turnus said. "Wanna know what I did? Bribe the damn commissioner, told him it was a gas line explosion. You made a mess. I cleaned it. And I didn''t find no god damn Vicar in the garbage bin, let me tell you,"


    "So? What¡¯s this got to do with Luanne?" Floyd screamed.


    "Oh, I¡¯ll tell you. That¡¯s the point," Turnus said. "Or rather, I¡¯ll tell him."


    "What does that mean?"


    "Suppose the Vicar found out where she loved¡­" Turnus began.


    Turnus¡¯s blood froze. Right in his veins, everything to a halt. The rage turned numbing.


    "3536 San Martin St, Downtown. Does that sound familiar?" Floyd said.


    He felt like vomiting.


    "You-!" He bit his lips. "I''ll kill-!" The foam came down his mouth, rabid. "You fucker-! What do you want?"


    "Shh, shh, darling," Turnus said. "I''m playing the game. And you''re making me play this card. So here''s how it''s going to work. I''m going to give you a chance to go hunt down the person you fucked up in killing, okay? You¡¯ll get a full day, that¡¯s generous right?¡± Turnus said. ¡°Fact is, I don¡¯t give a shit about your mother, I want her dead in fact. But I¡¯m also afraid of the Vicar, and I¡¯m also afraid you¡¯ll stop Ritcher.¡±


    "I should have killed you a long time ago," Floyd said. The heat in his voice was gone. It was trembling. He was trembling, not to the cold air of the falling skies, or from the shock of heat blasting from the exhaust. He was trembling for himself, for Luanne, for his mother most of all. He could almost see it, a few miles off, that giant center building. The fumes rose through his pants, out his belt, and through his coat. His neck was exposed to the cold. Not that he could feel it. His body, although sweating from the vapor, or his skin raising to goosebumps from the cold, he could not feel much of anything.


    ¡°Yeah, you should have,¡± Turnus laughed once. A single scoff. ¡°I can¡¯t have you fucking up anything. I promised Luanne I wouldn¡¯t send Ritcher after her, but I never promised her not to send the Vicars or Aenea after her. So I¡¯ll do just that unless you get to them first,¡±


    He almost let the phone drop.


    ¡°Hello? Are you there? This is my checkmate, the, lest you can do, is say something stupid.¡±


    "Why are you doing this? You never cared about the family legacy, or even being a witch. You never cared about anything."


    "I care a lot about this family. Not in the way that you do, though, or the way Ritcher does." Turnus''s voice went low. It was unique in the being the first time Floyd had ever heard him this way, and also unique as the first time he had ever felt true fear. The first time Turnus had shown anything else besides snide arrogance or obnoxious jaunting. He sounded like a Wolfe. Finally. Low and steady, with words even toned like a well-balanced sword.


    "I despise this family," Turnus said. "I despised father. That''s why I had you kill him, it wasn''t hard either. The fool would never accept an incestuous grandson. I was glad when I was right, and glad when I was right into thinking that you and Luanne would kill him."


    "Why?" Floyd screamed. Nervousness ruled him. His words slipped out. And he started thinking those cheap thoughts nervous men think to comfort themselves.


    Maybe. Maybe! If he could just hold him on the phone, if he could just delay it, as if time would stop for them. Convince him, maybe? Maybe he could stall long enough to save someone. Everyone. Fuck.


    "Why couldn''t you leave everything alone, what the fuck made you like this?" Floyd asked.


    "That''s not important to you. The details are irrelevant and too much a luxury of those with time, of which you have none. Know simply, that I am a victim of ambition, casualty to that war of greed," Turnus said. "Everything. Father. The casino. Mammon, let it all go away, purge it, that¡¯s what I say,"


    "Just let me save mom, that''s it. Just let me stop Ritcher. Please, I¡¯ll take her and Luanne, and we¡¯ll all just leave-"


    "I believe you. I do," Turnus said. "But I don¡¯t believe your mother would ever go down like that. And I believe that about her too,"


    A pause. Floyd felt his shoulders struggle to hold the phone.


    ¡°A day. Find him any way you can, or I¡¯ll have him find you,¡± Turnus breathed heavily. ¡°And Luanne,¡±


    And he hung up.


    It was like coming up the steps to an execution.


    Floyd finally knew what it meant to be a man against the block, his back straight and his body tied to the wood. Blindfolded, before him the fleet of executors with loaded guns. He knew what it felt like to stand before the barrage, to be shot in the heart. He felt tears stream down his face. His eyes did not quell. Whether he knew it or not, his body changed. His fingers lengthened. He fell on his knees. The tears formed scars across the flesh they touched, such that it appeared like two green lines ran from his eyes, downwards perfectly perpendicular and only stopping at his neck.


    His hair grew wild. Some of it fell, in patches. Some of it receded to white. His mouth thinned, cheeks sucked in, the fat eaten away by some force in his body. His body enlarged by hypertrophy, his clothes stretched out. Upon his waist rested Dion''s gun, it rattled to his enlarging waistline.


    He did not notice any of it, or rather, was uncaring to the transformation. His tears could not stop, his pain seemed too great a swelling.


    He let the phone fall from his grasp and strike the floor. He wanted to scream, above all else, but felt the words too soft to break through his strong cries.


    She''s terrible. She always was.


    He slammed the floor with two clenched fists.


    But she was mother, as she''s always been. A mother. My own. A mother like Luanne. A mother like no other. Mine.


    He stood up, his shoulders slumped over, and hands dragged like two long links of chains. They swayed left and right as he changed course. The casino behind him, he was heading for the call of the wild, to Dion. Wherever however, he¡¯d find him.

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 9

    What a terrible night to be sent to hell.


    How else could Apollo think it? With the chaos outside, the helicopters and police cars zooming past their little room in the apartment complex. How else could he think about, as he took his eyes off drawn curtains and the window and put them on Aenea. Seeing her was enough to annoy him. To make him afraid, too. It was a weird feeling, almost like disgust but not quite.


    She was riding up the walls.


    Crawling on them. Her body slammed against the side of a wall, then took two steps up, stopped to bang itself again, then went all the way to the ceiling. Her neck should have snapped with how hard she hit the ceiling.


    It didn¡¯t. Or maybe it didn¡¯t matter that it did. When she was done hitting her head against the walls, she started floating. That was about the time Apollo began to get the chills. It was about the time, that all around him, he was beginning to see the small auxiliaries again. That was the way he described this new strange phenomenon of his, hell-seeing. Because that¡¯s what it was.


    He saw small imps, and tiny insectoids. He saw slug or rather, the jelly-like serpents that resembled slugs floating in the air. He saw hell, the creatures of hell, manifest around him.


    They weren¡¯t real. Though he still nodded his head and slapped his temples to make sure.


    They weren¡¯t real, he confirmed, when he tried touching one of these creatures and his palm fazed through.


    Aenea was still floating. Her body turned and twitched with torque and speed that should have snapped her spine and bones.


    This was about the time when Apollo began to feel the chills. She stopped twitching for a moment. She took a deep breath. The small monsters around Apollo disappeared, he looked for a moment, it was all too fast. Then she slammed her head against the carpet floor. Again. Again. Again. Like machine gun fire. He rushed to her, trying to grab her by the neck. She broke his grip (and he was putting that inhumane force, to boot). He tried again. Nothing. She kept going, until her skull was cracked open and her teeth rearranged. The floor pooled her blood in a crater left by her self-harm.


    He noticed she wasn¡¯t even awake. Her eyes were closed.


    ¡°Cut it out, you fucking idiot,¡± He moved his arms to hold her own. She hit him with the back of her head, the force on the center of his head was enough to launch him to the wall. Another dent. This one was shaped to his own body.


    ¡°Holy shit,¡± He said. She started rolling, stopping, and bashing her head in even intervals.


    And Apollo, still weak, famished, struggled to stand up. His blurred vision took time to realign itself. She was going everywhere, jumping everywhere. The cross in the hotel room flipped upside down, then flew out the window. The holy bible in the drawers near each bed burned to a crisp. He didn¡¯t care to help her anymore; instead, he made sure to walk into the kitchen and walk around the room (as she was flying, which made it harder than he wanted it to be) and grab every knife and blunt object away from her.


    Her eyes opened wide. They were green and jumping wildly from each degree of vision. Then they rolled back, not before she flipped herself and slammed her body face-forward into the side of a wall. The hung picture frames fell.


    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± The words made Aenea scream. The scream made him jump. ¡°Well, fuck,¡± Apollo said.


    He tried calling the Leper. He tried calling Dion. Both were busy.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how to help you,¡± He said. She wasn¡¯t listening. She wasn¡¯t even awake. She levitated, off a few inches from the floor, before her body moved straight to the ceiling. Then she laid up there, like a bat clung to the cave walls.


    He stood up on the bed and raised his hands and tried prying her off the popcorn ceiling. He felt his shoulders strain, felt the muscles in him flex and the burn enlarge and engorge around his trapezius. He sweat and huffed. His wrists began to hurt, and he yelled, as if he was trying to move a fucking mountain.


    And all of a sudden she fell.


    He let go, it threw him off balance, and he fell off the bed.


    She landed straight onto the mattress with a thud, face down. The blood was all across her face, she bled from her mouth and her nose and a little on her eye. He stood and leaned over her. Apollo put his ear against her mouth.


    Aenea breathed. Gently.


    ¡°Holy fuck,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Or, shit, I guess unholy fuck,¡±


    And then he heard his cell phone ring.


    In the shock, while his face still carried that expression of curious horror, he almost ignored the call. When he came back to it, he shook his head.


    ¡°Don¡¯t hang up,¡± He took off his coat. He scoured his pockets and fumbled the phone and answered it, with cupped hands as if the very word of Christ himself was being delivered unto him.


    ¡°You could have been quicker on the dial, you know that?¡± Apollo said.


    "Mmm, I apologize," The Leper said. His voice was muddled with static and judging by how the leper screamed, it must have been across a room. Though he sounded¡­amused. Behind him, something else yelled with a voice indiscernible from animal or human. Or even demon.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    "She''s sick," Apollo said.


    "Who?" The Leper asked. "The girl?"


    "You should remember her name, you¡¯re the one who brought her to me," Apollo walked back and forth. "Aenea, yeah. She''s sick. The type of sick that only people like her can get, you catch my drift?"


    "Oh my, so she''s awoken. Is she in the middle of it?" He asked.


    Apollo leaned over the side of the bed where Aenea lay hunched over. Blood dripped down her mouth, he wiped it off with a small cloth.


    "More like she just got out of it. She¡¯s unconscious now,¡± Apollo said. ¡°It¡¯s really hard to deal with someone in the middle of being possessed. Really, really hard. You could have warned me or given me some proper procedure, you know that? Exorcisms don¡¯t really work on witches.¡±


    ¡°Because exorcisms only work on people who actually want the demon banished,¡± The Leper said. ¡°Instead, witches welcome them,¡±


    "She didn¡¯t look like she welcomed shit,¡± Apollo said.


    "So she¡¯s through it, at least?"


    ¡°As far as I can tell,¡± Apollo said.


    "Good, she¡¯ll be asleep for a while.¡± The Leper said. ¡°So kill her,¡±


    "What?" Apollo rose from the bedside.


    "Kill her," He repeated. The same creature screamed in The Leper¡¯s background. It sounded like a dying groan, guttural and terrified. "She''s become a liability. She was good when she was still human, but now she''s just more trouble,"


    "Kill her?" Apollo asked. "Why?"


    "Because she''s a witch bedding with a demon and you''re a demon hunter? What else must be said of a man and his duty," He said. "She turned. I thought she wouldn¡¯t, she didn¡¯t seem gifted enough for it. But she did."


    ¡°Didn¡¯t the Vatican watch over the old man? We can do that again,¡±


    ¡°And watching over him was trouble enough,¡± The Leper said. ¡°If she¡¯s awoken I¡¯m going to guess that so have the others, right?¡±


    He didn¡¯t want to answer. ¡°¡­Yeah, as far as I can tell, yes, they have. All of them now,¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s too much trouble. That¡¯s six times the trouble the church wants,¡±


    ¡°Are you speaking for them? I didn¡¯t know you were their lawyer,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°As far as you¡¯re concerned, I might as well be God,¡± The Leper said. ¡°Kill her, then kill the rest. Wipe them out.¡±


    ¡°Have you forgotten I still need her. She¡¯s got influence that I can use to make sure mine and Dion¡¯s head stay firmly on our necks,¡±


    ¡°If you can wipe them all off, that might be good enough for the council,¡± The Leper said.


    ¡°I¡¯m not doing that,¡± He nodded his head and wagged his finger to the imagination of the Leper that was in his head. ¡°I''m not fucking killing her. There¡¯s no reason to,¡±


    ¡°I expected that of Dion, but of you?¡± He said. ¡°Aren¡¯t you the mad dog of Havenbrook? Aren¡¯t you the man more interested in finishing a mission rather than the methods used to finish it? What¡¯s going on? Did your vigor run out already?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not exactly compelling,¡± Apollo said. ¡°So what if she¡¯s awoken? So what? I¡¯ve dealt with worse, and I don¡¯t think she¡¯s the type of person that would-¡±


    ¡°What type of person is she? She shares her father''s blood. She is that of which is touched by Mammon, Devil of Greed. She¡¯s power hungry, isn¡¯t she? She¡¯s a company owner by her own right. Her will seems to imply that she too, is of that nature that makes men mad. That ambitious nature,¡± He said. ¡°She¡¯ll go insane with blood lust, just like any hungry Vicar does. But she won¡¯t stop when she gets it, like most Vicars do. It¡¯s a degenerate temperament that witches have and she seems to tick every box that makes that temperament worse. I¡¯m telling you from experience, she should be killed.


    "And I¡¯m telling you from experience that sometimes people change," He said. ¡°And if they don¡¯t change, they at least realize some goodness in them,¡±


    ¡°Are you sure you¡¯re not Dion,¡±


    ¡°Go fuck yourself,¡± Apollo yelled. He wanted to hang up, he had his finger hovered over the button. Then he sighed. He put the phone begrudgingly over his ear and whispered. ¡°Just¡­please, give me some help here. Advice, how does this end, for everyone?¡±


    "With tragedy, I¡¯m assuming,¡± The Leper laughed. It made his blood boil. ¡°The reality is, the more Wolfe''s you kill, the stronger the pack becomes until there is one. Only one. There is nothing else to, take from that what you will," The Leper said.


    Apollo rubbed his hair. He moved it behind his ears.


    "When did you gain some sense of morality, anyway?" The Leper mused. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me. You found god-!¡±


    Apollo hung up the phone. He threw it onto the chair and looked onto the bed, where Aenea was face down, sleeping soundly on the torn mattress. The blood had stopped. She was already healing, a healing factor akin to his own. Unnatural.


    Where¡¯s the nobility in killing you in your sleep?


    Nobility. That was a word he never used. That was a word belonging to the other half in his head, the vernacular of that man, Astyanax.


    He shook his head.


    Where¡¯s the nobility in taking your chance to live? To make a choice? To fight.


    He waited on the bedside, looking at Aenea, biting his nails. He had taken some sheets laying on the floor and put them over her. He took one, in particular, and looped it into a knot that he used to tie her left leg to the bedpost. Fetishism aside, it wasn''t a bad plan. It looked bad (a little creepy, to be honest), but wasn''t so bad at all. It stopped her from floating as much like a tie hot-air balloon. It stopped her from bashing her head, and for a while, he thought things were good. His coat was on the floor, his sleeves were up to his elbows, and he bit his fingernails and watched Aenea closely from a safe distance.


    It had been a while since the last outbreak of her crazy-shit antics. It was the type of waiting that was almost as bad as times of maddening chaos, because waiting can often be maddening in itself. However, she hadn¡¯t moved. Not. An. Inch.


    Until now.


    Until she jiggled a bit, she started shaking left to the right. It looked like she was in the middle of a nightmare, a normal one this time around.


    Then she breathed out heavily. Her eyes wide open. She breathed, the sweat came pouring afterwords. Then came the crying, not emotional by any means, but pained-driven crying. She gasped with sharp breaths in and out, like a boxer in the ring.


    Apollo ran to her side and cut her bondages with a knife. She curled into a ball.


    "Are you okay now?" He asked.


    A stupid question. She was writhing in pain. Though he had no means to help her and no means to take it away.


    She went into a state of chills, her body could not stop shaking.


    "Hey, you can''t fucking die on me." It wasn''t as selfless as it sounded. He very much needed her alive.


    She rolled the other way, still balled up. She yelped, at last, in agony.


    Her muscles tensed, the large vein engorged itself on her neck. Then it was over. She leaned back, mouth open, sweating.


    She grabbed the sheets and brought them up to her nose-line.


    She looked to Apollo, he looked to her. And her eyes faded back to their corners, she sank back to sleep. Normal sleep, if there was such a thing to these people.


    It¡¯s done?


    Apollo scanned her, carefully going from her face, to her feet. He stopped, midway, at her waistline. A spot of red appeared. Then another, like rain hitting clothes. And like rain, it began to pool.


    Her blanket was sticky, the adhesive was bright red and coming from her stomach.


    She wasn¡¯t giving birth. It wasn''t anything that holy.


    "What happened?" He asked her.


    But it was too late. She could not talk, could not even muster the strength to think about talking.


    She sighed and breathed in even strokes and fell to sleep. Deep, good, sleep.


    And he looked her, she almost appeared happy. And her sleep almost resembled death.

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 10 Part 1

    "Oh lord, I''m not good with planning," The stick in his hand jumped between one and the other. He drew a circle and two stick figures in the sand, they were meant to be Floyd and himself. But looking down, he saw they were both too alike, and wondered who''s who again?


    He cleared the sand with his foot and scratched his head.


    "I just don''t know what to do," Dion said.


    Thaddeus sat in a little plastic chair, with his white plastic table in front of him and the slew of bullets laid out. He polished them one by one.


    "Planning doesn''t come naturally to you, does it?" Thaddeus asked.


    "No, Apollo is the one who plans. I just...kind of...you ever heard of jazz?"


    He leaned his head to the side and rolled his eyes.


    "Who hasn''t?" He asked.


    "Well, I don''t know man," Dion said. "The point is, I just free-jazz everything. You know? If it feels good, I do it. It''s all instinctual,"


    "Then keep doing that? You''re asking the wrong guy how to fight," Thaddeus said. "I c-c-couldn''t fight my way out of a paper bag,"


    Dion sighed.


    "The problem is, I don''t think ''jazzing'' it out has got me anywhere. Last time I did that, I got stabbed in the abdomen," He said. "I need to figure out a way to beat him,"


    "And here I thought I was the one doing the figuring out for you," Thaddeus laid down the bullet flat side down on the plastic table. Behind them was the van and even further behind was a small market hub. The wind blew indifferently, dragging dirt and rubble from the broken black parking lot. The vending machines were lightless. The soda stands and quarter toy-machines seemed so outdated that they were still selling Pepsi Crystal. The broken concrete floors led to a sandy lot where small creosote brushes grew (if it could even grow in this aridity). The line of stores, the compilation of a; laundromat, a tax-reviewer, noodle shop, and vinyl record shop, were void of any kind of employee movement. Let alone, actual customer movement.


    It looked like the fading memory of a dying amnesiac. With each day removing some of the character and detail. The signs were withering. The bricks, corroded. The streets worsened, slowly devolving to the flat desert lands they hailed from.


    Dion stood on his own little island of sand, he walked up towards the van. The broken asphalt rolled beneath his feet and skidded some paces off. Thaddeus bagged the bullets.


    "I''ve restocked your dragon breath. You''ve got half a dozen of those," He said.


    "What about the other two?" Dion asked.


    "C-c-considering how quickly you wanted them, I could only give you one of each," He said. "And this green one? Be c-c-careful,"


    "One of each? Jesus," He grabbed the bag and throw it straight into his jacket. It disappeared into the void.


    "Where are you going to start looking for him?" Thaddeus asked.


    "Who knows," Dion said. "Back where I first fought him?"


    "That''s not smart," Thaddeus mumbled. "Why are you even doing t-t-this? Can''t you just hide until it''s all over?"


    "Maybe," Dion said. "Maybe I could go back to Apollo and convince him to take Aenea, and we can run and hide,"


    Dion wiped the sweat from his forehead.


    "But that wouldn''t avenge everyone Floyd''s killed, would it?" He asked. "And it wouldn''t redeem me for letting them die, would it? I guess I want to fight him as much as he does,"


    The following silence was palpable. That morose, almost eerie quiet before violence. And Dion didn''t mean to seem too rude or to seem unconcerned with Thaddeus. But his face wore his anger well, the focus that comes before a fight. He looked up to where the sun had fallen, and the blood of the evening was beginning to go cold. Running from that quick-fall of dark.


    "Good luck," Thaddeus said.


    "I don''t really believe in luck," Dion said. He started his way out, onto the street and looking for the closest rooftop. He put on his mask. The empty streets carried the sounds of drunkards and wife-beaters in the air, the choir of the impoverished. The lights went off one by one, at a dreadfully quick pace. It''s like they knew.


    Knew what?


    Dion looked up, only a few steps outside the parking lot.


    Like a damn flare, shot straight in the sky. A blue comet. A particular shade of blue, particular to Dion''s pistols. Someone shot his gun. High up, the bullet rode the skyline and descended to some corner of the city.


    "Is that normal?" Thaddeus came up behind him. He took out his cellphone and started clicking.


    "That''s westbound. I can''t really tell how far. But if I had to guess? A few miles, eight? Maybe ten?" He searched through his cellphone, swiping and nervously tapping. "There''s a refinery in that direction,"


    "Refinery?" Dion asked.


    "A foundry. They used to work with steel here before the casino, that''s how Thomas Wolfe made his riches actually, precious metals and gasoline. After an accident...and when the wells ran dry, he shifted his focus to gambling," he said. "There''s a foundry over there. It''s not running or anything, but it''s still kept around. I guess no one''s demolished it yet,"


    "That''d be a good spot to kill each other, wouldn''t it be?" Dion asked. "If someone was there, that is,"


    "Yeah, if someone was there," They looked at each other, nodding their heads.


    "It''s pretty isolated, there''s a couple walls of gates to keep most people away, cops too," Thaddeus rubbed his chin. "B-b-but he''d also know the terrain better than you, I''m pretty sure,"


    "I don''t think that''s going to stop me," Dion took a step up. He walked across the street, Thaddeus nervously followed.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "Do you know what you''re going to do when you find him?"


    "Try to kill him, of course," Dion stuck his hand into the red brick wall and climbed up.


    "D-d-don''t tell me that," Thaddeus said. And near the top, Dion heard the shrill voice once more;


    "And be careful with the green one!" Thaddeus screamed, "It''ll burn you good if you let it touch you,"


    ?


    I''ve come all this way, and I still don''t know what to do.


    He swayed left and right, looking for balance. At the edge of the roof, looking down, his stomach turned. He shook it off and walked down a steel pipe that ran across the roof. He stopped, and looked down. A small, beveled window pane. He dropped down, the thump scared him.


    "Darn it," He whispered. He opened the pane a bit more, the dirty air slowly came out. The specs of dirt were obvious in the moonlight. They made him cough.


    And coughing made his stomach turn again. All noises did.


    I can''t even tell the difference between excitement and fear anymore, they''re both the same things. He stuck his head inside and looked side to side. And he sighed. He felt it swelling, all guilt and all anger and all urge to flee, swelling in his heart. Like his chest was about to explode. I could run, I could gun. But they only got me so far. And I need to be more. Much, much more.


    His abdomen burned again. Astyanax had done him in once. Floyd had done it twice. It felt a scar ripped open, only to bleed again. A wound that never heals.


    Inside, across one of the dark walls, the logo was painted green. It read; "Wolfe and Co."


    The rest of the foundry wasn''t nearly as well kept as the paint. The stone buckets that carried magma from one end of a line to another were tipped over, fallen from their hooks and chains. Their broken pieces littered the floor. Tiles, steel, concrete all cracked with age and within these cracks wandered centipedes and scorpions. In the silence of the room, Dion could hear them crawl.


    There were factory lines that carried the precious metals and dumping deposits. Rocks with ores, veined and strangely luminous in the moonlight glowed atop broken treadmills.


    Everything was broken. Abandoned. Ghostly, in a sense, as if that abandonment had been so immediate that it had left a vacuum that only ruin could fill.


    He slunk his body inside, hanging by his hands before he could find footing on a pipe. It was hollow, stepping on it made the rust whine.


    His head dragged from one end to another.


    It''s huge, and he could be anywhere,


    Anywhere from the smelting stations to the refinery, to the damn train tracks, from the train tracks to the loading trucks. Some of those tr trucks were still here, carrying on their rears beams of steels and rods of copper.


    He looked mainly at the trucks and the shipping area. The ceiling was charred black and the wood and steel dangled from their nails, weak and limp. He wandered a bit more, inching closer down the pipeline. When he heard a creak, he withdrew his leg.


    Collapsed warehouse shelves, strange waves of cooled magma.


    He scratched his beard.


    The image formed clearly in his head. The people struggling to escape a growing fire, trying to run from magma. The machinery all failing and falling and exploding, wires and buttons and levers blowing off like celebratory corks. People trapped underneath the wooden columns. God. The weight, so intense as to almost sever them in half. A truck, desperate and afraid, crashing into another truck and sealing the garage doors with an engine fire. The people, covering their faces. Explosions, death everywhere. The trapped people, suffocating. The living - desperate - rushing for clogged doors.


    He dropped down to a metal beam. It wobbled under his weight. And from there, he jumped onto a metal catwalk. The offices were right below him. Graffiti filled the exploded room. Bottles, cigarettes, needles were all blended with the charred remains of furniture...and other...things.


    He walked down the metal runway, looking for the stairs. He heard a gasp somewhere, and it could have been anywhere given the size of the foundry. And perhaps it was divination, but he turned to look at the center of the foundry.


    Of course, he was at the center of it all.


    "It was a stupid accident," Floyd said, his body outline was all Dion could see. "Human error. A propane tank powering one of the forklifts exploded. Apparently, the tank was leaking, and someone was smoking. That''s one and one, enough for a disaster. The smoker, a Mr. Wayne, was the first to die. Not the only one, just the one who went easiest. The rest - not so much,"


    Floyd moved around in the shadows he dwelled in. And the sounds made Dion''s handshake. Sounds of aching bones popping, the sound of crawling like the centipede.


    "It was a mistake. One that made father reconsider everything. He bought the casino a few years later and shut this place down even sooner than that,"


    Dion loaded his gun. Five normal rounds, the final being that dragon breath of his. It was weighty compared to the other rounds.


    "Human error - the greatest killer of all, no?" Floyd said. "Then what a sad thing that so many of us make so many mistakes. How much do you think, we, individually kill? Perhaps not obviously as say, disease or planetary catastrophe, but we do kill. Don''t we? Quickly, sometimes. Slowly, other times,"


    Dion ran into a shadow, he felt his heart rate pulse rapidly. His breaths hastened. His pupils flashed red with a blink of his eye.


    "Sometimes we make mistakes and don''t realize them until they''ve already hurt us. Or worse, hurt the ones we love," The dirt dragged beneath Floyd. "I''ve made too many mistakes to count, and I''ve tried even more times to fix them. Tell me, Vicar, do you have regrets too?"


    He felt the cold wall behind him. His posture straightened. And with a deep breath, Dion tried.


    "It''s not too late, Floyd. You can still leave," Dion said. "Repent for the people you''ve killed, help their families. You can do so much and go so far with your resources. It''d be a better use of your life than this, I wouldn''t hunt you down if you promised me that,"


    "You wouldn''t? You blew my sister''s head off," The shadow moved. A crystal flew past Dion''s face. Blood slid down his cheeks. "But let''s entertain your proposal. So I leave, I take Luanne and go. Then what? I attacked a Vicar. I killed dozens, no doubt your people would have me killed. Maybe not by you but by another. Is that not protocol? Is that not what your church does?"


    "I killed your sister because she was about to stab Aenea, your other sister," Dion said. He ran from his spot, going down some stairs and hiding behind a smelter. His back touched the rough machinery, the knobs, and the levers. They felt like small hands as they scratched him.


    All throughout the foundry, the chains rattled. They dragged, some fell. Glass shattered below something that did not sound like a footstep, something that sounded almost like a hoof and almost like a paw. Something rough, neither leather nor flesh.


    "She did what she did for family," Floyd screamed. "You do what you do for vanity,"


    The words stung. Much like the blade in his abdomen, much like any kind of injury.


    "What do you know about Aenea or me? What do you know about anything that''s going on?" Dion asked. "You''re killing me because I killed your sister, fine. But to say she picked up the blade for family? Don''t be so stupid, think,"


    "It doesn''t matter. The intention does not matter. Not to me. Not anymore, let the philosophers wrestle intention. I see actions," Floyd appeared. He hugged the floor, with a deep and slow crawl. Limbs extended out, his feet (were they even feet?) were blackened with blood, calloused. The glass stuck to his limbs, though did not seem to even penetrate let alone pain him. "Nothing matters but the action. Nothing matters but the fact that my sister died and if I don''t kill you, I won''t have any other sisters left,"


    Dion struggled to find breath, it felt like drowning in fear. His head looked up as Floyd stood. And Dion didn''t know when it would stop, when he''d be able to rest his neck, because Floyd kept growing, it seemed, until his figure covered the panes of broken glass on the ceiling and the moonlight. He must have been twice Dion''s size. Thin. Angular, sharp, bony.


    "What happened to you?" Dion asked.


    A short day, that was it. That''s all it had been, one short day. But what he saw was no natural evolution, no metamorphosis. What he saw was an abomination of black magicks and the steroid of wrath manifest; ungodliness.


    Monster and man. Floyd''s neck extended out some two feet. At the end of the line was his face, small, and lingering in the air. He was hunched, and his skull angled to the side as if curious. His green eyes bled his toxic blood, and his veins glowed that same toxic green. As if he was all radioactive, like the natural fission reaction of his rage.


    "I was just a man who loved wrongly," Floyd''s small voice was off-putting. Dion flinched, he took a step back. The chains rattled as he brushed against them. Then he touched a wall, he pointed the gun in front of him.


    Floyd approached, voice morphed and deranged and hysterical almost.


    "But that''s the unfortunate part, isn''t it, Vicar?" His body fell. He crawled towards Dion. "Wrong or right - we always do what we do for love,"


    The black crystals grew out from the floor. The air snapped, and Dion dodged.

 The Devil Waits with a Pen in His Hand 10 Part 2

    The crystal shard had struck where his head was supposed to be. Dion knew this, because the air was so strong and the sound of penetration so near.


    Dion rushed to the right, behind a smelter, further beyond where coils of wires hung from their metal posts. Ladling buckets stood slanted off their stands, the metal already coagulated and pooled to one side or on the floor.


    ¡°It¡¯s all ruined,¡± Floyd said, the muscles in his throat choked. And from the corner of Dion¡¯s eyes, behind the smelter, he could see him keeled over. The crystalline growths appeared below Floyd¡¯s feet, in a circle that rose and shot out with sudden growth. They stabbed everything in between in their path - a path ending with Dion.


    He jumped. He caught the edge of a chain and climbed it to the top, to a walkway.


    Most of the walkway was severed, out by the time he got there. Just standing made it shift to and fro.


    So he hopped, piece to piece, as the shards of crystals kept whizzing past him. Jumping. Catching another chain. Swinging, now, to rubble and sand on the bottom floor of the foundry. He rolled for a bit, then leveraged himself and stopped. And stood.


    More aggressive than before.


    Dion knelt. The gun, held firmly in his hands, his hands held firmly against his bent knee. He shot.


    Floyd turned, eyes hostile. His hands made a gesture upwards. A wall of crystal spurned up from the floor in front of Floyd. The bullet ricocheted, hit three different panels of levers, and rolled on the floor.


    And Floyd raised his long, slender foot. With the heel, he kicked the crystal shield. It dragged all manners of trash and metals and electronics, winding with growing momentum, down the floor, and towards Dion.


    Oh, gosh,


    Dion jumped again. The crystal struck the wall, exploded it rather. The beams and steel clinked and scratched against each other as the wall came down. Brick, now rubble or dust, laid out the floor near Dion. He was struggling to stand, the explosion was so close. The newly formed hole ventilated the dust, cold air brushed his hair.


    He spat on the floor and took a hard look at Floyd. And with a grin, Dion went into the smoke and from the smoke, receded into darkness.


    He ran, the wandering shadow, in between the metal foundation posts of the warehouse.


    And after a few minutes of moving, he stood still behind some stairs. He looked in between the gaps of steps, looking at Floyd who had not moved an inch.


    ¡°Come out, don¡¯t be afraid. What man feels fear!¡± Floyd screamed. From the rags of his pants, Floyd produced a gun. Dion''s gun. He shot it into the air. Kept shooting. Over. And Over.


    The roof exploded to chunks, the rubble fell down on Floyd, on his face. He shook it off, laughing, his whole appearance now basked in that moonlight. And his ghoulish form was laid out to display, the wretched creature with piles of excess skin tags, with boils. As if blight itself had decided to vomit on his face.


    One bang of white hair fell over his eyes. It clung to the gaps left in between his sharp teeth, before he spat it out.


    He pulled the trigger once more. Snap. Out of ammo.


    ¡°Oh, what a shame,¡± Floyd said. ¡°I would have loved to kill you with your own gun,¡±


    Floyd threw it to the side and looked around, his body lurked around in circles.


    "Don''t make this hard," Floyd giggled.


    ¡°I just want to rip your heart out, Vicar, I just want to rip it out and see what your body does,¡± he said. ¡°It''s what''ll save all of us,¡±


    He laughed. And cursed and shifted so quickly between the two that they became the same thing. Hoarse, laughing curses. Cackles of rage.


    It was as if there was no difference between his wandering, fluctuating voice, and his wandering, fluctuating thoughts.


    Devolved. That¡¯s the word that came to Dion¡¯s mind as he saw the creature, once a man. Devolved past primate, past the first tadpole that decided to step onto land. Devolved into something vile, dark.


    A servant of Mammon. Not man. Not demon. But broken servant.


    What was done to him? Jesus Christ, how can you see this and call the world fair?


    He lowered his face, not in humility, but in spite of the Higher Powers. And he brought it back up, biting his lip. He pointed his gun and started to aim.


    Floyd went in circles, throwing his arm out and an assortment of crystallized bullets with. They scattershot, like shotgun blasts hitting every piece of equipment; eviscerating the metal walls, the train tracks, the half-destroyed trucks, ladle buckets filled with cooled steel.


    Nothing was spared.


    Dion lowered his gun, and then his body, for cover.


    Floyd went in circles, waving his destruction in clockwork order.


    And Dion flinched as the clippings and shavings of steel fell on him. He aimed again though, closing one eye, trying his best to ignore the chaos. Floyd''s back was to him, finally. He shot twice.


    It didn''t matter.


    Floyd¡¯s head turned a full one-eighty, his vertebrae snapped and popped to the sudden jerk. He raised his hand, another wall rose up. The black wall. The sparks flew, the bullets clanked before falling to the floor in front of Floyd, smashed.


    Then Floyd''s whole body turned. His bones snapped back into place.


    "Wha-What?" He couldn''t even conceal the words as thought. They came out of him.


    Dion shot another two rounds, they bounced off the wall before it came flying back at Dion.


    He rolled through the rubble. He pushed his hand down and stood. Running, almost tripping. Going under and over machinery now dangling in pieces, or laying lopsided. He made his way to another set of stairs, in the corner of the factory.


    ¡°Out, out you rat,¡± Floyd screamed. He slammed down on the floor, the crystals out-grew and shot up at Dion as he ran up the stairs. They cut through the rail guards, cut through the walls.


    Then they struck him.


    ¡°Ahh,¡± Dion shouted. He caught his mouth, bit down on his tongue.


    ¡°What¡¯d I hit?¡± Floyd''s tongue came out of his small head like a snake from its hole. Dripping, slithering.


    Dion kept running. Something had hit his chest, the gnash lead up from his stomach to his shoulder. Not so deep, but stinging heavily and healing even slower.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Oh don¡¯t run, let me take the doctor take a look,¡± He chased after Dion, crawling on all-fours, stomping and slapping the floor to summon forth those black diamonds of his. They decimated the metal posts, the hole-meshed walkway, destroyed it to utter smoke.


    Dion ran, as much as he could, before the floor and stairs wobbled.


    The crystals shot up, Floyd was directly below him. So he did his best, dancing almost, feeling the crystals zip and scratch his clothes and person. A thousand cuts, it felt like. As the blood kept falling from his arms and legs.


    And Dion would have died eventually. But the roof crumbled and shifted.


    Dion looked up. So did Floyd, a little too late.


    Dion jumped, grabbed a chain, and swung out of the way.


    One piece. One singular, long piece of metal and wood, pipe and all wiring work, came down and flattened the corner of the foundry, right where Floyd stood.


    Dion struck a wall. He hit the floor with a thump and shook his head of all rubble. He could finally breathe, finally absorb that asphalt and dirt smoke-cloud. And he could see, barely, the rays of moonlight coming from the new holes and old broken windows.


    He cleared his face of sweat and looked around him. The sliding door was adjacent. Good.


    He could have run.


    But he had to look. He had to see the stone and wood piled on Floyd, he had to see it move and shuffle. He had to see the dome shield wrapped around Floyd, protecting him from the ceiling.


    And he had to see Floyd crawl out of the dirt, like a damn centipede, his long limbs going one after another, speeding out of the cramped hole.


    Of course it wouldn¡¯t be that easy.


    Dion opened his gun, he had a dragon breath left. He searched inside his jacket, shifting his hand in the dimensional empty space.


    What do I do?


    He felt his legs want to give in. He wanted to run, wanted to shoot. He pointed his gun to Floyd, and put his hand on the trigger.


    Stop. Don¡¯t act. Think. Think you moron.


    He slapped his face with the side of his gun and scratched his scalp. The dust was still covering him, offering some protection from the rampaging monster.


    ¡°Stop hiding!¡± Floyd screamed. He stood atop the pile, looking like a searchlight across the horizon of the foundry.


    Think. Think! He had to look at where I shot to protect himself, right? Right?! He has to know the bullet was coming. He has to be conscious of it. It''s not infallible, his defense relies on him to act. Not the other way around. He''s an animal now though, with an animals reflexes. Oh, boy.


    He loaded his gun and moved the cylinder over one. He put a yellow bullet instead, as next in line. And in third place, skipping over the dragon breath, he put a green colored cartridge.


    Yellow. Red. Green.


    The cylinder snapped in place. He cocked his gun.


    But what do reflexes matter when you¡¯re confused? And animals...animals get scared easily all the time, don''t they?


    He moved his head up and down in seeming agreement. And next to him, the chain holding the door down. He punched it. A few links shot out, hitting him across the face. With his shoulder, he put his weight against the handle and pushed it open.


    The exposed air drew out the smoke like a vacuum, letting it rise up and out. Dion ran.


    ¡°You would, wouldn¡¯t you?¡± Floyd said. ¡°You would betray me too, coward?¡±


    Floyd turned and crawled out towards the doors.


    Dion shot at him, as soon as Floyd appeared past the smoke.


    And Floyd raised his shield just in time. The giant black wall of diamonds.


    Floyd smiled. The bullet exploded into black dust, wrapping around him, like a thin cloak. Dion aimed.


    "Almost got me when I wasn''t looking," Floyd giggled. Dion cocked his gun. ¡°Try it,¡±


    Dion waited, and the black dust kept enveloping him, kept wrapping around Floyd''s body, around the shield. He took a sniff.


    It made him cough once, a light cough. Another breath. His eyes swelled, he coughed again, deeper, heavier.


    Dion was glad no one could see the smile behind his mask. The joy.


    He shot his explosive round. It struck the black wall and did nothing so much as bruise it. That was... until the fire extended out and around.


    Like a nice left hook across his defense.


    Floyd¡¯s eyes widened as the fire wrapped around him. And before he could put up any kind of defense, it was too late. Another explosion occurred, directly behind him, that blew him out.


    The black smoke had caught on fire. And still, very much was in flame.


    Floyd¡¯s body tumbled out.


    ¡°Yellow bullet, gunpowder. I gotta remember that,¡± Dion took a deep breath. ¡°It lit him up like a firework,¡±


    Dion would have shot a gun, should have. But he stopped as he saw Floyd''s appearance. His crimson eyes expanded. His smile went away and his mask pooled with sweat.


    Floyd¡¯s left arm dangled by a few inches of flesh. It was blown off, from his elbow down. There were other spots, on his forearm and biceps, where the tissue was completely missing. And in these spots of missing bone and muscle, growths of black crystals had formed. They formed with pain so severe that Floyd fell to the ground.


    It felt painful even just watching.


    ¡°Get off me,¡± Floyd screamed, at his own elongated arm. ¡°Stop!¡±


    Dion hesitated to pull the trigger. Seeing a pained man did that, it was like a kill switch to his bloodthirst. Seeing the monster, turn to man, begging and crying. Yeah, that made him reconsider.


    Floyd laid on the floor, his arm overtaken by crystals, his green blood pumping, and spilling and coagulating into even more growths on the floor like spores.


    ¡°I said stop!¡± Floyd finally screamed. With his only good hand, he raised it up high and brought it down. His arm plopped on the floor, severed. The growth continued independent of his body, until his whole arm became one solid block. With the blood spilling, with the crystal tumors resuming from his exposed wound, he slowly stood.


    ¡°Devil magicks. Dark Arcana. Can''t you see it''s killing you?¡± Dion asked. ¡°You can still stop, Floyd. I can let you do that. Maybe even help, maybe. It''s not all your fault,¡±


    Floyd''s quivering legs shifted left and right. He tripped. Then pushing himself with his only good arm, found leverage to stand. His body struggled to even stand, and in that pain, with the sweat and tears streamed down his face, he giggled. Small bits of laughter, like children playing in the distance.


    Dion felt his shoulders shake.


    ¡°They say we¡¯re made in God¡¯s image, but look at you and me¡­¡± He laughed. ¡°If that¡¯s true, what does it say about our God?¡±


    Small pieces of crystal fell from his wound, his white hair withered away like snow. And the shrapnel in his neck and cheeks and shoulders moved with each of his deliberate words. If bodies are temples, then Floyd''s had long since been ravaged.


    It was like watching a walking suicide. Floyd, taking shambled steps.


    "Stop," Dion said.


    Floyd kept going.


    "I said stop!" Dion raised his gun.


    He shook his head, conviction came back to him, it came in the form of shivering hands and long-held breaths. And churning pity too.


    He hated pitying. He hated feeling it in his gun, now of all times.


    "I''ll never stop," Floyd said. He raised his hand.


    Dion shot. The casing jumped from his gun, to his rear. This was the green bullet.


    Floyd, prepared, put a dome around himself this time. He hid himself under it.


    It''s over...Oh, god...


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± Dion said. The bullet struck the dome but did not explode, did not even ricochet. It seemed to¡­shatter on impact. Dion could hear the glass audibly, even from the far distance he stood at.


    And at the bullet impact, a growing¡­wetness, enveloped the black diamond dome. Dion could see Floyd¡¯s body underneath, still expecting some explosive, he saw his shadow move and curl.


    ¡°It¡¯s too late now,¡± Dion said softly. ¡°You had your chance,¡±


    The liquid wrapped around and fell down the dome, like rain. And after a few seconds, began to smoke. It bubbled. It hissed.


    Acid.


    An acid that quickly dissolved the dome, reduced it to some viscous, toxic black goop. An acid so strong, it made holes through the dome. Holes of course, that let the acid fall down unto Floyd.


    Thaddeus had called his invention, angel''s feather. It was an ironic name. But it wasn''t funny.


    Floyd screamed. He writhed.


    Dion walked over, loading a bullet into his gun. Just one normal round.


    The acid had penetrated through Floyd¡¯s shield, had made its way onto his face and had begun to work holes into his body. By contrast, Floyd¡¯s body had tried fighting back. Like antibodies to the blood cell, the black tumor-like growths of crystals filled the gaps left by the burning acid. Open wounds were treated first, his burned and melted flesh was last.


    Floyd rolled around. Dion came up next to him, calm. His eyes weren¡¯t even crimson anymore, the battle was done, and only a philosopher and a fool would call it victory.


    Not even he could take glory in seeing Floyd. How he was, rolling on the floor, screeching, his arms and legs trying to rub out the acid only for them themselves to be covered in the substance. The smoke and burned flesh growing out of patches in his body where the acid had pooled.


    Floyd turned his head, off the floor and towards Dion.


    Dion felt the urge to vomit.


    Floyd''s face was drooping. His eye had come out of the cavity of his skull, as most of his head was already dissolved. The blood and black diamond and acid all dripped and fell, dissolved into some pool of alchemical nightmare.


    Seeing Floyd, was already a kind of horror. His left side could not move, he could not form words. And the structure and composite of his flesh eventually failed utterly. His lips went. His eyelids. The blight, was literally burned and melted away. Only blackened, fizzing blood was left on him.


    Dion turned his head.


    I have to see what I did,


    Floyd was unresponsive. His hands were propped in front of him, he held his own body and convulsed. His body withered.


    They crossed eyes. Staring at each other. Floyd, teared up, screeching indiscernible moans and whines, narrowed his eye.


    All Dion could see was anger. Rancor like no other, dwelling inside Floyd''s green eye. As if the acid had reduced Floyd to his singular element, rage.


    It didn''t make it easier.


    ¡°I never doubted you thought you did the right thing,¡± Dion pointed his gun. ¡°And maybe you were, in a strange way,¡±


    He brought back the hammer.


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry for you and your family,¡±


    And shot.

 Episode 9: Lent

    ¡°Look, she¡¯s just fine,¡± Thaddeus said.


    ¡°She hasn¡¯t said a word since last night,¡± Apollo tapped his foot against the floor with nervous rhythm. ¡°And Dion hasn¡¯t shown up since either,¡±


    ¡°What do you want me to do?¡± Thaddeus asked.


    ¡°Your job. Go see what¡¯s wrong with her and tell me what happened to Dion,¡±


    ¡°I told you everything -¡±


    Apollo turned in his seat.


    There was a knock at the door. Hefty and demanding. Another knock. It shook what few pictures frames remained on the walls. The light fixtures laid decapitated, with their wires exposed and burned out. The walls were burrowed through. The panels of the ceiling had fallen and cracked across the floor.


    Apollo stood from his chair. Aenea sat upside on the bed, center of the room. The sheets were bloodied and bundled into a ball on the feet of the bed. She stared into the wall, dead center, with a tired and almost colorless gaze.


    ¡°See? It has to be him, I told you he was alright,¡±


    Apollo glared at Thaddeus.


    ¡°We¡¯ll see about that,¡± Apollo put his had on the doorknob. An eye on the peephole. It busted open, kicked rather, by Dion who stormed the inside of the room.


    Dion rushed in, pistols on his belt, a giant object on his back (which was hidden by what appeared to be bundles of blankets).


    He scanned the room, Dion did, his eyes carried those black lines of fatigue. And he found Thaddeus.


    "Oh, good, y-y-you''re safe," Thaddeus smiled. "No need to thank me,"


    Dion rushed to him. He grabbed him by the collar and threw his body on the kitchen table. With one hand he held him, with the other he reached into his pockets.


    "W-w-what''d I do?" Thaddeus grabbed onto his arms for dear life. "I-I-I''m sorry for calling you slow,"


    "What''s going on?" Apollo closed the door and rushed to them, he put one hand on Dion''s shoulder. But it wouldn''t stop him, it wouldn''t even compel him to reconsider. Dion kept shaking Thaddeus''s body with one hand and searching his pockets with the other. He retrieved it, flashed it in front of Thaddeus and set it on the table.


    The acid bullet. What remained of the "angel feather," that green, noxious, thing.


    "This," Dion said. "This should never have been made,"


    "Oh," Thaddeus said. Dion let go. The bullet shook on the table and fell off the edge.


    "Oh..." Thaddeus repeated.


    "Why would you ever design something so horrifying as that?"


    "You''re the one who u-u-used it," Thaddeus screamed. "I j-j-just gave it to you,"


    "No one should have that," Dion pointed to the bullet. "That should never have been created,"


    "I d-d-didn''t make it for you. I d-d-didn''t make it for war. It was meant to be used to break down c-c-c-compositions." Thaddeus said.


    "So you won?" Apollo asked. "You killed Floyd?"


    "Yeah," Dion''s eyes lowered. He scratched his head out of some misguided nervousness. "I killed him,"


    "Good," Apollo said. "We''ve only got four of them to worry about now,"


    "You don''t understand, he died..." Dion searched his memories, memories that only seemed to fatigue him even more. His eyes drooped, his mouth was slightly ajar. "It wasn''t right how Floyd died,"


    "Dead is dead," Apollo said. "I don''t think he''d have felt half as guilty as you do now, had he killed you,"


    "Does that matter though?" Dion mumbled. He sat down on a kitchen chair. One of the legs were wobbly.


    Dion sat down on the table. His face rose if only to give Thaddeus a sharp glare.


    ¡°W-why-¡± Thaddeus fumbled. His arms extended out as he exaggerated his gestures. ¡°Why is this my fault? We all wouldn¡¯t have to do this is if it weren¡¯t for her stupid family!¡±


    He pointed to Aenea, still laying emotionally comatose on the bed.


    ¡°And we wouldn¡¯t be here if we didn¡¯t decide to go to hell,¡± Apollo looked to Dion.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t ask you to do that,¡± Dion refocused his blame.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°I didn''t blame you either.¡± He walked over to Aenea. ¡°The real blame goes to you, doesn''t it?¡±


    ¡°You have terrible bedside manners,¡± Aenea mumbled.


    ¡°Well, there''s a reason for that; I don¡¯t like you. You¡¯re bourgeois scum. Pompous, obnoxious,¡± Apollo said. ¡°If I could let you die, I would have. Save us all the trouble,¡±


    ¡°You could have just killed me,¡± Aenea gripped the blood stain on her abdomen. She rocked her hands left to right. Then she looked up to Dion. ¡°You killed my brother, right?¡±


    Dion couldn¡¯t stare at her, he slanted his head downwards and nodded. Words weren¡¯t enough.


    ¡°And you helped him?¡± She looked at Thaddeus.


    "Y-y-yeah..."


    ¡°And you¡¯re the one who¡¯s glad,¡± She looked at Apollo. He grit his teeth.


    ¡°And I¡¯m the one who slept through it all,¡± She clawed her stomach.


    ¡°I talked to a¡­thing who told me what my destiny would be like,¡± She said. ¡°I don¡¯t like that. I don¡¯t like being told what I¡¯ll be or where I¡¯ll be at, and I sure as hell don¡¯t want what dad left for me,¡±


    She brought her knees in towards her chest. Her eyes shifted between the three, who seemed in solemn silence like a fraternity of monks.


    ¡°Maybe the real person to blame is my mother. She was a service girl at a bar. But she was really a prostitute. What a stupid way to meet someone, huh?" She laughed, though they didn''t. "Boy, that pregnancy test must have a been a ticket, because she sailed and searched and flew every corner of the world looking for Mr. Thomas Wolfe,¡± She said. ¡°I could never understand why she was obsessed. And I could never understand why she wasted so much money looking. She found him, after all, free of charge. Found him on the television one day, the day Mr. Thomas Wolfe was performing the grand opening of the Casino El Rey,¡±


    She brushed aside her hair. And looked at the bed, emptily.


    ¡°She was the obsessive type, hah. And the less he wanted to do with her, the more she wanted him it seemed,¡± She sighed. ¡°She collected pictures and transcripts of my dad,¡±


    She brought her hand up, her bloody palm stained her cheek.


    ¡°I wrote fake letters for her, on behalf of a dad who never even thought of us. They were mean letters, cruel and meant inspire her to move on,¡± Apollo could not tell what face she made. It was stressed and scrunched, and at both teary-eyed and tightened into a growl. ¡°I wrote, if I remember, "Don''t ever talk to me again, Delilah,'' Wanna know the funny thing? She collected that too. Begged for him too. Even after all that..."


    ¡ª


    They were struck.


    ¡°I am a slave to no one,¡± She said. ¡°The only person I lived for was my mother - she¡¯s dead now. And with her, any kind of obligation to anyone but myself,¡±


    Apollo stood.


    ¡°Informative. Amazing. This is all great, but what are we going to do? What do you want to do? What''s the plan?" He said. "Realistically, I say we fly you out and run away, let the other Wolfe''s kill themselves. With you alive, with your connections, Dion and I might be able to stave off our executions long enough for you to get a grip on the situation,¡±


    "Oh, come on," Dion said. "Stop being a jerk-"


    ¡°It''s fine,¡± Aenea said. ¡°I just wanted to let you know what this just isn''t a fight. It''s a divorce from my past. And I am fighting, now or never,¡±


    She stood. The crusted blood fell in shavings, like small red feathers.


    ¡°And for this fight, I don¡¯t need bodyguards, I need people who want to do this as much as me,¡± she said. ¡°To that end, I¡¯ll have my people contact your people. I''ll have the money traded. The bribes made, whatever. Consider the ¡®good word¡¯ that you need, already done, because this might be the last chance I¡¯ll ever get to put in any kind of word. If that''s your only obligation to me, you''re free to leave now,¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not stopping half-way,¡± Dion was the first to speak. ¡°I pulled the trigger, I should see it all through, right?¡±


    Dion looked at Apollo, his face dull.


    Thaddeus inched his way closer to the door.


    ¡°Well, good luck-¡±


    Apollo grabbed him by the arm.


    ¡°Where do you think you¡¯re going?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you hear her? We¡¯re in the clear, let''s just leave it all alone,¡± he said. ¡°This p-p-place is too violent for me,¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re staying and so am I,¡± He said. ¡°I¡¯ve got an interest in this Wolfe mystery,¡± He turned to Aenea. ¡°Why and how your father died,¡±


    "You sound like mom," She said.


    "I am rather obsessive," Apollo smiled.


    Dion brushed his shoulder.


    ¡°You know, you could have just said wanted to help,¡± Dion let out a sigh of relief. It was a good look all things considered. It was good in general, to be able to breathe.


    ¡°I hope you understand we¡¯ll be going on the offensive,¡± Aenea said. ¡°And I want you two for a specific job,¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Find me Turnus,¡± She said.


    ¡°Sure, but I¡¯ve got a question myself," Apollo said. ¡°Can you protect yourself now?¡±


    ?


    They were out.


    ¡°So be honest with me, why are you really helping?¡± Dion walked out the door with Apollo and Thaddeus. He took the lead, they were heading to the van.


    ¡°We¡¯re in the middle of a power struggle. And I''m hedging my bet that Aenea is best for the job," He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. ¡°Not like there¡¯s many options,¡±


    ¡°Y-y-you know, it¡¯s not good to coerce p-p-people,¡± Thaddeus ran up in front of them. ¡°I-I-I¡¯ve got a say in this t-t-too!¡±


    Dion reached behind his back, to the object covered in blankets. He threw it at Thaddeus, who flinched away and let it drop before him. The other people in the parking lot stared.


    Thaddeus knelt and cradled it.


    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± He unfolded the covers.


    ¡°Floyd¡¯s arm,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Nice joke,¡± He laughed and took out the final cover. He dropped it, again. ¡°Jesus Christ,¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know how to get rid of it. It¡¯s not like the rest of the crystals, they all just kind of deteriorated over time. But this?¡±


    He walked over and grabbed the arm and threw inside the van, now opening with a loud whine. All three managed their way inside, brushing shoulder to shoulder.


    ¡°This hasn¡¯t deteriorated or gone weak. Ever since he amputated it,¡± Dion said. Apollo took a puff and flicked the ashes onto the surface of the crystallized block. It looked like a museum exhibit piece, it certainly had that pristine quality of one at least. And he hated expensive looking things.


    ¡°So if you can find a way to get rid of it,¡± Dion said. "That''d be great,"


    All Thaddeus could do was look at it and shake his head and stuff it below a few boxes and crates. Around them, the stacks of magazines and the small bed and the little areas that fashioned themselves as workstations (it was so cramped that just stepping seemed to hazard breaking something).


    ¡°Alright, alright, I guess I''m in. I can''t leave you two alone, a-a-a-after all,¡± Thaddeus said.


    They weren''t even looking. Apollo was on his phone. Dion was burning a hole on the floor with his stare.


    ¡°Listen." His cheeks puffed. "Listen to me!"


    "What?" Apollo asked.


    "Where do you want me to drop you guys off? Do you even have a plan?¡±


    ¡°Turnus has no public documents on him. Lord knows how he got that to happen,¡± Apollo took off his coat. His knob of a severed arm twirled and flinched in the cramped air. ¡°But I think I know how to get to him,¡±


    ¡°How?¡± Both of them asked.


    He took a deep puff.


    ¡°We¡¯ll ask his girlfriend where he¡¯s at,¡±

 Lent 2

    "Where do we even start?" Dion asked.


    "Do you think I¡¯ve just been jerking off this whole time?" Apollo said. "I''ve been reading tax reports,"


    "Taxes? You don¡¯t even get paid," Dion asked.


    "No, you idiot. I''ve been reading theirs, the Wolfe''s." He said. ¡°Aenea has some resources at her disposable, family ties that allow her special privileges,¡±


    "How''s that going to help us?" Dion asked.


    "He c-c-can check what they put their money i-i-in," Thaddeus said. ¡°And w-w-who puts it,¡±


    "That¡¯s right, I want to know what Turnus owned, maybe we can get an address or even better, someone who knows him personally,¡±


    "H-h-how are you going to find anything that can help us? I¡¯d imagine rich people spend a lot,"


    "That¡¯s right. That¡¯s why I¡¯ve been looking at big purchases. Like, million dollar big,¡± Apollo said. "A bar, that was purchased by a Mr. Plissken. Plissken, Harold,"


    "I never heard of him," Dion said. "Are we going to fight him next?"


    They both looked at Dion, almost impressed.


    "Every other purchase is under the name of a Wolfe. Most of them didn''t even hide what they had, they carried it around like a medal," Apollo said. "Except for Turnus who himself must have had a large allowance. He bought little, if anything. So we have a weird situation where the Wolfes buy whatever they want, except for one, which happens to be most flamboyant of them all. How does that happen?"


    ¡°How?¡±


    ¡°By changing his name and buying stuff with another identity. He¡¯s been covering his tracks for years, but I think we have him. He has to be Plissken, and he has to have bought this bar,¡±


    "So lets go then," Thaddeus said. "But you know I''m just d-d-d-dropping you off, right?"


    "Don''t worry, I wouldn''t expect anything else," Apollo said.


    They arrived at the bar. ''Snake''s Den,'' the sign read. They both stepped out of the van (which was a blessing), the suspension rose three feet after they left. And behind Apollo, he could hear the driving roar of a burping engine, wandering into the highway.


    "You know the drill, right?" Apollo asked.


    "You talk, and I stop you from killing someone?" Dion asked.


    "Yeah,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Try not to stop me this time around though,"


    Dion followed Apollo. Apollo opened the door with a sensible kick, between the front door and the main hall door was a set of body guards. They patted both of them down (oh, if only they knew where they kept their guns) and okay''d their entrance. Though something was strange about them, like their faces turned and accented some kind of annoyance when they saw the Vicars. It was a surprise they were even let it.


    And when they stepped in, Apollo could swear he heard one of them mumbling into a small radio set, ''is that them?¡¯


    It''s not like he wasn''t surprised. He was almost flattered. Dion on the other hand, was dismally unaware, his head wandered around.


    ¡°It looks a lot classier in doors than out doors,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Yeah, I hate it already,¡± Apollo went straight to the bar, past the round tables and guests with funny looking masks that at the time seemed contrived, and stupid looking.


    ¡°What can I get you?¡± The Bartender asked.


    ¡°Whiskey on the rocks, none of your fancy shit either. Give me the one that burns the most,¡±


    "Absolutely, Sir," The Bartender said with that kind of voice that only the annoyed and the aggravated could make. The kind of voice that drags and begs itself not to come out. The hard, frustrated voice. He grabbed a bottle and slammed it in front of Apollo. A glass too, which at close inspection, appeared stained and smelled of something off.


    Dion sat next to Apollo, he looked nervously around the room. The business suit and tie looking fellows were all staring, the bartenders and workers all stopped for a moment to look at the two. Even the girls fawning (or faking their fawn) couldn¡¯t help but ogle.


    The tables had small lights on them in the appearance of candles. They were gentle, yellow. Incense and nicotine filled the air, some hookah. The tables were small, roundish, made of glass too. A very modern design. Almost Japanese inspired with the intricate dragon carvings shining through. Dividers were set every few columns, and behind them, the shadows of bodies intertwined played out. The other bar tenders were taking care of their customers, emphasis on the taking care. Speedy, reliable and very showy that come with all the theatrics of pouring a drink. Apollo saw smoke come out of someone''s cocktail, he swore it was magic.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "What brings you here, sir?" The Bartender said, again, with effortful speech. He sounded French, fake-french. An American pretending to be classy.


    "Something in particular," Apollo grabbed the drink. It had just finished pouring, and he sipped it. At the very least he could say it was done to specifications: burning all the way down his throat. "It wasn''t your drinks I came for. Or the mood of your drinking house,"


    The bartender stared at him. The others were looking too. They all seemed off, the air was filled with that nervous quality. It was as if everyone dropped their drinks at once and set down their glasses because the chatter died, the flirting and sleazy talk, all ceased. Like the incense candles, it was all burned out. And Apollo was beginning to notice, after Dion tapped him on the shoulders, the peculiarities of the bar.


    It wasn''t the design. Or the business casual look, or the sleazy men. It was the eerie nature, the men in corners of the rooms with masks hiding their faces (masks reminiscent of that ball party they had had suffered earlier, where Thomas Jr. had died with his head caved in).


    Apollo turned around. Some men, giants, in all black, set their posts at each exit. They were wobbling left and right. And Apollo turned to face the bartender. He had moved closer to them, his hands underneath the counter.


    ¡°I wondered why you even asked,¡± Apollo said. "Something tells me you already know what we want,"


    "I was trained on how to deal with people like you," And it seemed like his accent died. "It is my recommendation that you leave, sir. I think you''ve had too many already,"


    Dion put his hands in his jacket. Apollo reached for the bottle and poured himself another glass.


    "I''m here to find the owner of this establishment," Apollo said.


    "They''re not here, sir," The Bartender said.


    "An address would be even better. I''m sure you have records on that, no?"


    And he looked to his sides, to the body guards who carried that distinct hostility. The slow movements of their heads just to say no, the timid wobbling back and forth. The Bartender read this and looked back to Apollo.


    "Sir, again. I''m going to have to ask you to leave," he said.


    Dion''s hands moved underneath his coat. Everyone flinched.


    Apollo looked to the corners of the room.


    ¡°No cameras?" He asked. The Bartender said nothing.


    "Sir, please leave," The Bartender said. "It''s for your own good,"


    "Man, are we really going to do this?" Dion asked.


    And the bodyguards, as if to respond the only way they knew, went to the doors and began locking them one by one. The Bartender backed away, he hit the shelves of alcohol.


    "I warned you, man," All cordial, fake-french went out the window. He back away a few steps and then started running to the end of the counter. All the bartenders did. The guests were lead outside, some of them at least. Most were kept inside. Amongst those, (at least the smart ones) retreated to the restrooms.


    Apollo took a sip and dropped it on the counter.


    "How many do you see?" He asked.


    "Eighteen," Dion said.


    "Do you still feel sore from your fight?"


    "A little," Dion said.


    "Alright, this one on me then,"


    "Just..." Dion began. "I know this is hypocritical. But please don''t kill anyone,"


    "That''s up to them, not me,"


    He downed it, like fire down his throat. The ice ball inside his glass rolled around, slipping and running down the edge of the bar. Someone fast approached Apollo and put his hand on his shoulder.


    Apollo turned his face and smiled, which Apollo realized, must have appeared nasty. Because the person who grabbed him, whom saw him smile, conformed their face to some kind of disgusted growl.


    And judging by the way the man cocked his fist, and the other cocked the hammers on their guns or pulled levers from their automatic weapons, Apollo guessed that they were pretty miffed by his ugly face.


    So they settled it.


    "Jesus," Dion said from the counter, his face seemed disgusted.


    Apollo finished kicking someone across the chin, his boot marks stamped on the man''s face. He stretched his back and felt four different knives moved in between his bones. Two on his shoulder, one on each side of his abdomen. So he stretched them out wards, as if flapping imaginary wings. They fell to the ground.


    "I told you not to kill any of them," Dion said.


    "And none of them are dead, right?"


    Apollo looked around. The guests were underneath tables, some cried in the restrooms. There were men half launched into windows, some collapsed with the dividers and tables on the floor, unconscious bodies stacked on top of each other.


    "Not bad for one armed jack, right?" Apollo said.


    "Don''t make jokes," Dion stood. "You''re creepy when you make jokes,"


    The Bartender, that fake french, was working the door to escape. Apollo walked over two different unconscious bodies (they were bleeding from their mouths, and their teeth looked like small germinated seeds against the dark brown hard floor).


    "Where do you think you''re going?" Apollo asked.


    "Oh, god," His fingers dropped the keys. He shuffled to pick them up. His hands were shaking, his legs looked like jello with how agitated they moved.


    "I think I asked you something before, didn''t I?" Apollo lifted him, he dragged him back to the counter. The man clawed at his arm. He tried kicking Apollo¡¯s other arm, before realizing there wasn''t another arm to kick.


    Then he was dropped onto the bar counter. His body hit small shot glasses, and they must have stabbed him because his pain was so severe as to cause him to moan.


    Apollo let go of his arm. It¡¯s not like the Bartender was moving by this point.


    "So I asked for an address, and you gave me nothing, now did you just forget at the moment or..." He broke a bottle of vodka against the corner of bartop. "Do you just not want to tell me?"


    Dion came up and put an arm on Apollo.


    "I can''t keep my buddy from killing you for too long," Dion hovered over the man. "So if you can''t give him anything, then I don''t know what''s going to happen,"


    "I don''t know," The Bartender cried. "I don''t know. I don''t know. I don''t know!"


    "You better know someone who knows," He said.


    "They¡¯re..." The Bartender''s face strained. "They''re going to kill me,"


    "God damn, can¡¯t anyone say anything fucking smart. They''re going to kill you?" He flashed the bottle in front of his face. "What''s more frightening, the possibility of death or this fucking shank in my hands right now?"


    He slammed it down next to the man''s face. The glass broke and slid everywhere on the table. Apollo grabbed another rolling bottle over the counter. Dion stopped him from slamming it into a weapon again.


    "You need to help us," Dion said. "I¡¯ve seen my friend do worse. A lot worse. Stuff that would make you wish you were dead,"


    The Bartender¡¯s face strained. It seemed in the middle of tears and pain. His hand shifted over the counter, to where the beer faucets were. Apollo flexed, just in case.


    He drew down the beer faucets, in a specific order. Three, one, two, four.


    And they both heard a door open, somewhere down the hall behind the bartender.


    Apollo looked down at the man.


    "Thanks," He said. And slammed the second bottle down next to the Bartender. The vodka spilled over his face like an exploded faucet.


    Dion followed loosely behind, looking back.


    "Sorry," He said, the bartender wiped his face off, crying. "He''s just...always angry, really,"

 Lent 3

    And what proved to be the night of Floyd''s death would also prove to do Salome in.


    But let''s retract, to where it started. Right at the moment, Ritcher pressed that elevator button. The noise of which summoned two personal to question him for another form of identification.


    Two people with heavy steps (combat boots made those thick noises) and the attitude of authority in their voices.


    "What''s your name again?" One of them had asked. A female''s voice, he could tell behind the mask. The other, male, because he grunted with that disgusting hoarseness, pointed his rifle at Ritcher. He couldn¡¯t see the gun hitting his back, but he sure felt it.


    "I believe I''ve already given the men at the entrance my name," He said and pressed the button again. It came faster and binged open. He was just about to cross inside before the barrel of a rifle barricaded him.


    "She asked for your name," The man said.


    So he smiled, though they could not see it. And he took two turns. One to put his ear towards the woman, the other to put his ear towards the man. They repeated. He chuckled.


    "Why am I being detained here?" Ritcher asked. He clenched his fist.


    "Because that elevator goes up to Salome, that''s why," she said. "And that''s not something most of us are authorized for. So if you want to talk to her, you''ve got to at least have a reason. A good one, and a very good clearance too,"


    "I just want to talk. That''s it," He mumbled.


    ¡°You should know - if you were one of us,¡± She held her tactical shotgun close. ¡°If you were¡­one of us you should know what kind of clearance you¡¯d need to get up there,¡±


    She took a step back and pointed her gun towards his head.


    "Who are you?" She asked, her voice timid. The bottom layer, the people below the stairs caught wind. Some of the guards rose from their stools and desks. They looked at the scene.


    It was like magic, watching Ritcher. A cane propped out from his side, seemingly camouflaged in his dark clothing. He let it fall and tap the floor with its tip, and caught it before it could land completely. And he tapped again, like some kind of Morse code to a being far beyond any of them.


    He stopped. The air went cold, something coarse rubbed against the back of her neck.


    "Do you live in sin?" He asked.


    "I''m going to need back up," She mumbled into the radio on her shoulder. "Who are you?"


    "Do you live in sin?" He asked the other man with the assault rifle.


    They closed their stances off and took steps away from the man.


    "Do you even have to answer?" Ritcher asked. "I can see into your soul. Outrage, despair, pleasure.¡± He turned to the man. ¡°You seem like the type of person who enjoys killing, you must have been a good soldier before this life. Do you feel neutered now?"


    He turned to the woman.


    "You''re not as dark as he his, though I can tell you wish you were,"


    "I''m going to ask again," Her shoulders rose, she put the butt of her gun firmly against her chest. It was locked in. "Who. The fuck. Are. You?"


    "No one,"


    He slammed down his cane. Smoke covered the field. A large waft that extended out, past the stairs and elevator, leading up to the empty bar and the game slots, past pool tables all the way out, through the doors. And into the immediate area outside, like a smoke ring covering the base of the casino.


    When it all settled, and the black dust receded, he was gone.


    And the woman screamed.


    The sand blew out, every which way and the young cadet could not see a thing past her hand which she put firmly in front of her face. Her own knuckles punched her back from the force, but perhaps it was a blessing, that the currents were strong enough to blow her. To shoot her into a dead slot machine, and then past it. She latched onto a slot lever, which she pulled down and yanked with the force of her body. She was dragged, feet, yards, as far as the bartender''s lounge at the opposite side of the room. Her shotgun went off midway. It blew someones head off. Viscera flew, and eventually receded into the sand.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    She didn''t stop until her back struck the wood. Guns all around her went off, but their flashes could not cut through the rising darkness. So she stayed, huddled and in a ball, as the sandstorm pushed against her.


    It stopped after a few minutes.


    She opened her eyes and removed her goggles. The sand came off from them, pooled at the rims of her glasses. It fell down to her boots, to a floor that had a thin layer of black sand. She rubbed her swollen eyes. When vision came back to her, she finally noticed the damage. A third of her comrades, dead. Their bodies stiff and limbs pointing out of waves of sand. She tried moving, her ribs were bruised, and each crawl towards her shotgun felt like a dagger picking at her.


    "What was that?" She spoke in half-stutter and half-scream. Immediately, She felt three points of pain. Her back, her shoulder, and her leg. Aches, and then the numbness of swelling. And she got the best treatment out of most of them. Because most of them (her teammates) had died, being slammed into things. The abrasive explosion of sand had crushed most of their bodies against some kind of wall or furniture.


    She took a step forward and nearly fell. She landed on her knees, in front of her shotgun. There was someone''s skull in front of her. She might have screamed if her ears weren¡¯t ringing, if her head was not shaking. She felt dead as it was, and whether it was toughness or shock, she just stood. With the butt of her gun, lifting herself off the floor.


    She walked a bit. Another corpse, his vertebrae was sticking out of his neck.


    "Oh god," She said.


    Not all had died, at least. Some of them were beginning to stand, at last, their legs wobbling and shaking too. Some were working the sand out of their guns. Most of the uninjured came from the team members outside who hadn''t suffered the explosion.


    It was the beginning of re-cooperation. It didn¡¯t last long.


    There was a tap.


    A loud, skin crawling, stomach-turning tap. Like a hollow bell going off. It was a ringing noise, that came from the elevator doors (that by now had been forced open and malfunctioned).


    Tap.


    Tap.


    Tap.


    And like ocean waves, the sand began to drag back. Not quickly, not even as strong as to carry them all with it. But the sand dragged, coming out of and exiting the open-mouth dead. The swollen wounds of the dying. It came out of nooks and crannies, out of boots and bleeding holes. It came on back, dragging itself towards the elevators and then once approaching, going upwards as if climbing the shaft.


    She followed them halfway to a small spot in front of the elevator where they had regrouped. Blood came down her forehead, she stood against the guard rail to stand. What was left of it, at least?


    "What''s happening?" She asked a commanding officer. She felt sand in her boots slip out in between the gaps. They traveled the air in a long, wafty rope. She tried catching it, she put her hand against the sand, and it slipped through her finger cracks and went down, towards the elevator.


    Magic.


    "You didn¡¯t tell us everything," She murmured. ¡°You didn¡¯t say what any of this was. If any of this could even be explained,¡±


    She couldn¡¯t even blink.


    "As if I knew?¡± The Commander said. He breathed hard. ¡°You should always expect something,¡±


    "This is a horror movie or something." She looked around at the stiff expressions of the dead. "A disaster."


    The Commander pushed her shotgun close to her chest. He raised one finger to her face.


    "We still have a job, supernatural or not, dead or not. Get your head in the game."


    She maintained her catatonic expression. Then she observed the commander, with wide, unblinking eyes and an unnerving stillness.


    "If your guns are jammed, find new ones," The Commander pointed his flashlight into the now broken elevator shaft. The door mechanisms struggled to close even though the frame had been caved in, so they made a popping noise. Sparks flew out from the button-grid. "If you can''t find any working guns, then start cleaning your own."


    He pointed his flashlight up, then whined.


    ¡°The lines cut,¡± He pointed down. ¡°The elevator is crushed, we¡¯ll have to take the stairs.¡±


    She saw the metal rope from the elevator hang like a noose.


    "Where¡¯s the target?" One of them asked.


    ¡°Probably up,¡± He said. ¡°We¡¯ve got, what, ten people up there plus our thirteen? Let¡¯s move up, I¡¯ll let the others know what¡¯s going on.¡± The Commander said.


    The others had started up the stairs. She stayed back, waiting for the Commander who dialed three times before he got an answer. His forehead looked cracked with stress, the lines growing wider and wider.


    "Salome?" He sounded relieved. She wasn¡¯t. "Yes, yes he made it through, we need to get you out-"


    Salome hung up. He threw the phone onto the floor. Shook his head, slapped his helmet. Then he turned, to look at her. She couldn¡¯t even feel her leg anymore.


    "What are you doing?" He screamed at her. "Get up there!"


    But she didn''t want to move. Not even after getting yelled, she really couldn''t move.


    She looked to her side, at the corpse of her friend, who had his skin ripped off his face from the blast. Whose ivory-bone mask stared back at her, one-eyed (because the other was rolling around somewhere, or carried by the sand. Who knew?). This friend, who at one moment had stood next to her questioning Ritcher, who by sheer chance had been the one to die instead of her.


    His body was collapsed into a concrete wall. If he only stood just a few degrees off¡­just anywhere where he could have been blown away instead.


    She threw her gun down, and timidly limped back, as far as she could make it, before she could find a stool to collapse on.


    The Commander¡¯s eye twitched.


    "Coward," He said. And picked up her shotgun.

 Lent 4

    The Commander could feel the sand in the air with every breath, and the effort of climbing stairs made it worse.


    That was the job though, walking these emergency exit stairs, peeping into halls.


    He looked at one such floor, the eighth floor he believed.


    The work lights were set at even intervals and directed from one end of a hallway to another. Such that any doors could be seen open, and any figure could be seen crossing. There were smaller lights, hanging off the ceiling. These were all attached by yellow wires that ran from one generator to another. It was like this on every floor, at least when it came to guest residency.


    It was like to everywhere except for the big floors.


    Big floors; the poker hall, the ball party lounge, the sports arena (which had been exploded by the fight Apollo and Dion had) and the buffet were all granted a different stage setting. These rooms had hanging lights like the cocoons of a spider or some other creature.


    They had spent thousands of dollars on generators. Well, Salome had at least. And all in all, it was most sophisticated given the short notice.


    Cameras were put, hidden underneath wreckages, set in secrecy. A rotating security patrol (because they couldn''t cover all fifty plus floors without rotating), all in the service to survey a threat. And the danger was here, but the surveillance was now defunct. Destroyed.


    Now they had to do it the old fashioned way. The rifle of a gun smacked metal, the Commander looked behind him.


    ¡°Be quiet,¡± He told his partner who shuffled in place.


    ¡°Sorry,¡±


    ¡°This is what we¡¯re going to do,¡± The Commander spoke to the twelve in front of him. They were all in the cramped narrows of the emergency exit stairs. The red signs and the yellow metal covered each floor. ¡°We can¡¯t cover all this ground this fast. We¡¯re staying in pairs, no man goes off on his own. This¡¯ll give us six groups to work with. Each us will cover ten floors, until the sixtieth. We know where he¡¯s heading, we also know which doors are blocked off.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯ll stop him.¡± One of them said.


    ¡°Then we¡¯ll stop him. Move out.¡±


    He gestured at a soldier next to him (they all looked the same behind their helmets and masked faces).


    So the men went off in stampede and thunderous roar. The confidence in their boots as they ran up the stairs in single file line. It was a comforting sound for the few moments it lasted. But it died off eventually, and soon the Commander was left with a single team member, and two flashlights on their shoulder that pointed at the doors of a new floor.


    They went in and ran through the hall, their backs against the wall and their guns first to peek the corner. Nothing. Not on this one.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s clear,¡± The partner said. So they made it back to stairs and so on, so forth. For three floors, nothing.


    The Commander pressed down on his intercom.


    ¡°You find anyone?¡±


    Static.


    ¡°Is yours working?¡± He asked the partner.


    ¡°Nope. Nothing.¡±


    ¡°Now of all times. Of course,¡± He chuckled. ¡°Right¡­¡±


    They stood in the open stairway, hands hanging over the guard rail. It was a spiral, one with a deep hole at center. Their light couldn¡¯t reach the floor anymore.


    He breathed.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± The Commander removed his mask and walked up. The sweat had made it clung to him, and his quick jerking motions had made the fabric of his mask rub against him. There was a rash on his neck. He threw the balaclava to the side. And wiped the top of his bald head. They entered. Floor number nine. The door was already open.


    ¡°I told those idiots to start from floor ten.¡± He cursed.


    They went down the hallway, through the suites. They stopped and pointed their flashlights down.


    A doorknob laid destroyed, all the intricacies laid out on the floor. It looked crushed. Not kicked, broken through, shot at. It was crushed.


    He nodded at his partner and put his shoulder soft against the door. He raised his hand and started a cue.


    ¡°One.¡± They pushed through. Their guns waved in the air, checking each corner in the darkness.


    Their footsteps were weak, growing quieter as they moved carefully through. A static television played loud nothings in the living room. Black and white static. It lit up half the room. Only half. And on the other, darker portion of the living quarters, they found a blood trail. They stopped, leading their flashlight onwards to the direction of the red. The blood had been trickled, it fell in drops and large globs, leading out from the living room and towards the bedroom and bathroom.


    They walked slow. The Commander shut off the television. The noise and light all went with it. And in that newfound silence, they could hear the dripping. Running water, too like the sound of gutters vomiting grimy water. He had to focus on steadying his hand just to make it still. The Commander made his way first, shotgun in front of his face. The blood stopped at the door. Once again, they waited, with their shoulders against the door, the sweat piling up on his forehead.


    They kicked it in. The hinges snapped. Wood splinters flew everywhere.


    "Oh my god," The partner said.


    They pointed their flashlights up, a few feet off the floor, to where one of their men hung from. Impaled, more like it. Through the back of his head, out his mouth, the water sprouted out, bloody and spilling on what appeared to be a clogged bathtub.


    "Fuck, fuck, fuck," The partner said.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Come on, work. Work!¡± The Commander pressed down on his radio.


    "You shouldn''t be so frustrated, Commander," A voice responded, through his radio set. With that voice came the sound of another man, breathing. And with that, came the loud, blunt noise of a skull being crushed in. Bone breaking, the rough surface of the killing-object being retracted from fleshy-goop. Then there was no breathing.


    It was a voice so cold it seemed to chill the air. The blood depleted from his face.


    "How the fuck are you talking to me right now?" The Commander asked.


    "Your friends handed it to me." He said. "It was an offering. Or a bargain. I forgot."


    ¡°When I find you-¡± The Commander said.


    ¡°I¡¯ll help you. Floor thirty-seven.¡±


    He changed channels immediately.


    "Anyone still alive?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. But-¡±


    ¡°Target spotted, floor thirty-seven.¡±


    They left the corpse hanging. They ran out the doors and heading straight for the stairs. Midway, they crossed the elevator shaft and stopped.


    ¡°What¡¯s that noise?¡± The partner asked.


    The Commander felt a knot in his stomach, turning and tightening. He ran to the elevator doors and opened them, using his gun as a kind of crowbar. He saw the image, like a photo snap. Through the thin slits of the metal elevator doors, he saw a body falling. Screaming. Echoing his pleading.


    Pop. The body fell.


    ¡°Fuck. Was that. That sounded like Trevor. That-¡± The partner said.


    ¡°Focus. We need to get the son of a bitch.¡±


    It was easy for the Commander to move. Easier, at least. His partner, who went a limp pace behind him, wore on his face something different. It was the look in his eyes, a confluence between sadness and growing insanity.


    Something worse than fear. Dread.


    It¡¯s not like either of them were sane men. Not as they dragged their flashlights up the emergency stairs. Not as they pointed at new-found bloody prints. Not as they followed the trail. Sane men, after all, don¡¯t chase death.


    The footprint continued for long stretches.


    Each step felt longer than the last. Talking to his partner proved to be worthless, it was like he wasn''t even there (his partner). His eyes were wide and beaming and blink-less. It was like he was staring at the sun, but the pain didn¡¯t matter anymore. His partner misstepped. He almost tripped, but grabbed himself by the rails. His gun and equipment hit the guard rail, it produced a rattle.


    "Shh," The Commander put a finger on his lips. They waited a bit. The leather straps, the metal making small noises as the silence filled the room and the last echo of their footsteps faded to obscurity. They looked at the center of the spiral stairs. Something was hitting the rails, falling. It wasn¡¯t a gun. It wasn¡¯t his teammate fucking up.


    A body dropped.


    "Fuck!" The Commander screamed.


    It went speeding past him, down the center of the stairs.


    They followed it down with their flashlights. And were nearly hit with the other half. It wasn¡¯t two men being thrown out, it was two pieces of a man. Upper and lower half. The partner stepped back and hugged a wall.


    "Hello?" The Commander pressed down on his intercom. "Is there anybody there?"


    Static. He wasn¡¯t sweating anymore. Sweat came with uncertainty, but there were no surprises left. Nothing, really left at all. He looked back.


    "What''s your name?" The Commander turned to the partner. His partner, whose gun shook and fumbled.


    "Henry," He said.


    "You ever been in war?"


    "No,"


    "I can tell. You don''t look it." The Commander said. "How''d you get in here then?"


    "I was in the army, but I d-d-didn''t deploy."


    "Oh," The Commander¡¯s voice went soft. "Do you have anything you want to live for?"


    "I''m not sure what kind of q-q-question that is, S-sir." Henry.


    "Do you even have any idea what''s going on?"


    "Huh?" That was it.


    Huh? As if the question itself had only just appeared in his mind and only then, here and now, did the partner (Henry. Henry, right.) get an opportunity to think on the subject. What was he doing here? Either of them? Money? A contract paid for? Loyalty? Revenge? Everything blended together, maybe, stuffed into the meat grinder and out.


    "Is this worth dying for?" The Commander asked.


    "Huh?" The Rookie said. His voice petered off, his mouth was agape, it stretched out his balaclava.


    "How about you think about this one real hard then? Just this one question," The Commander pumped his shotgun. "Do you want to fight or run?"


    He didn''t say huh. Henry stopped and looked down the stairs and then up where the railings hung bits of intestines from the falling body. Like clothes left on a line to dry, the bowels of Trevor hung. It was an organ trail, leading all the way up to Salome. He looked at the Commander (not in the eyes, that was hard). He just kind of looked to the corner of the floor and then immediately turned. He ran down. His steps speeding up as he approached the floor.


    After a few minutes, the Henry screamed. Then it was stifled, as if choked to an instant mute. A croak.


    "So that¡¯s how it is." The Commander said. He made his face stern. He couldn¡¯t understand how he¡¯d made it down so fast. He couldn¡¯t understand anything past this simple fact: it was his turn next.


    He slapped his own face, if and only if to summon what little savagery remained.


    "I was in the gulf, facing deserts and wild men," He said. "I''ve seen carpet bombs and tanks lined up like a fucking firing line. Who are you? Hmm? You¡¯re not as scary as that."


    He tightened his grip. His heart palpitations rose in tempo.


    "You''re a fucking choir boy, that''s it." He said. "A sick fuck, that''s all. A rich-boy punk preaching this God shit."


    He checked every knife and every bullet on his person. On his vest, he counted while cursing furiously at seeming darkness, as if the broadcast of his words were irrelevant now. And he inspected a pouch, one on his hips, a small one that carried nothing more than extra gloves and glasses. And from this pouch, he felt coarse sand. Black sand. Not a lot, not enough to notice in this stairway without light. But he saw it, and saw how slowly it rose from his pouch and went out and up. He chased it, upstairs, through a thin slit of a door.


    "So that''s how -" He had to breath. He felt hot in the cheeks. "That''s it? That''s how you''ve been finding us?"


    He almost wanted to laugh. He kicked his feet through the doors and shined the light on the sand, the thin particles that suddenly dropped onto the floor.


    "Where are you, huh?" He shined his light and saw the statues, giant women with urns in their hands pouring dry into an empty fountain. Long curtains stretched out midway, so that half the room was in light and the other half in darkness. He approached the windows. The design of which cut through the moonlight and made small squares upon the floor.


    He saw a shadow pass.


    "Come on, punk. Show yourself," He pumped his shotgun.


    ¡°Come on. Hit me. Go on.¡± Another shadow. He shot.


    The hand of a statue was blown away into marble chunks.


    There was a staircase? Oh. It was the hallway, the halls leading to each Wolfe¡¯s room.


    A noise. A flutter of steps.


    ¡°Hit me! I want you to do it, come you prick.¡±


    He shot again. Into darkness.


    "Do it. Show yourself. Do it!"


    And the curtains drew back behind him. He shot at them, at the glass. It made small holes in the fabric, and larger holes into the glass. He could hear outside now, the wind that blew casually.


    "How many sins have you come to suffer for?" A voice said. He turned. He shot at it. The statue face fell, it looked back at the Commander. Past it, deeper into obscurity, he saw green eyes. He shot at them. They disappeared. Then reappeared, in another corner. Closer. Closer now. "What have you come to confess, little lamb?"


    "Fuck you, motherfucker.¡± Again. His barrel exploded, the flash briefly showing Ritcher.


    Then nothing. Darkness returned. Like a photograph undeveloped. His heart was beating out of his chest.


    ¡°Show your face!" He screamed, more for himself.


    "You''re seeing it," Ritcher said. "You''re seeing the face of God. Closer. Closer now, little lamb."


    He pulled the trigger. He didn¡¯t mean, it just slipped. Like he didn¡¯t realize how hard he was pressing or something. Fuck. The butt of the gun hit his shoulder a way he wasn¡¯t ready for. And his ammo was gone.


    He was supposed to be experienced, right? A man tested of fear, right?


    He looked in his pocket for a slug to put inside his shotgun. Fuck, fuck. He dropped it, and knelt.


    The hot breath ran down his neck.


    "Today you will repent."


    That was it. His ticket, his turn.


    He didn''t know what it felt like, only that the touch was...cold...and coarse, like sand. A touch that did not last long.


    He was thrown, though didn¡¯t see where or understood how or for how long. Not at first at least.


    The most painful part of defenestration, after all, is hitting the glass.


    He felt that, the curtains wrapping around his body. The glass puncturing his body. Then wind. A steady stream of wind, hitting him and dragging the drapes like a cape.


    Gliding, like a bird. It felt like...relief.

 Lent 5

    The long doors of the elevator opened, from bottom to top. And his first step into the garden would tell Ritcher everything about the time he would have. Rather, by stepping into the garden and realizing nothing came at him, that his caution was undeserved, told him what kind of mentality Salome was. She was gentile, sitting in her rocking chair with her long sun hat, in the center of the garden. He came through, checking his footprints. There was blood pooled on the bottom. He took them off, then the large Kevlar chest piece, so all that he had to him was the black shirt stretched by his large figure, his pants, and his cane. He walked. Every footstep he left had in its crated small piles of black sand.


    He did not go with wild stride. Rather, he went slowly, admiring the primroses and honeysuckle and the persimmons and the apples. His bare feet touched soft grass, it was all transplanted but was so serene, so nice to walk through that anyone may have confused Salome¡¯s little greenhouse for the very garden of eve.


    He tried to touch a purple flower. The water system sprayed his hand as if to slap it away.


    Salome did not turn. Did not watch him come, she just sat rocking with her bottle of wine at her feet.


    "I always thought a heart attack would take me, considering all the work I do."


    ¡°You sound disappointed,¡± Ritcher said. ¡°If it¡¯s a consolidation, you didn¡¯t make it easy for me.¡±


    She offered the bottle to him. He turned it away.


    ¡°Lovely garden,¡± Ritcher said.


    ¡°I thought you were blind?¡±


    ¡°And these blind eyes can see many things,¡± Ritcher said. ¡°It¡¯s one of my gifts, I suppose you could say.¡±


    She drank from a glass cup, resting the crown on her lips to contemplate the drink. Closing her eyes, she drank it all and started pouring herself another. Ritcher could tell, by the quickness, by the heat of her body, how deep into the stupor she was.


    ¡°This is the last thing that was built when this tower was made.¡± She said. ¡°I made this. All of it. Your father never had the strength of will to do anything.¡±


    ¡°There, I agree.¡± He said. ¡°My father was many things, but ambitious was not one of them. Holy man. Disciplinary-¡±


    ¡°Drunkard.¡± She took another gulp. ¡°You forgot that one.¡±


    ¡°Father knew how to handle the Bible and the bottle, yes.¡±


    He walked opposite of her. She turned her body away, instead opting to stare at the horizon of flowers and past the vines and green tendrils, the high view of the city below.


    ¡°My father used to catch crabs in Louisiana.¡± She laughed, it was slow and minute. Almost like a mice squeak. ¡°Every morning he would go down to the docks on his little boat and start the rotor. And he would go off so far god-damn into the river that he¡¯d just disappear, like a blip falling off the globe. But he didn¡¯t go anywhere special, anywhere even close to the edge of the earth. He¡¯d just go to his damn cages. And his damn crabs. And he¡¯d do this all day and he¡¯d either come home with nothing or come home with arms so cut up by his rope and wire pulling that all he could do was ice them and go to sleep. And he did this. Every. Day.¡±


    She gulped.


    ¡°It scared me. Seeing something so repetitive scared me, how simple a man can be when he¡¯s comfortable in his misfortune. I hated him for that, for not having it in him the way I did.¡±


    He could not talk or interrupt a dead woman¡¯s words, that was the privilege he had given her. The podium, his ears. He laid down his cane and found a nice stone bench to sit down at and felt the grass underneath his feet and the air that came from the perforated ceiling above. He heard a bird. There were birds here too?


    ¡°Well one day, God decided to play a game and flooded the docks, our boat, our home, and¡­our crabs away.¡± She said. ¡°And you know what dad does the morning after the storm? Well, he goes to the edge of the overflowed river and looks for his damn cages. And his damn crabs. It¡¯s like the flood didn¡¯t even happen to him as if it was an inconvenience rather than the end all be all of our future. That was about the time I had enough. I ran away. I hitched rides. I did things¡­whatever¡­things were necessary to head west.¡±This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°There¡¯s still time to repent-¡±


    ¡°Stop your arrogance,¡± Salome said. ¡°I am Salome Irene Lafayette-Wolfe, and I ask for no one''s forgiveness.¡±


    The birds quit their playfulness, he heard them flap and go away. The disturbed branches reverberated a bit before succumbing to the stillness and tension.


    ¡°I met some black girls along the way, shared a room with them when we were out bargaining with truckers the way poor women do.¡± She said. ¡°They told me I was going to marry the kind of the desert. Funny, huh? Voodoo bitches, they were. And they were as far away from the truth as could be.¡±


    ¡°Father is the kind of the desert. Was.¡±


    ¡°Your father was an idiot.¡± She nearly leaped out of her seat. She used her hands to propel herself but fell back down. ¡°I met that fool when I was out prostituting. And I only slept with him once he started bragging - as men do when their bellies are full of fire - bragging, about some damn inn he owned.¡±


    ¡°I was raised there,¡± Ritcher said.


    ¡°Yeah? Well, I sold the dump. I did.¡± She said. ¡°Tom didn¡¯t do shit-all with his money. With his talents. With his future.¡±


    ¡°I made him go west.¡± She threw her glass at his direction, it broke in front of his feet. ¡°I told him to start the foundry. I told him to make a casino. Me. And no one else. I built everything-¡±


    ¡°You built a monument for your fear. So desperate to carve your name into the world, to mark the height of your pride that you changed father into a man he was never meant to be.¡±


    ¡°I made him give up the book and the bottle. As habits often come together, don¡¯t they?¡± She said. ¡°And he was better off for it! Happier, too! You know how many beatings it took for me to take? I couldn¡¯t fight back, I just was so damn tenacious his arm got tired one day. I was good at what I did.¡±


    ¡°Being a manipulator?¡± He asked.


    ¡°Being a king.¡± She said.


    ¡°So here we are.¡± He opened his hands and kicked his cane up to catch it.


    ¡°Here we are.¡± She drank from the bottle.


    ¡°Your last moments will be spent drunk?¡±


    ¡°I can barely stay conscious.¡± She swirved in her seat. ¡°I¡¯ve already done half the work for you.¡±


    ¡°Embarrassing. You have no words for Luanne?¡±


    ¡°Tell her and Ritcher-¡±


    ¡°Ritcher is dead.¡± He rubbed the tattoo across his arm and the new ink that grew towards his palms. ¡°I don¡¯t know who killed him, but I¡¯m certain he¡¯s dead.¡±


    She laughed. ¡°Right.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t mourn for him?¡±


    ¡°You want me to be honest?¡± She threw the bottle past him. ¡°The only person I liked was Junior. The rest were too embarrassing. Too flawed.¡±


    ¡°Too perverted.¡± He said.


    ¡°That stupid little bitch always was the instigator. I blame her for rotting Floyd.¡± She said. ¡°Parents despise their children more often than should be allowed. But you know that, don¡¯t you?¡±


    He rubbed the scars across his eyes.


    ¡°Like you ruined father.¡± He mumbled.


    ¡°You never loved him. You¡¯re just obsessed with him.¡± She said. ¡°Do you hate me for changing that man? For taking him from you?¡±


    He approached her and put a hand on hers. She tried to take it away, but he gripped it.


    ¡°Do you hate me for killing your precious son, Junior?¡±


    Her eyes widened, before they narrowed. She tried pulling harder.


    ¡°Of course it¡¯d be you.¡± She slapped him. His face kept approaching hers.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to take this casino from your corpse. I¡¯m going to level it. You¡¯ll pay for enabling the degeneracy of this city.¡± He said. ¡°I¡¯ll kill everything you¡¯ve worked for.¡±


    ¡°You arrogant.¡± She slapped him. ¡°Murdering.¡± She punched him. ¡°Bastard.¡±


    She spat at his face. He wiped it off with one hand, the one holding his cane. His iron grip tightened around her wrist.


    "I must do my part as a missionary." He said. "Like the pilgrims before me. Or the conquistadors. Or the Jews. I am here to rebuild, rebuild a faith lost. And like all revolutions, a cleansing of the old must be had.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a psychopath? You have no idea how crazy you are, do you?¡± She screamed. The heat emanated from her cheeks dispersed, the color faded. Her bony hands slipped away from his grip. She stood and walked backwards, far from him. Midway, she slipped on her heel. Her Achilles heel swelled, but she was too petrified to shout.


    She stood upright, his shadow enveloping her. The birds fluttered away, out the top of the dome-shaped greenhouse.


    ¡°I¡¯m the fate you feared.¡± He walked up, cane in hand. ¡°I am the flood.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll get yours!¡± Fear and anger rose in her voice. ¡°They¡¯ll get you, narcissist. I don¡¯t know who, but they will!¡±


    He approached her, smacking his cane against his palm.


    ¡°You don¡¯t scare me!¡± She screamed.


    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be afraid of me,¡± He rose his cane high above her. ¡°You should be afraid of what comes after.¡±


    She yelled. It was as much a warrior¡¯s cry as a death rally. And he let it down once. Her teeth collapsed into her throat, she coughed and struggled to speak.


    He raised it again, the wheezing almost sounding like a symphony to him.


    Cleansing was never always a job, he just happened to love his work.


    He rose the bloody cane once more. Smiling, though he didn¡¯t realize it.


    ¡°It¡¯s been a pleasure, Salome.¡±


    And she didn''t even have enough time to scream.

 Lent 6

    "What do you think is down here?" Dion asked.


    "Nothing Turnus wants found out, I can tell you that much."


    The entrance was near the gallery of alcohol bottles, most of them stiff and glued onto the counter. It was a door masquerading as a moving shelf, and it pushed to the right.


    Apollo looked straight into the entrance, his eyes peering into the nothingness.


    Dion punched the door frame, locking the mechanism in place. It¡¯d never close, not anymore.


    "Just in case, you know," Dion said.


    They walked down the darkness. The steps below made loud, metallic noises. The air was cold, and it smelled of¡­sweat.


    "You¡¯d think they¡¯d trip with how many fucking steps there are," Apollo mumbled. His eyes flashed red, though, even flared they didn¡¯t so much as see past his hands. No. He took out his flashlight and beamed it across the room.


    "Where are we?" Dion''s voice echoed.


    "Somewhere big," He said and looked around. There were stands around them and next to the wall, a fuse box with a giant switch. They pressed it down and watched it all light up. It was blinding at first, Apollo covered his eyes. He looked down at an angle and brought his face up. Around them was the stadium, quite literally. The large benches looking down, coming down at levels towards the center where there stood the round ring. There was blood in the sand. There were teeth too.


    And bones.


    "Bloodsports, probably," Apollo said.


    "Who''d kill themselves for money?"


    "There¡¯s too many answers to that question," Apollo said. "Anyone willing to kill for money isn¡¯t right of mind, or right of circumstance."


    "I wonder what this says about us, you know," Dion said. "You and me. The people watching. We can¡¯t be that much better."


    ¡°You finally said something smart,¡± Apollo said. Dion rolled his eyes.


    They looked at the stands, bottles of champagne and the exoskeletons of crabs and lobsters. Panties too and plenty of masks discarded. Condoms. Alcohol, tons of it. And even more intense smell of war and violence; sweat and blood and decomposing flesh.


    "People pay big money for this kind of stuff, I¡¯m guessing,¡± Apollo said. ¡°Probably funds whatever crazy shit Turnus has without having to put the money on tax reports. After all, these are all revenue streams for his ¡®bar.¡¯¡±


    He looked up to the giant television on the ceiling of the roof and the lights that came down at a harsh angle towards them. There were festival lights and around the perimeter were small torches where tiny flames rose from their gas pipes. A glass box above seemed to be the point of interest.


    "I have a feeling we interrupted something that was going to happen," Dion said.


    He looked down towards the Colosseum, another thing grabbing his attention, a giant metal door within the arena.


    "Or just came after one was done." Apollo walked down the steps.


    They went down to the pit at the center, the coarse sand was rough in their shoes.


    ¡°There¡¯s an entrance here.¡± Apollo looked to one end of the circular arena where a giant grate stood, with the holes on its metal face appearing like a pout. ¡°Or an exit.¡±


    Dion kicked the metal door inwards. Inside was dark, the few rays of light illuminated only the entrance. Dust followed them into the room like a slow-moving phantom.


    ¡°There¡¯s a bad taste in the air,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°It¡¯s all those cigarettes of yours. They¡¯ve burned a hole in your tongue.¡±


    He had to turn on his flashlight just to see, it seemed like a small hold for contesters. There were racks on the walls for weapons, lockers too. Boxing gloves, swords, guns even, filled the crooked racks hanging off the walls. There was a small fountain, with no running water but a wet pool still inside and placid. Apollo dipped his fingers in and rubbed them together.


    ¡°Oil.¡± He said. ¡°For greasing yourself¡­or your weapon.¡±


    Beyond it, chalk. Wraps, belts. So on.


    A door closed at the end of the room.


    They looked at each other in the you-go-check-it-out-first kind of way.


    ¡°We¡¯ll both go,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°As long as you¡¯re ahead,¡± Dion said.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Walking should have been easy, it wasn¡¯t that far of a distance, but the noise of something squirming and the noise of doors closing was enough to make them cautious. Apollo took a stone wall with how rusty and stubborn the hinges were. And the door whined. And he stepped through with the most gentle, careful step ever. As if the floor below him would crack if even the slightest strength was put against it.


    He scanned the room with his flashlight.


    It went eastward to westward -


    Stop!


    Something reflected back, a gleaning eye. He realigned the light toward the eye. The person seemed to move, running along to the corner.


    ¡°Stand the fuck still,¡± Apollo said. Dion took out his gun and prepped the hammer. The light shined down on the eye. Orange? One of them was at least. It gleaned and captured light like a singular cats eye. He closed the distance, hitting several things that in the darkness could have been anything. He put the flashlight back in his pocket, Dion was shining a light anyways. And when he put a hand on the person (what Apollo grabbed, he did not know), he was met with a small sting across his shoulder.


    He waved his arm. Fuck off. He hit whatever hit him, throwing it against the wall. And the person, in that darkness, yelped.


    Dion turned on a switch. The lights came on, bright and hot against them.


    ¡°What the fuck?¡± Apollo looked down. ¡°It¡¯s a boy.¡±


    It was a small boy with nothing to him but some stained, beige rags. Bony, dark bags around his eyes. He looked like he was wearing a potato sack. And next to him, a small bird, almost raven-like, paralyzed from the throw.


    ¡°Who is he?¡± Dion asked.


    Apollo looked back and forth to where the bird was struck, to where the boy was hurt. The back of their heads were both bleeding, the blood trickling down the boy. And the blood coming down on the bird''s beak.


    ¡°That¡¯s his familiar.¡± Apollo shook the boy''s shoulder. ¡°Isn¡¯t it? You¡¯re a Walker, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Walker? Those guys that summon demons?¡±


    ¡°Not summon, manifest them. He¡¯s a familiar.¡± He pointed to the bird, the bird who rose up and started hopping along and clawing at Apollo¡¯s feet.


    It didn¡¯t hurt, not compared to the other kind of trouble. Just some scratches, and the ripping of his shoe-leather. He grabbed the bird, a strong grip that contained the wings and only allowed the bird to twist his head and move his legs.


    And the boy was in pain.


    ¡°What¡¯s he doing down here?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°What do you think?¡± Apollo let the bird go into a flutter, his eyes keen on the observations of the creature. The bird had two eyes on each side, and they all looked crookedly at each direction before focusing on Apollo¡¯s face. He stood up. ¡°A familiar, who can invoke himself a personal spirit to life. What would someone with that kind of power be doing in a bloodsport arena? ¡±


    ¡°Are you saying he¡¯s a fighter here? This kid?¡± Dion asked. ¡°Like¡­it¡¯s like dogfighting¡­That¡¯s disgusting.¡±


    Apollo looked at the boy, dark-skinned with buzz cut approaching near-baldness. No older than fourteen, with dried blood on his mouth. He grabbed the boy by the chin. The crow kept flapping its wings and trying to defend its master, pecking at Apollo¡¯s hand. He waved it away.


    Apollo opened the boy''s mouth, prying it. No tongue. There was nothing but scar tissue and cauterized flesh across the wound where his tongue should have been.


    ¡°It looks like he didn¡¯t want to fight. Or he was disobedient, or just said something stupid at the wrong time.¡± Apollo put him down. The crow flew across, perching itself on the boy''s shoulder with a glare aping the boy''s same glare.


    ¡°So you¡¯ve got no mouth to speak with, huh?¡± Apollo said. ¡°Do you understand English?¡±


    The boy nodded his head, no. But given his frustration, the way he kept his glare and the look of utter contempt, he could have said no to anything.


    ¡°I¡¯m not the man who cut your tongue off, kid,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Let me handle this,¡± Dion came behind Apollo. ¡°Your bedside manners are god awful.¡±


    ¡°Alright. If that bird pecks your eye off, don¡¯t bitch at me.¡±


    Apollo put both hands on his shoulders. Dion knelt. He started to put his hand on the kid''s shoulder, which only made him swerve away. The crow chirped.


    ¡°We¡¯re not here to hurt you,¡± Dion said. The kid pointed his glare at Apollo. Apollo glared back, with squinted eyes. ¡°He¡¯s not here to hurt you either¡­he¡¯s just rough.¡±


    The boy¡¯s look came back down to Dion.


    ¡°I take it you understand a little English, right?¡±


    He nodded yes. The features on his face softened, softened to a grimace. Then a frown. Rage turned to steep depression. As if anger was the only thing maintaining that masquerade of courage and grit. The boy¡¯s face turned to sullen frown. His head declined, his shoulder eased.


    ¡°You¡¯re not from here though, are you? You¡¯re very far from home. Right?¡± Dion asked.


    The boy nodded yes.


    ¡°Kidnapped?¡±


    Yes.


    ¡°Kidnapped because of that bird, right?¡±


    Absolutely, yes. The only reason, yes.


    ¡°Do you have family?¡±


    No.


    ¡°You¡¯ll be fine. Okay? My name is Dion, what¡¯s yours?¡± He offered a pen and notepad to write. But the crow spoke, in broken speech.


    ¡°U-U-U-U¡± It looked like it was vomiting the words, its head jerking up and down. ¡°Uriel! Uriel! Cawww! Uriel!¡±


    ¡°Tucan Sam, over here.¡± Apollo clapped once.


    The bird swooped up and pecked him in the side of the head, before returning to the boy.


    ¡°Goddamnit-¡± Apollo rubbed his scalp.


    ¡°You deserved that.¡± Dion turned his face to the boy. ¡°We¡¯re going to get you out, okay? We have friends who can take care of you.¡±


    ¡°They might. Walkers and Familiars are something of a grey case for the church, we can try to take him in.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s scared out of his mind, and you¡¯re telling him this?¡± Dion asked. ¡°How mean can you be, really?¡±


    He turned to the boy. ¡°Don¡¯t mind him. Trust me. We can find you a place, something better than this arena. Somewhere where you won¡¯t get hurt.¡±


    He tried to grab the boys arm, who although softer, still struggled.


    ¡°My friends, they¡¯re not like the people here, I promise.¡±


    ¡°Really? They tried cutting our heads off-¡±


    Dion shot him a glare. The don¡¯t-open-your-mouth glare.


    Dion withdrew his arm, instead, offering his hand to be grabbed. ¡°If you want me to help, you have to trust me, okay?¡±


    The boy¡¯s trepidation did not allow him to so much as even look at the hand. Not at first, at least. The bird extended its wings, shielding or perhaps feigning some kind of might. But after another inspection. After glancing back and forth, the boy''s resistance faded. It took minutes. It took a while, really for him to warm up. For his cheeks to return some color.


    But kind tenacity is the stuff that weathers people, that kills that walls around them. Kind tenacity alone.


    The boy looked up, he took Dion¡¯s hand.


    ¡°I hate babysitting,¡± Apollo said. He looked to the rest of the small space, the cages and the blood and the ¡®tools¡¯ (because he couldn¡¯t come up with another name for them, torture devices was also something that came up). Pliers, syringes, scalpels; it was all here.


    ¡°But I guess it¡¯s better than leaving him here.¡± And Apollo looked down another door, through the small gaps in the metal door. The prison bars, as they looked. He looked down, and his eyes saddened. He turned around to Dion, his face translating all the despair beyond that door in ways words could never. ¡°There¡¯s no one left. Trust me. Let¡¯s go.¡±

 Lent 7

    "It''s like a dungeon down here." Apollo walked over the stairs, going towards the top and a small little way that lead to the glass box.


    "Can you believe Turnus would do this? I thought he was weird...but this...this..."


    "I''m not surprised though, I knew the minute I talked to that piece of shit that he was bad news. Human trafficking is something else though." Apollo said.


    "I don''t know. What would he want with this? What does a man who''s already rich want with this kind of business, I''d guess it''s more of a liability than anything good." Dion helped the child upstairs. The crow flew across the room, with a kind of joy and squealing bliss that you could only find from a freed beast. They weren''t open skies (they were still within the confines of an underground arena) but they might as well have been.


    "Who knows? Sadism? That''s my guess. He probably gets a kick out of being owning people." Apollo said.


    "Do you think he''s evil enough to kill his dad then? Do you think it was him?"


    "I think he''s more than capable of being Thomas Seniors killer. I think he did it too, I don''t know how but he did," Apollo came to the door which strictly read ''VIP only.'' "When I find him, I''ll be more than happy to ask him myself."


    Apollo punched a hole through the wooden door, he moved his fingers around, struggling to find the lock to disengage. With a click, it opened. The air smelled strongly of cigars, the kind of musk that doesn''t seem to rise, that lingers near the atmosphere as if chained to the very ground below. There were tables of alcohol, leather sofas, and giant television screens. Ornate carpet, shiny and chrome silverware gave the small room a kind of opulence missing from the savagery below. Truly, a despot kings quarter.


    There was a door at the end of the room. Apollo went to it.


    "Time to investigate," Apollo said. He kicked the door open, a move that he was sure he enjoyed more than he should have. There was a stretch of hallway, along both sides were doors leading to private quarters. They were open, and inside were small love beds or stripper poles or dressing rooms. Sometimes...awful things too. Things involving whips and knives and weights and clamps; perversions that seemed to scare the boy, who held Dion''s arm tighter when he passed them along the halls. But no one inside. No, it was only at the end of the hallway that they saw the curious thing.


    A room, open with an open slightness so small only a tiny line of light could shine through. Overlayed, covering this light, was a shadow moving with sporadic rush across the room. He was screaming.


    ¡°I can¡¯t do that-¡± His voice was wheezing, each letter taking a breath away. ¡°You can¡¯t make me. I shredded everything you told me, I risked myself! Staying here! You can¡¯t just tell me-¡± He said. ¡°Wait. What?¡±


    His voice softened. Apollo approached the door, telling the other two to wait with a simple finger point. He tip-toed to the door, putting his hand against it gently.


    ¡°You¡¯ll do what?¡± The man gasped. ¡°Please, not to them. You can¡¯t mean-¡±


    The supiscious man paused. He was talking on the phone, it was loud, as if on speaker.


    ¡°And if I kill myself, will it take all my burden away? Will it keep my daughter safe?¡±


    Those were the words Apollo needed to hear to break through the door. The man turned, in shock, the phone dropped and dangling by the tableside. The man looked at Apollo, then turned his gaze to the tabletop where a revolver rested. He rushed to it. It must have been a few yards between Apollo and the man, at least that¡¯s all he could figure in the short time. It was too long a distance to run, even with his speed. So he did all he could really do, he reached inside his coat and took out his blade. It came out, the long iron, massive and overbearing. He twisted his feet, shifted his momentum and threw his blade with a quick stride. It flew across the room towards the desk, shattering it to dust and splinters. The bullet casings, the gun, scattered and flew off.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    The man fell to the floor. There was nothing, and he noticed it quickly, he rushed for the gun now in the corner of the room. He made it only a small crawl before Apollo put his foot down on the man''s heel.


    ¡°What happened?¡± Dion rushed in.


    ¡°I think I caught someone.¡± He looked at the small office, there were plenty of curiosities each worth their own interrogation; a vault, shredded papers, the gun, and plenty of alcohol.


    The man tugged at Dion¡¯s pants. His eyes were wide, his face was sharp and tense and tight like a feral animal. And he pointed at the men held down on the floor.


    ¡°Take yourself and the kid away,¡± Apollo said. ¡°I need to talk to him.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to kill him, right?¡±


    ¡°That depends on him.¡± He knelt down, going eye to eye with the man¡¯s disheveled face. It was fat, swollen. Like a chipmunk. ¡°Doesn¡¯t it?¡±


    When Dion was gone, and the door closed, Apollo lifted the trash from the floor from the cuff of his suit. A cheap blazer with a black shirt and a gold chain across.


    ¡°What do you know about Turnus?¡± He asked.


    ¡°N-Never heard of him.¡± Apollo slammed the man against the wall. ¡°Yeah, the people here have a tendency to forget their boss. Either it¡¯s a bad case of dementia or an even worse case of tight lips.¡±


    ¡°What we do here-¡± The man swallowed spit. ¡°Is a private affair. I¡¯ll happily surrender myself to the police, but I won¡¯t talk without my lawyers-¡±


    ¡°Is this a fucking joke?¡± Apollo slapped him. ¡°What do I look like?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    He slapped him again.


    ¡°I asked you, what do I look like?¡±


    The man looked down, then up.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡± He punched him in the liver. The man coughed something up, it expanded his cheeks, but he kept it in his shut mouth and swallowed. ¡°Then why the fuck would you think I¡¯m police?¡±


    Apollo dropped him. Let him breathe and cough and vomit. Only for a moment, only to remind the drowned man what air tasted like, before grabbing him again and plunging his face down into doom.


    ¡°I know what you do down here.¡± Apollo grabbed him by the hair. ¡°I know what you sell and who you abuse. For what, for whom. I know everything about you, scum. I smell it in the air, the putrid shit. I taste it from your sweat, I see it in your eyes. You''re god fucking awful, I know that. What I need to know is who enabled your behavior and where they¡¯re at.¡±


    ¡°I-I don¡¯t know!¡±


    Apollo raised his head, closed his eyes and sighed. Dion, from behind the door, said simply; ¡°Remember what I said. Don''t do it.¡±


    ¡°Shut up,¡± Apollo shot back and carried the man to the only half of the table still remaining.


    He rubbed his fingers down the man¡¯s fat belly, stopping at the lowest rib on his cage. He got a good grip of it in between his fingers.


    ¡°Each lie you tell me will cost you,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And I can tell a lie from a mile away. It¡¯s my job, so don¡¯t test me.¡±


    The man¡¯s cheeks shook, the sweat piled underneath his eyes.


    ¡°Do you know who Turnus is?¡±


    ¡°No!¡±


    It went snap. The man wheezed, a never-ending gasp. Apollo raised his hand to the second to last rib.


    ¡°Did Turnus give you the money to fund all this?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know who Turnus is!¡±


    Crack. The man tried to push Apollo off. He became aware of the futility immediately when he looked with tired eyes at Apollo¡¯s unchanging scowl.


    ¡°You have two sides, I¡¯m more than happy to start on the other one.¡± He shifted his hand, the left portion of his ribcage now.


    ¡°Do you know where Turnus is?¡±


    ¡°No! No!¡±


    Apollo squeezed.


    ¡°I¡¯m telling the truth!¡± The man said.


    ¡°What do you know, and you answer now, or I¡¯ll make sure your ribs stab your lungs with each fucking breath you take.¡±


    The man looked left to right, anything to avoid Apollo¡¯s gaze.


    Apollo squeezed his fingers, almost rubbing and toying with the bone.


    ¡°Do you really want to find out what it feels like to have your lungs filled with blood?¡±


    ¡°His girlfriend!¡± He shouted out. ¡°I know where his girlfriend lives. That¡¯s it! I promise.¡±


    Of course, the eccentric girl living him. He remembered her, even in the darkness of that loud room.


    ¡°Alright, stop talking.¡±


    ¡°You gotta keep me safe!¡± The man grabbed Apollo by the clothes like a beggar thrown at him, desperate and alone. ¡°He¡¯ll kill me.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s your fucking problem.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m dead if I talk!¡±


    Apollo slammed his neck down on the table.


    ¡°You¡¯re dead if you don¡¯t talk,¡± Apollo screamed, he kept his grip.


    ¡°Alright. Alright. Alright alright alrightalrightalright,¡± The words came with such quick intensity like bullets in a machine gun. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you, I¡¯ll tell you where Dolores lives.¡±


    And he stayed quiet to listen.

 Lent 8

    See? See? I told you! I told you he left. Ritcher crawls away, far from father and further from Turnus.


    Where''d you go, boy? Thomas waits in his leather chair with a belt in his hand, the room smells of cheap beer. He can only describe it urine and of salty ocean water. Mother must be crying.


    I just went to the dance.


    With that poor whore, you''re seeing? Right? He gestures at Turnus. A wave, come here, come here. And Turnus stands still in the door frame. Outside, windy storms and the sound of maples hitting electrical wires.


    Or was it with the boy? Hmm? You don''t think I know? You don''t think I see your oddness? You''re a crooked aberration, the mirror misaligned from what you should have been. Come here![/b] He hits the floor with your belt. I''m going to beat the deviltry out of you. I''ll choke it out if I have to. Come here I said!


    The door closes behind him, he wishes he had ran. But Turnus moves forward. Little Ritcher is in his pajamas, he can''t bear to see his brothers face. Because his brother, Turnus, is glaring mostly at him now.


    "We''ll be there soon, the casino is only ten minutes away." Turnus turned to the pair. "You kill him - you buy your freedom. You fail - you die. You run away - you''ll wish you died."


    They nodded. Dark skinned youths, though they don''t wear shackles around their arms, it''s obvious what chains them. The look of a slave was upon their faces; it is the look of hopelessness, of blind obedience, and of hostility too. A little anger, just a smudge in the corner of their eyes.


    He slaps the boy before he whips him.


    You''ve too many sins to pay for tonight, Turnus! You don''t think I know about your escapades with the thing in the barn?


    He''s not a thing! He''s my older brother, there ain''t nothing wrong with him ei-


    He can''t finish. The belt hit his mouth because even drunks can aim well if they''ve practiced enough. And father, Thomas Sr., has had plenty of practice to hit his child in drunken stupors. He probably aims better that way.


    He ain''t of my seed, you hear me? He''s your mother''s failure, not mine. So ain''t your brother either, how does that feel? He hits him. The belt drags against the flesh in his arm, he places the hot leather on Turnus''s shoulder so he can feel the sting contrast against the worn, cracked belt. Then, as if kissing his arm with the belt, he draws it back and slams it down. It''s the only love he''s ever known.


    And if she has her way, that bitch will ruin you too. You don''t think I know where you get your queer thoughts? She''s the reason you fool around with half the town. Boy and girl. Her and that abomination she birthed from her filth. Him. Him. Her! Her! He whips. He whips. He whips! HE WHIPS


    And it comes like a crack of thunder set against dark skies, and it feels like numbing blizzard-snow burying his body, and he''s reddened all over his chest and arms and face like an animal pegged with the arrow shot.


    Stop hitting him, Tom! His mother walks in. He wished he wished he wished she hadn''t.


    "You be careful when you face him, I don''t know what he''s capable of," Turnus told his slaves.


    "Don''t you worry, he''ll be dead." Their eyes were empty, and the way they turned their heads was mechanical. It seemed that even to themselves, they weren''t human.


    The passing lights of a car flashed in his rear mirror. It looked like a little candle in the hands of a monastery man. A monk''s dying flame in the study.


    It wasn''t dark, but quickly getting there. The sky bled its color out into the evening sky, past the plateaus of desert mountain ranges, lowering itself to the small hands of cactus plants. Best now than any other time.


    "He''s your brother." The other slave says, in the back.


    ¡°And?¡± Turnus asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m just saying.¡±


    "Good thing I didn''t ask you to think." Turnus pointed his finger down to a button in a remote held by his right hand. He flashed it. It had a dial, and on the two slaves were the small chokers they instinctively grabbed. They looked decorative but were anything but. "I don''t want your questions or statements. You can blabber away when you''re fucking free."


    The other slave, the one in the front, dogged the girl in the back. He looked angrier about it than Turnus.


    Their orange eyes looked like pieces of copper logged in the hollows of their skulls. They look like the sun a bit, a sun now setting down on the highway and down the side of the casino El Rey.


    Turnus looked at the casino, it seemed staggered, crooked in a way.


    It can''t even stand straight when she walks down the stairs


    Stop hurting him. Mother has dried her tears, most of them. He''s done nothing wrong but be himself.


    Being himself is what''s wrong. Father turns the whip to her. He got this queerness from you, these weird ideas, the drawings in his room. The books he reads. All this. He raises Turnus by the arm. He''s got a fake tattoo on his arm, from the dance where the girls were putting them for fun on their partners. From you! So don''t you come in here, begging for the boy when it''s your fault he''s not saved in the first place.


    Please, Tom. He didn''t do nothing wrong. He just went out! A few hours over curfew, a little fun. That''s it! Nothing under the good Lord would call that wrong.


    Don''t you talk about the good lord and what''s wrong or right? What''s a bitch like you know about morality? Huh? You should be sorry too. Sorry for these awful kids! Sorry! Sorry! You sow! And he stands up from his chair and pushes Turnus aside because the punishment no longer belongs to him. Though, seeing his father move towards his mother, he still feels hurt. As if the stinging marks across his arms and shoulder and face have gotten some kind of second-wind of pain. Because seeing mother step back, hit the wall and knock over the picture frames hanging from unsteady nails, he can''t help but feel pain. Seeing mothers face, the tight face, the shivering eyes that look around for help. And he begs, begs though he can not say itUnauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    don''t look at don''t look don''t look at me


    Father approaches her, locks her in the cage of his arms and grabs her.


    don''t look at me mom don''t look at me I just can''t take your stare I just wanted to go out I wanted to see what people who have fun so please don''t look at me like I can do something, please don''t


    And of course her eyes fall on him, and he can''t help but stand up. Father readiest the belt above his head.


    She''s staring at her son, asking to be defended. Well, Turnus never asked for help. That''s what he wants to say, but can''t.


    No. He says the dumbest thing he can.


    Stop. He says. No one listens, there''s no strength his words. None of that conviction that he finds in fathers preaches, because father readies words with violence. Because of violence. Yes, violence is the only authority that matters in this world. It is that which compels man to do anything, violence, and violence alone. Morality is violence. Right is violence. Violence. Blood. Belt. The choking. The beating. Yes. He understands at that moment, with Ritcher behind the couch, his cowardly eyes looking at father. He understands what a little fear can do.


    Father brings the belt down on mother''s bundled up brunette hair. A pop, straight to the face. her hair dismantles, there are four weak bangs, wavy and dangling from the front of her head. The rest of her hair is frazzled by the blow, disheveled.


    Tom! Please, not in front of the kids, please! She screams in between turning her face away and putting her only free hand in front of her. She tries to push her body away from him, but she doesn''t have the strength to free herself of his grip.


    He ain''t a boy! And you ain''t-a woman worth stopping for, Cassy. He slams down, it hits her eye. The blood streams down her eyelid forming a kind of line against her pale skin, a line crossed a long time ago. Her face doesn''t stay white for long. It''s red after a few blows, red and streaked black from mascara. It''s the seventh time he will swing down now, and experience tells Turnus that it''ll be about halfway there before the old man is just too tired to hit back. And if it weren''t for his beer belly, and his strained smoked-lungs and age, then he could go for another forty.


    But he can''t wait that long. Not today.


    I said stop!


    Turnus parked in the garage which seems eerie with all the empty vans as opposed if there were no vans at all; the space left by a few dozen people disappearing all of a sudden. Nothing so much as leakage greets them; the titter prattle of excited sewage rain that runs down from floor to floor, from the cracks above to the crack below, carrying with it the stench of alcoholics and vomit and the other smells people leave in abandoned parking lots.


    "He can be anywhere in that there big building, alright? You''ll have to find him first. Track him down." Turnus said. "You''ve got the rest of the day to do the job, but try to be quick about it. He''s smart. Clever. Shifty, though he preaches against shiftiness.


    "Does he have a range, do you know anything?"


    "No, but I don''t think that''d stop you two, right? You''re very capable people after all." He said. "That''s why I gave you two names compared to the others. Because warriors deserve names."


    They looked at him, their faces up. In their hands, a small steak knife. They dragged it across their scarred palms, the purple-dark skin. They didn''t flinch. Cutting themselves seemed as natural as breathing, another process of the body.


    "Kacey." Turnus turned to the boy. "Jaimi." He turned to the girl. Dark haired, with hair almost similar in length. Twins. Fraternal, of course.


    "I hope the night is good to you two. He should be exhausted by now," Turnus said. "If there''s any comfort, take that. He''s a loudmouth who pretends God. He ain''t no God though, trust me."


    "We''ll bring his head back," Kacey said.


    Jaimi turned her head to the empty vans and the lifeless soldiers around her, the wind goes through them and the car. There''s a quarantine of yellow tape and blockades, a force field paid with real money by Salome who at must have believed she would have lived. So not even the police have come to inspect.


    Another gust blew. Equipment, straps, dangling metal pieces ring from within the metal vans like whispers of the dead. It sounds like chimes.


    "Yeah," Jaimi said.


    They walked straight through the army of bodies like they weren''t even there, their eyes don''t even turn away. They''re so tired and dead and accustomed to death. Their eyes carry the experience of the life of colosseum fights in them. That''s what makes them so heavy and dark and baggy.


    With the white rags and boots and baggy pants, they almost looked like cleaners.


    Turnus looked down at his watch. Six, about the time for the sun to get dragged down.


    Stop I said!


    It looks like a comet when Turnus picks up the lamp, wire still connected. It looks hot and glowing, and it must be heavy for his skinny arms. So he uses both hands. And he runs behind. And father turns his head. He must move. But he¡¯s holding the whip and still holding mother.


    So he can¡¯t help but get hit across the face. And the bulb can¡¯t help but break against his cheeks. He screams. Turnus drops the lamp and takes a few nervous steps back.


    You son of a bitch!


    Turnus can¡¯t even believe he¡¯s done it. Ritcher comes in, he pounces on Turnus¡¯s body and pushes him down. He¡¯s younger, but already the muscle difference shows. A fourteen-year-old boy can be plenty strong.


    Do you see what you¡¯ve done? He turns to face Cassidy. She can¡¯t believe it herself and gasps when her father¡¯s blood begins to spill like ink drops against the parchment-colored carpet floor. It is written here, Turnus has smitten his father.


    Thomas Sr. wipes it with his fingertips and looks at it, astonished-like, with his mouth ajar, and his eyes focused keenly on Turnus. He can¡¯t move. He sits still, the broken lamp to his side and turning back and forth as it rolls and hits the floor and rolls back.


    My own son, spilling his own families blood upon the homestead. The devil! You''re the devil! My son is corrupt!


    I''m s-sorry.Turnus inches away with his feet, black dance shoes with droplets of blood.


    Why, I can¡¯t keep you here no more.His voice is cold and low, it¡¯s the first time Turnus has heard it that way. I must send you away, far from your mother''s influence. I must have you learn the only way you can. For only loneliness waits for those who betray their kin. For betrayal is the greatest sin of all.


    He grabs Turnus by the shirt.


    I¡¯m sorry!


    You¡¯ll be fine. You¡¯re going with your brother, ain¡¯t that what you want?


    The mother has broken down, fallen on her knees and enwrapped herself in her frail arms. She can''t do anything now.


    Stop! I didn¡¯t mean it. Ritcher, Ritcher! Say something won¡¯t you?


    And Ritcher stares, fear and cowardice and regret and anger all flashing like passing film frames.


    You won¡¯t be leaving any time soon, your exorcism must be severe.


    It¡¯s the longest trip through the kitchen, the longest trip through the garden and the grass. And he knows where it ends. It ends somewhere in the back, near the tool shed and with disgusting closeness to the garbage, somewhere near where the creaky chained door laughs and begs for him. But Turnus cannot stop. He''s pulled by his hair, he can''t pry the grip. And he begs. And he cries.


    Ritcher! Ritcher! Ritcher, please!


    Turnus looked upon the casino as the two entered the self-moving doors. They had to push them open, the electricity long since out. He looked through his pocket for a cigarette and held it in between lips.


    ¡°You¡¯ve had this coming for a while, little brother,¡± Turnus said. He took a puff and let it burn his lungs good before exhaling. ¡°I don¡¯t even hate you, really. I just hate myself for letting you become what dad wished he always was. That - that - is my greatest failure. It''s what got mom and our older brother killed. You. Your cowardice, your propensity for authority. You''ll pay for it all, I promise."

 Lent 9

    They came to the small house in the outskirts of the town, where the roads give into the deserts urges and reduce to yellow plains. There are few markings here, most of them are left by other tires and the dragging carcasses of birds and small rodents. Roadkill, splatted, flattened carrion like convenient, fast food for vultures. Behind them, a sign that reads "Heading onwards to Las Vegas" - they''ll never reach the city. Their path snags to the right of that sign, out to empty planes.


    They stopped in front of a small street, the chain link fences were misaligned across the six houses they saw. There was a small gas station nearby. It wasn''t the afterbirth of the Casino El Rey, it was worse. Like the rotting umbilical cord of the afterbirth of Casino El Rey. A barren little hub of buildings.


    They walked and stopped in front of a particularly yellow painted house. The numbers in front of the lame mailbox were slanted, crooked. ''364'' and a 3 that hung by the end.


    It was their mark.


    The sun beat on them hard, they could feel the hot air flex around them. Wind blew sand across their suits and faces. Apollo closed his eyes.


    "This is giving me D¨¦j¨¤ vu," Apollo said.


    "You weren''t the one that got stabbed in the abdomen."


    "No, I was just the guy who went through hell to save your ass, buddy." Apollo slapped him across the chest.


    "You don''t have to rub it in every time." Dion walked towards the patio of the home. It all seemed done in adobe. It had that rustic Spanish antiquity about it.


    "So, do we like, knock or something?" Dion asked. Apollo sighed and scooted him aside. He put his hand on the doorknob to turn, of course, it was locked. He expected that. So he pushed his shoulder into the mesh door and into the wooden door behind it until they both collapsed into themselves.


    "There." He said.


    "Don''t you have any kind of appreciation for privacy? It''s always kicking...or tackling...or caving in..." He walked into the kitchen. Dion was close behind him. "Or punching...or stabbing..."


    Apollo looked around the decor of the room. No televisions, nothing that would require electricity save for the lights. To the side was a grandfather clock, the arm perpetually stuck to the right side, unable to tick the seconds down. Well, it seemed apt. It seemed like time had never moved for this little house.


    There were stairs, white guard rails leading up. There were mats and rugs of lion fur. And cacti. Plenty of them, by the window sills. The kitchen wasn''t much better, a fridge left cracked open and some table chairs left to their side on the floor. Empty plates in the sink collected buzzing flies.


    And Dion, close behind him.


    "Sometimes you even rip doors off. Have you ever just opened a door normally, Apollo?"


    "Shut up." He said, his gloved fingers felt every inch of the sink and table. A heavy film of musk left itself on his fingers. "It''s like no ones ever lived here. And yet it''s all in chaos. A stampede wreckage left alone for decades, it feels. I can''t imagine anyone lives here."


    "Maybe they''re upstairs." Dion shrugged.


    "And with your blabbering mouth, I''m sure they''ve already heard us."


    "Oh, so it couldn''t have been you crashing in through the door again?" Dion smiled, rather smug. Apollo walked past him, to the stairs and pressed down on every creaky plank of wood on the way there. Before him, the bathroom stall and next to it, a bedroom.


    There was a cord to the attic dangling in front of him.


    If Apollo were honest, he''d had said he was expecting a corpse up there.


    "You first," Apollo said.


    "No, I insist." Dion passed the cord.


    Apollo sighed and drew the cord, the stairs slammed in front of his feet. They felt slippery, one step almost made him trip.


    He popped his up the dark attic and found -


    Nothing. Not even a ghost. Just foam, spider webs.


    He stepped down


    The bathroom next. Dion opened it.


    "No ones in the tub," Dion said.


    The last room was the bedroom. It wasn''t flattering, rather, it was plain. A wardrobe dresser (there was eyeliner and roux still left on the table) and...nothing.


    Floral patterned wallpaper covered the square.


    "Maybe they''re underneath the bed?" Dion asked.


    "Are you joking or being honest?" Apollo asked.


    "Half and half."


    Dion knelt and nodded his head no. And Apollo stepped towards the hallway. He heard a crunch underneath his foot, an electrical wire clung to his heel. He took his foot off it and followed it, all the way past a small shelf of dolls. They were lined up - some of them were knocked on their side. The piece was offset from the floor as if dragged and Apollo felt the air draft hit his thigh. He moved the shelf, pushing it with his shoulder. Two doors waited for him, a closet. He nodded towards Dion, Dion nodded back and kept his hands inside his coat, securing the handle of his pistol.


    Apollo opened the closet.


    He got a lamp straight to the face, the bulb breaking across his forehead. He drew his head back.


    "Ow." He said, slowly coming forward again. The woman was already running by then. Dion clamped down on her arm.


    "Hold on, you can''t do that and not say sorry," Dion said. Half in seriousness.


    Apollo''s eyelids flickered, the glass coming out like brilliant rain.


    He rubbed his eyes.


    "I think the attic was your best chance," A chunk of glass raised itself from his skin and fell. Then most came out from his lips. And finally, he rubbed the inside of his mouth with his tongue. He pushed out glass lodged in his cheeks. It plopped on the floor.


    "Get away from me!" The woman screamed, she had a familiar face, someone he remembered seeing, the memory came with club music and the moody blue light.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "Oh, oh. I remember you." He stepped up, his face releasing the smoke and the cuts slowly healing before her. She couldn''t even struggle anymore, not at the sight.


    "What the fuck-" She reeled back from Apollo. With her other hand, she tried pulling from Dion''s grip. Hot blood fell on the floor, steaming red from Apollo''s face. "Get away! Away!"


    "Remember me?" He asked.


    Her eyes widened.


    "What are you?"


    "I''m a detective. From the church. We need to have a long talk about your¡­ boyfriend."


    ?


    "So, what was your first name?" Apollo asked. "The one you were born with."


    It''d been thirty minutes. They hadn''t gotten far in the conversation.


    "The one that doesn''t belong to me," She nearly spat at his face, the words were so venomous like a snake hiss. "Not anymore."


    "Sure."


    She sat in the chair opposite from Apollo. Dion stood with his hands against the sink, the flies scattered about them, too afraid to approach the girl. Apollo stepped with his leg up and down.


    "Why do you want to know this?"


    "Knowing is my job," Apollo said. "And when you have a boyfriend this big into trouble, knowing each detail is necessary. I need to know everything about you."


    "Fuck off." She said.


    "That''s not too polite," Dion said, softly, behind her. He looked inside the fridge, grime kept the door stuck to the interior. Pushing the fridge door open only stretched out this slime and revealed a rancid smell too indescribable. It was a medley of strawberries, of beef, of milk; all rancid.


    "Did you just move in here? Or are you that forgetful?" Apollo said. "I''m guessing he moved you here? Turnus that is."


    "I can''t remember." She said. "I don''t know anything. I don''t know what I am to him."


    She said in half-loyalty and half actual consideration.


    "Well, I know you fuck him. But that doesn''t tell me anything." Apollo said.


    "Be a little more polite, would you?" Dion asked. Dolores sat stiff, with her fingers locked and placed in front of the table.


    "You''re not getting anything out of me." She said. "Stop trying, I won''t say a word about my babe."


    Apollo stood and put his foot on the table, directly in front of her. He knelt his head down to her height.


    "Your babe, huh."


    Her face was mismatched. One side was beautified with contours and eye shadow and all shades of color - blue and purple, sharp lines. The other half, less so. The other half hadn''t had the time to dress itself, her eyes in this half were dead-looking. And weak. She turned away from his all-seeing gaze.


    "You don''t strike me as a bad person, and I mean that sincerely. That''s why I''m not mad that you broke a lamp over my fucking head." He said.


    "You sound mad," Dion said.


    "That''s why I''m not going to hurt you or break you or scare you to some kind of submission." H put his foot down. "Because I think you - contrary to everyone in this shitty town and that shitty tower - I think you are moral."


    Her shoulders tightened. Her chin went down to her chest, she looked down.


    "So when I asked you what your name was, it''s really just to warm you up. I know you''re Dolores." He said. "What I really want to know is how you met him and more importantly, why someone like you would ever stay with him? You don''t have a killer''s eyes or a killers ambition. So it couldn''t have been money. Or power. Was it just because he paid for your sex change?"


    "I used to be Dwayne." She mumbled. Her voice grew to outrage. "And - And I didn''t change because of him! I was always this person...I was always Dolores. I just...didn''t have the money, the resources to be her." She said. "He helped me."


    "Why?" Apollo said.


    Dion played with his hands, turning and fidgeting. There was grime on his hands, it wouldn''t come off.


    "Because we fell in love, I think."


    "You think? People are either in love, or they''re not." He said.


    "I don¡¯t know." Her breath left, escaping her mouth with slow strain. ¡°I can say we were in love.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯d that happen? The freak seems too angsty for something as regulating as love. I can''t imagine he''d come home early for anyone.¡±


    ¡°He was never like this, you know that, don¡¯t you?¡± She asked.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know much besides the fact that he¡¯s a bad person.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s not bad!¡± She jerked her head to scream, but hesitated and retracted slowly. ¡°At least he used to be good. At least half decent.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t imagine.¡± Dion chimed.


    ¡°I bet you didn¡¯t know he saved me? I bet you didn¡¯t know we met in a shit hole in Mississippi. Hmm?¡± She went back and forth between the two. ¡°Yeah. It went like this, me in the back of a concert with a drunk date who¡­couldn¡¯t handle who I was at the time. Said I tricked him, said I was a man and beat me half to death before Turnus stepped in. Would have killed me. Turnus fought him- he lost, but he fought. That¡¯s the type of mine he was, that¡¯s the man I fell in love with. The one who helped people like me.¡±


    ¡°Who else did he help?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°The poor, orphanages. More than just donations too, actual help. Working the lines, offering to teach the kids, helping monasteries¡­that was Turnus. He always said he had an obligation to the strange and exiled.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t fucking believe it one bit,¡± Apollo said. ¡°He told me himself, he¡¯s a hedonistic monster who needs a glass in one hand and a nice ass in the other. That¡¯s the way he came off, at least. A rich, pervert scumbag.¡±


    ¡°I swear he wasn¡¯t like that! I swear!¡± She said. ¡°He didn¡¯t change until his mom died. That¡¯s when it all went to bad. Real bad.¡±


    ¡°Was she killed?¡±


    ¡°No. No! She just lost her mind one day. Schizophrenia, I think. She started talking about weird stuff. Said the Devil was in her head. I didn¡¯t understand not even she died. Never will, I think.¡± She said. ¡°Threw herself out the window. Three stories down... Turnus said the devil was his dad, and then it''s like he threw himself out too, right out of the little sanity he had left.¡±


    She looked down at the table. Dion worked the faucet for some hot water and started on a cup of coffee. The filter, the cup, all that. The clinks and clanks of cookware moving, all behind Apollo as he sat down across from her. She didn¡¯t speak. Not until the steaming black sludge was in front of her face. And even then, she didn¡¯t drink it, only looked at it. The fumes rose up past her face.


    ¡°Turnus changed,¡± She said. ¡°And it happened so slowly I couldn¡¯t even realize it, maybe I could have stopped it if I had.¡±


    ¡°You couldn''t have,¡± Apollo said. ¡°No one could have. Anger is a stubborn thing in a man - especially a man.¡±


    She slid the cup away with the back of her hand, her shoulders drooped.


    ¡°His transformation was like ocean corrosion. You can spend all day admiring a cliff side, the shoreline, all that beauty. And the next days, it¡¯s eaten away. You don¡¯t notice it, of course. You never do. So it happens the next day too - a little gets eaten away. So slowly. So carefully. By the time you¡¯re old and dying, you finally realize that the thing, the man, you''re waking up to isn''t even there anymore. Just drowned, eaten by wind and water. Gone. Corroded. Turnus was eaten away, and I didn''t even realize it. It took me two years to finally found out he was drinking and sleeping around. Then we moved here and ever since then...he''s just...gone."


    Apollo paused. Palpable air compelled him to silence, Dion¡¯s glare secured him in it. It wasn¡¯t until she was sniffling and tearing up that he decided to move forward, to press, like a dog. Slobbering about, his head low, waiting.


    If he were honest with himself, he¡¯d have to say he didn¡¯t care about the psychopath''s girlfriend. If he were honest.


    ¡°Dolores,¡± Apollo spoke in his tempered voice, whisper-like. ¡°Turnus has bought human beings. He''s bought, slaves. That''s the least of his accusations, too.¡±


    Loud sniffling turned to loud crying.


    ¡°I believe he orchestrated the death of Thomas Wolfe Senior.¡±


    Her shoulders rattled.


    ¡°I need you to get over your nostalgia for a man no longer there,¡± Apollo said. ¡°And for your safety, I suggest you help us get him. We need to know where he is.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know where he is!¡± She said. Her fierce face clenched down, for a moment, before it lowered and returned to tears.


    Dion came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.


    ¡°Then you need to tell us where he¡¯ll be. Before he hurts anyone else.¡± He said. ¡°Before he starts hurting people like you.¡±


    She came down.


    "Are you being honest?" She asked them and didn''t even let them answer. Apollo remained in stationary silence. "He really bought people? He killed his dad?"


    She muttered it to herself.


    ¡°A boy. Probably more than one.¡± Apollo said. ¡°He couldn¡¯t have been older than fourteen. Just a kid, made to be a show for his fellow conglomerates.¡±


    ¡°I swear¡­He wasn¡¯t like this! I¡¯m not lying.¡±


    ¡°And I believe you.¡± He said. ¡°That¡¯s what I also believe you are someone who will help me, because you know he¡¯s in the wrong right now. Because he¡¯s lost his mind, Dolores. Completely lost it.¡±


    She looked down at the cup. Apollo saw her sad reflection and saw it warp and flex from the teardrops falling into the mug.


    "I can''t tell you where he is." She said. "Only where he''ll be." The coffee settled. Her face looked dead in the reflection, the color drained. "It¡¯s a place he always goes to when everything goes wrong. It¡¯s his little retreat.¡±


    Dion took out his notepad.


    ¡°You¡¯ll have to leave town. We can help with that-¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°I¡¯m not leaving. I¡¯m staying.¡± She said.


    ¡°If that¡¯s what you want,¡± Apollo said. ¡°So tell us then, where will he be?¡±


    She put both hands on the table, her head slanted to the right.


    ¡°His mom''s house.¡± She said. ¡°He¡¯s a kid in that respect. When he''s lost, he knows he can at least go home."

 Lent 10

    What is something you could give me?


    She remembered the words in her head and the voice that spoke them soft and eager and the turn in her stomach when she came up with an answer. She didn''t believe it, any of it. The bargain, the demon, the situation. And she certainly didn''t believe it, even when she was taken up on her offer.


    That''s how Aenea ended up losing her womb.


    When she spoke to Mammon. When she went to that other world, forced into talks, she gave the only thing she knew she didn''t need (or felt she didn''t need): her womb.


    Yes. That''s what she gave away - not an easy thing to do either. Wombs, are of course, fleshy and very closely dug deep into the body. But that''s what was taken from her, believe it or not. When she woke up with blood on her stomach and Apollo looking down with terrified eyes.


    The blood had come out of her flesh like sweat. It came as droplets and stuck to her bed sheets for days after.


    That was about the time she told the two Vicars to go off on their merry adventure, without her. Because whether she understood it or not, she needed personal space.


    It was the day after Apollo and Dion had discovered the arena and had confronted Dolores about it (Aenea didn''t even know who Dolores was, she hardly even knew Turnus).


    Who cares. Who any of them were didn''t even matter.


    The morning sun woke her up. The curtains turned, the light hit her face, a blade in that dark motel.


    "Wake up," Thaddeus said. Why was he here again?


    "What are we doing?"


    "Moving you to the safe house, like Apollo told me to do."


    "Why? Here is fine." She rose from her bed, rubbing her stomach. "I''m used to this place." The furniture was marked with scratchings, the walls were scraped where he body had come flying out.


    "Yeah, Apollo isn''t though." He said. "And I don''t really want to disagree with him. He''s pretty scary. "


    "Not as scary as me."


    "No offense," Thaddeus said. "But skinny white girls don''t really scare me."


    She threw a phone sitting by a knocked over the drawer to her side. He ducked, it struck the wall behind him. Hearing his yelp was satisfying enough.


    Standing, waking up, was all hard. She yawned and stretched and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.


    She rose and put on her pants, loose-fitting jeans, and a large hoodie. Her body looked sagged, hidden beneath rags.


    "So where are we going?" She asked.


    "Can''t tell you. We''re already compromised." He said.


    "You say compromised like I''m someone who would know what that means."


    "What I mean is that Turnus knows where you''re at. How? Who knows? But if he knows, everyone probably does."


    "Right. Rich people can find a way to do anything, I would know." She said.


    "It doesn''t help that you''re literally floating around the room like it''s the god damn exorcist."


    "I can''t control that."


    "Yeah," Thaddeus said. "Sure didn''t help though."


    She glared at him. "I''m not happy about any of this. I hate not being in control of things, and if I knew how things were from the start then -"


    "Things would be different. That''s what you were going to say, right?" Thaddeus stood up. He opened the door and allowed more light in. "This is different from your board meetings, you know that, don''t you? If there''s anything you should have learned from any of what''s happening, it''s that plans fall to pieces real fast. So fast they''re hardly even useful. They''ll just disappoint. Witches, Vicars, Demons. Trust me, it''s all chaos from here on out."


    "Everything needs a roadmap and an endpoint. Small goals facilitate proper growth, planned expansion-"


    "Synergy. Profit margins. Blah. Blah. I can throw out business jargon too." He said.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "How''s this then, keep getting sassy and I''ll fire your ass and get you decapitated by your little cult of psychopaths at the Vatican. How''s that?" Her tone was severe - she made sure of it. Her eyes narrowed. "I don''t need to be lectured by you."


    Aenea walked over to him and punched straight through the wall, her fist went in smoothly and eagerly. Retracting her hand, rubble and wood sprinkled onto the floor.


    Wow.


    She''d never really punched anything. So she certainly never punched holes through walls. So why is it that she felt so strong?


    And light, so inextricably light.


    Punching, kicking, jumping up and down all felt...easy. Her body felt loose. She was stronger (as if the hole in the wall wasn''t evidence).


    "J-J-Jesus Christ on the cross!" Thaddeus shouted out.


    "Wow." She had to say it again. She clenched her fist.


    Thaddeus put his head down.


    "A-a-alright. I''m an ass. S-s-sorry."


    She didn''t even notice he was shivering or that the no-bullshit-or-I''ll-cave-your-skull-in looking face of hers was intimidating. She didn''t mean to look that way. She also didn''t mind all too much.


    "Can you explain this?"


    "A-a-awakening. That''s my guess. Your ar-ar-arcane channels are expanding from your nervous system, your muscle fibers are shotgun loud and fast. Strong! Dense. It''s..." He gawked. "It''s like going through puberty, for a witch. I guess?"


    Puberty, huh.


    They made it to the car.


    "I don''t want to lose sight of my goal." She said. "The plan is to get rid of them. Preferably with as little death as possible."


    "That''s something I can get behind." Thaddeus struggled the keys into the ignition, turning them on and off over and over. The engine rattled, woke up, then descended back to sleep with a murmur.


    "God damn, this piece of shit engine." Thaddeus smacked the dashboard. "I replace it every time, and it comes up with the same problem every time."


    And he slammed down his foot, and he pressed every lever and button in the hopes that any other kind of noise was better than the guttural sound of the engine coughing and puffing and wheezing.


    They made it to the car.


    "The plan is to get rid of them. Preferably with as little death as possible."


    "That''s something I can get behind." Thaddeus struggled the keys into the ignition, turning only to hear the slight murmur. Then stopping, and turning again. A chug this time. A rattle, then back to deep sleep. Fumes ran up from the cracks of the hood.


    "God damn, this piece of shit new engine." Thaddeus smacked the dashboard. "It never works, I tell you."


    And he slammed down his foot, and he pressed every lever and button in the hopes that any other kind of noise was better than the guttural sound of the engine coughing and puffing and wheezing.


    Aenea felt her arms tingle, the strange numbing sensation running from her shoulder and originating from her arm, slowly moving its course through her body. The best way she could feel it - describe it, understand it, was that as if she were some kind of empty mold being filled with slow-pouring cement. The lightness earlier, the strength and agility turned to rigidity. Her muscles went stiff, and the growing numbness and filling feeling kept moved throughout her body.


    She needed to let something out. She couldn''t quite understand it, only that it felt instinctual. Her face squinted, the veins in her neck protruded.


    She opened her palm and brought it down onto the dashboard. It felt like release, a bodily function like vomiting or eating or sleeping - something necessary. A jolt ran from her fingertips onto the plastic corrugated surface of the dashboard. It struck the vehicle, sparks flew from the radio. It looked like a trail of lightning or energy, as it shot through and into the engine, propping the cover-up. The hood flew past them and out behind them. Thaddeus, his foot still on the pedal, went forward. He hit a parking meter before backing up.


    It looked like a T-bone.


    "What''d you do?" He wafted smoke from the radio off his face. Coughing, looking with more fear and surprise than when she punched a hole through the wall.


    "I think I fixed it?" She looked at her hand.


    "Yeah, I can tell. But how''d you do that?"


    "I don''t know. I felt - I think - I guess?" She squinted her eyes and shook her head. What had she thought of? She tapped her chin, her arm burned like a long rash ran across her forearm. "I guess I felt like I was dialing back a clock? That''s the image in my head. Like I undid the lid of some watch and moved the gears inside. I don''t know."


    "What?" Thaddeus went out, the engine still running. He took a look at his hoodless car and looked at her with wide eyes. Then he ran behind the car, to find the cover. He hooked it back on.


    "This is weird." He screamed past the engine roar. "This is really freaky."


    "What?" She still stared at her arm, green light ran out from her tribal tattoo (it had grown as far as her? Jesus), a dying light that looked almost as if a substance was being depleted from her.


    "You didn''t fix my engine." He said. "You changed it. It''s the first engine I ever found this van with. You...replaced it with the old. I guess? Like a factory renewal, sort of?"


    "I don''t understand."


    He jumped into the driver''s seat and put on his seat belt.


    "My guess is that you reverted it back to its original state, or at least, a past state. I don''t think you can control it either, maybe. Can you?" He said.


    She looked at her hand and put it forward, moving it closer to Thaddeus''s face. "H-h-hey, don''t get any ideas."


    "Can I control it?" She clasped his arm.


    "W-wait!" He screamed. She felt the energy again in her arm, shoot out. And...it did nothing.


    "Holy f-f-fuck!" He pushed her off. "Are you insane?"


    "It didn''t work?" She looked at herself.


    "Y-you asshole! You didn''t know if it''d work or not?" His breathing accelerated. "A-are you insane? You could have turned me into a kid! A baby! An embryo, who knows how your thing works!"


    "It doesn''t work on organics..." She said, stretching and clenching her palms.


    His breathing eased, he reversed the car. "You''re an asshole, you know that?"


    "I wasn''t going to hurt you." She let her head out the window, the wind blew it past her face. "I just wanted to test things."


    "You don''t test on living specimens. At least not on me!" He screamed, wagging a finger. She kept her head out, the hot currents felt like a nice caress until small bugs struck her teeth.


    "You''re fine, stop crying." She spat out.


    "D-Don''t tell me what to do! And I''m not crying." He screamed. On and on. Complaints, wagging one finger and gesturing and shaking his head. She kept rolling her eyes, half-listening, half-tired.


    That''s how it went, with her so distracted - both of them so distracted - that they didn''t even realize the car following them.

 Episode 10: Jigsaw Portrait 1

    "Are you kidding me? This is your safe house?" Aenea said.


    "What?" Thaddeus asked. "What''s wrong with it?"


    She looked straight into the boarded windows of the "church." And it wasn''t the fancy, dignified kind. No, it was the kind of church God had decided to leave behind, maybe not even enter in the first place.


    There were no preachers in this church. No nuns. No ornaments, or paintings, or iconography. No. Walking in, seeing the Elvis Presley figures in the corners and the plastic-shotguns hanging from little nooks above the front desk, she realized this was no church. There were no fonts. No candles. No instruments of faith (or people of faith for that matters).


    A sign read, "The Shooter''s Chapel." It had a shotgun for a logo. There were rates for packages for marriage. One read, "Quick, one-hour marriage, five hundred dollars."


    This was a church for fools. A shotgun wedding church, like a standing, built cliche. A chapel in (not)New Vegas.


    It was empty. Recently abandoned, too, there were still little flowers and white threads on the floor from a celebration. Plants lined the corners, the lights were functional and shining down on the two of them as they made their way to the main hall. Small lawn chairs filled the room, there was a podium and a white arch. It was dressed with white plastic doves.


    "This is where you''re hiding me?" She asked.


    "It was cheap. Church paid for it too." Thaddeus sat down a suitcase filled with equipment. Laptops mostly, some bullet casings and glass tubes filled with different liquids and powders. He almost froze when he dropped one, a clear liquid substance. Then he breathed - no crack on the glass and walked over to the rolled flask.


    Her eyes wandered. A little part of her wished the damn flask had exploded and taken down most of the ridiculousness with it.


    "How long do we have to hold out for?" She sat on a lawn chair, staring out through the cracks in between the planks of wood barricading the windows. The chair leaned unnaturally as she pressed more of her weight down onto it.


    "''Till it''s all over, right?" He said. She was hoping he wouldn''t say that. She sighed and leaned back and let the crooked chair creek with a sort of resignation.


    Then she got bored.


    She lifted it off its two legs and set it down, over and over. Tapping away, maybe counting the seconds of time hoping it''d go by faster.


    Thaddeus kept working. She kept passing glances because boredom made her interested, even in the stupid trivialities of a pseudo-scientist.


    "I didn''t even know these places existed. I thought they were just stupid things you''d see in Hollywood movies. Marriage never interested me." She said. Thaddeus put down a vial.


    "I never took Chemistry in college, always found it boring. Too many letters to remember." He slammed a book down.


    "How long have you been doing this for?"


    He pressed a button on his computer, it lit up. The screen flashed against his face.


    "You know...I''m trying to make a plan here, alright? Can I get some s-s-silence." He said.


    "What am I supposed to do then?"


    "Go take a nap out in the back, the rooms already set up," Thaddeus said. "I''ve got work to do here."


    She blew the blonde bangs off her face, and she stood. And she walked out, towards the room. Not in obedience! She told herself, at least.


    Mostly out of growing boredom, because staring at Thaddeus is one thing (creepy), but staring at the setting sun is another. You can only really see the sun in the sky long enough before it begins to look like the dumbest, brightest, lightbulb. Like God just slowly and just barely turning on the Off switch. So she went ahead and decided that if the night was going to take a while coming, then she''d speed it all up. She went to the back. It was an equipment room repurposed with two medical-tent style beds, nothing more than a tight cloth hung and hooked on a metal frame. There was a tough pillow, stone-like and crease-less. A blanket, too and a jigsaw puzzle set on a table opposite. Against the walls were posters and neon lights for the place. Shooters Chapel.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Was that because people shot themselves the next morning after figuring what they''ve done? Or because they''d have to take so many shots to make a stupid decision like marrying here?


    Yeah. The sign was as bold and flamboyant and corny as it sounded. And cheap and corny was only half of what this place was. Reckless was the other.


    She tried laying down, it hurt her back. She tried looking at the tiles. It only brought some bad thoughts.


    She couldn''t stay here. Not with that fucking jigsaw puzzle or the buzzing light or the clicking of Thaddeus''s keyboard in the room opposite. Because it felt - when she wasn''t talking or animated - it felt like some ideas would sneak up on her. Like the stalker of the night, a vampire.


    It bit into her. Images, mostly.


    A good one that couldn''t leave her was Jezebel. Her head, that is, turning a whole one-eighty. The neck bone protruding from her half-torn throat. The eye floating like a fishing bob in the bloody fountain next to Aenea. The was the first time she''d ever death, the first time it''d ever been so close to her, and the first time she inadvertently killed someone.


    It was her or me.


    She walked out of the building, through the janitor''s hall, out the back. She slammed the door. Slamming made her feel good.


    It was her fault, not mine.


    She kicked a fence out the way blocking her from the parking lot.


    Another image came, the demon and his neat suit and his toothy-smile and the nails on his hands like small little scissors.


    It felt like her mind was just cycling through the images, so quickly and intense that they were like passing stars against her faster-than-light- thinking process.


    Who''s going to do what first and where?


    She slapped her head.


    She hated silence. It made these thoughts appear. It made her nervous. Like what''d she do if she had to kill someone, like shooting someone square in the face? Like feeling that hot blood splash against her cheeks again.


    She started thinking. Her face tightened, she rubbed her temples.


    What if she couldn''t kill someone?


    And if I''d have to run away again, getting cut up and fucked all through a damn garage.


    Or what it''d mean to win? How much would it cost? For what? Power? What about her power? She didn''t even understand it herself.


    She went out to a small white fence, the fake-grass all around her like those pine trees you pick up for Christmas, that kind of rough texture that clings to whatever steps on it. Beyond the grass, a bigger arch than the one in the church. A road (which was empty) too and on the other, a small little ditch where the sewer pipes ran, and the graffiti flowed.


    She decided to kick rocks. Literally, like out into the pipes where the dip was just far enough that a nicely pitched echo would ring back.


    So Aenea did that, across the street and towards a long flat stretch of sand and dry grass and Joshua trees, throwing rocks into the dry pipes of the sewer. She followed them too for a transient ten minutes where she was so lost in thought she didn''t even realize where she was going. She only followed the pipe, like Alice in Wonderland. Down, down the rabbit hole.


    Eventually, she sat, her knees close to her chest, sitting against the edge of the ditch.


    She touched her stomach.


    My power huh? I traded a womb for it. Whatever it is. She looked at her hand, then placed it against her stomach. He took it. I thought he was joking. She rubbed the pain in her abdomen, the small ache. Does it matter? I fucking hate kids anyways.


    She picked up another, just about to throw it, and held it.


    But still. He took it. He took a piece of me, didn''t he?


    She cocked her hand back to throw.


    Grass moved behind her. It sounded like a snake in brushes.


    She turned, stone still in her hand.


    "Who''s there?" She asked.


    It wasn''t dark, that was a blessing. But it sure as hell wasn''t day. Somewhere in between, when it''s still warm but you can feel the hot air leaving the floor and shadows begin to lengthen and expand like an unfolding map.


    She didn''t see a shadow though, not even a hint of one. There was an empty patch behind her, a lot and a sign that still read ''Buy now? Ask owner for more information 1-676-345-6723,'' and in red spray paint over this sign, it said "CALL 666 FOR HELP". A smiley face with its tongue out, then a pentagram.


    But no one. Not a soul or figure or shadow or smell or touch or glare


    Or sound or light? Not anyone.


    A thump.


    if no ones here then whatthefuckisthat


    Twigs snapped in rhythm as the sound approached her, an even tempo.


    And it was like watching the poltergeist. The heavy footsteps approaching fast towards, leaving imprints of large boots within the sands. Pushing aside the greenery, running towards her.


    Whatever it was, it hastened its gait.


    It''s breathing was loud. It ran. Jumped, even.


    So she slid down the pipe, with her foot bracing against the slant of the ditch. She hit the floor with a thud.


    And a few seconds behind her, two large heavy sounds hit the metal, hollow pipe.


    It sounded like the heavy tinge of a grandfather clock, hitting midnight.


    She ran.

 Jigsaw Portrait 2

    Now, then. In the thrill of a chase, you don''t really remember essential details. Things just seem to vanish from your memory. Even for those versed in the death chase, the adrenaline rush.


    The experience is just too novel, too immediate for anything but anxiety to be in your orbit of thought. As it was with Aenea. And the critical detail she forgot, was the little rock she carried in her hand that she hadn''t let go of through the chase. Or the fact that she didn''t even know where she was running to, if there was even a dead end or not.


    She didn''t think of any of that. It was all instinct to her. All flight or fight response in her brain. Every synapse focused on that, not even the pain of scraping her body against metal could dissuade her from that primal instinct.


    Leaking pipes, the mechanical sound of their footsteps beating metal, the narrow and cramp pinch in between two thinning walls of concrete - none of that mattered.


    She ran to the final end of the pipeline, it was a little ledge almost cliff-like. There was a shot behind her like thunder. The noise resonated in her ears. A bullet whizzed by her feet, the blowing wind pressed against her pants. The bullet ricocheted and struck the wall, the noise and cacophony increasing the headache now ringing between her ears.


    Another shot. This one clipped her shoulder, and she looked down, at the edge of this concrete ditch to a small pond below. Green, brown, uninviting water. It made her rethink things, or maybe it made her think at last. She looked up and down in consideration (as if she could even see the invisible figure).


    Footsteps approached. Or the mud stuck to the bottom of invisible boots,


    And as the footsteps approached, she could only think to do one thing because that''s all her small reptile brain could synthesize as a thought. She grit her teeth, she knelt down and jumped straight into the pond. Green veins ran from her arm, growing down to her feet. She struck the floor. The water was shallow. The pain registered from her heels to her abdomen and stopped there.


    It hurt. But nothing broke? No. She grunted and felt the pain, but her bones were fine. She looked down for a moment to her skin and all the strange things now growing her. The green veins, like vines, right beneath her flesh.


    It gave her vigor.


    Sprinting was easy, kicking herself off of mounds of trash and Joshua trees and walls was easy. Even with the other person still following her. Even with bullets passing and grazing her.


    She ate one to the shoulder. It hurt like a mule kick, the metal lodged in between her joint. She screamed and killed her noise almost immediately. She clenched her face close and found some...curious. It was like her muscles were trying to push out the bullet from her flesh - and still running - she sped along the process by sticking her fingers into the wound and digging for the metal. She threw it to side.


    So she was now in what she presumed to be the waste dump, some intermediary junk lot in between the septic facility and the sewage itself. Where mountains of trash reign their shadows. Where the air carries the scent of toxicity.


    They both ran through muddy puddles.


    There was one good thing; she was able to see this invisible. She looked back in small intervals, looking to see the trash and dirt and shit collected on the feet of the invisible person. And the heavy footsteps and noise now made by the plastic and aluminum cans around them.


    It was a trash lot after all. A waste dump.


    She saw a heavy indentation in front of her. A boot stamped firm on the floor.


    Shit.


    She dodged to the left, her body hitting the floor on her injured shoulder.


    A bullet. It whizzed past her face, cutting her cheek.


    If she was fighting someone with good aim, she would have died five times over by now. Someone with good aim.


    And who doesn''t have good aim?


    She gripped the rock in her hands and looked around. Bullets came flying past her body, though she was relatively still. They came past her skin, hitting her sides and striking a chainlink fence behind them. All the sparks did not scare Aenea, did not stop her from revving her arm. She found a foot trail. She aimed her hand and shot.


    The air broke like thunder as the rock went forward. She was sure she dislocated her other hand just by the throw, it hurt so much.


    It hit something. A loud groan from a woman. Then coughing.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Aenea grabbed her arm, it felt...fine?


    She couldn''t think about that now. Because in front of her was a new shape in the dirt, a cavity in the form of a body. Aenea ran to it, she grabbed something, something fleshy.


    "Get off me." The invisible person said.


    It was familiar. Extremely familiar.


    Who was the only woman left? Salome? No, her voice was too sweet and young.


    Luanne.


    Aenea kicked the person, though did not know what she hit, only that it hurt. And it must have been a hard kick, there was a wound that popped and bled from the point of impact, and it traced an outline of the body.


    She had struck a thigh.


    It was easy from there on out, hitting and punching and cutting with her long fingernails. It was as if Aenea making brush strokes, broad and red.


    She finally found Luanne''s hand and rode it to her wrist until they were both fighting for the gun.


    And in that instant of strife, the spell wore off. Luanne was no longer invisible. She was no longer a hazard. Her body materialized almost immediately into plain sight. It must have been hard for her.


    Luanne struggled, alright.


    "You did this." She shouted between her struggling breath. Aenea didn''t even listen. Not to any yell, not to the extreme glossy eyes Luanne wore.


    She just reached for the gun Luanne held. She put both hands on it as they rolled on the floor. And both of them glowed with the strength of demons in their blood. The green blood.


    Aenea put her palm against the exit of the barrel. An accident.


    Luanne popped Aenea''s pinky and a piece of her palm. The fleshy bits flew off some meters away.


    "You bitch!" Aenea said. She put her good hand on the gun.


    "You''re serious about this, aren''t you? Aren''t you?!" Aenea looked down at Luanne, whose gritted and seething teeth spat back a hissing yes. Yes.


    So Aenea did what she knew. She put her hand onto the gun and held it, and the arcana in her arm worked like small electrical jolts through her fingertips and into the metal of the gun. Her mind went back, back in time it seemed...as if seeing every moment held by the gun...seeing the moment Luanne had bought it. The moment she spent contemplating with it and further beyond, to the point of which the gun was sold from legal vendor to illegal vendor. Even further, tracing every moment of that small .45''s history. Aenea saw the point of forging, the hot metal and the molten rods of steel that had shaped through a forge into the components of the gun.


    She stopped there.


    And when she returned to reality (where she had only spent a fraction of a second away from), the gun was gone. Or rather, transformed.


    It was hot metal. Aenea, let go.


    Luanne didn''t.


    Luanne screamed. The molten steel burned her flesh, she dropped it onto the floor where it steamed and made a bed of charred grass and stone.


    She rolled around, holding her hand.


    "Stop it! Stop it!" It was only a moment she held the molten steel which made it all the more impressive to Aenea, how much damage had been done. It had burned Luanne''s bone black, had sealed any blood and had vaporized some channels and capillaries.


    It was a pain so great Luanne couldn''t do much but roll and scream.


    And Aenea looked down at Luanne.


    What would the Apollo do?


    She hated thinking of Apollo. Well, it was more than that. She just plain outright hated him. But what would he have done?


    Aenea stepped up towards the prone and belly-laid Luanne. She knelt and put down her hand behind her neck and went up to her ear.


    "Why''d you do this?" She asked.


    Luanne screamed. Still in pain, unable to register anything but pain.


    Luanne brought her hand inwards, towards her chest as she rubbed it. Aenea came down on her, a punch at first, not something particularly strong just a quick jab to the side of the face.


    "Why''d you try to kill me? You''re not the type to chase after power. So why?"


    Luanne muttered something incomprehensible, an amalgam of stutter and scream and whining as she held her hand close to her. The snot in her nose and mouth was nearly coming out of each of her broken words. Steam came from her wound. It was trying to heal with no efficiency at all because carbonized tissue, after all, is dead tissue. It''d take time. Much longer time.


    Aenea on the other hand? Well, her shoulder felt just about okay.


    So there was no immediate hope for Luanne - not that either of them knew that.


    Aenea slapped her again. So hard, that it turned her face the other way. She sat on Luanne, mounting her and slapping Luanne''s haggard and messy hair.


    She stopped. Luanne tried to talk.


    "Don''t kill him," Luanne muttered, her lips shaky and weak. "Don''t kill him. Don''t kill him. Don''t kill him."


    "What are you talking about?" Aenea said. Beside them, the hot iron rods hissed and settled into a puddle and no longer glowed, rather fumed in a small hole made by its own heat.


    "Don''t kill my baby boy." Luanne cried. Still holding her hand, still crying. "Don''t do my son what you did to Floyd. Please. Please please pleasepleaseplease."


    Aenea looked down. Her hand felt limp then hot. It was like reality struck her at last. Flight or fight left her and what filled the gap of thoughts was something worse.


    Anger?


    No, it was guilt.


    Blood pulsed through her hot hand. Vanishing anger could no longer disguise the small aches and pains of her body. Her Achilles heel, burning with stress. Her hand, hot from the slap and punch.


    Luanne cried, screeching almost with a wide mouth. She curled into a ball. There was no makeup to run down her face, she was white and sickly, and from the weak position she maintained, she looked like a ward patient about close enough to death''s door as anyone should be.


    Aenea stood, walked steps away from her.


    Luanne repeated her words in what sounded like a prayer.


    "Kill me. Kill everyone. Just don''t get my baby boy Flint. Just don''t. Don''t. Don''t. Don''t."


    And Aenea felt cold.


    Her eyes began to swell as she looked at that fetal crying of her sister. Her dirty clothes, the shit-stained jeans, a ripped sweater, her perforated boots. Like poverty had struck her hard in the back of the head and left her in this ditch - an appropriate agent to the scene, the waste dump they were in.


    And of all things Aenea felt, all pain and cringing shame, the growing pressure to cry was the strongest. The stuffed nose, parsed lips that could not talk. Those things you try to hide and bury like all horrible secrets should be.


    Aenea put her hand against her face and breathed a heavy sigh and spoke, finally.


    She said, "You and I need to have a long talk."


    And it wasn''t like Luanne could really say no.

 Jigsaw Portrait 3

    ¡°Man, it feels like we¡¯ve been driving all day.¡± Dion turned the wheel into the open desert. The heat forming a kind of wave pattern above the ground of the even horizon. Small bouts of grass split the cracked earth, jackrabbits ran from bush to bush avoiding snakes. And Dion tried his hardest to turn the wheels away from each critter large or small. It was hard. Because the more erratically he drove, the more animals seemed to come out.


    ¡°We¡¯re coming up to it soon. Right?¡± Apollo looked behind, to the passenger''s seat where Dolores waited with folded hands.


    ¡°Why¡¯d I need to come?¡± She asked.


    ¡°Because you didn¡¯t want to take a ticket out of this shithole.¡± He said. ¡°And if you don¡¯t want to leave, staying with us is the highest probability of you living.¡±


    He turned to face her, his eyes narrow. ¡°And I do need you alive, after all.¡±


    ¡°Turnus wouldn¡¯t hurt me¡­not like that at least¡­¡± She said.


    ¡°Somehow, I doubt that,¡± Apollo said.


    They must have driven an hour inland the desert. Into a stretch far beyond the reaches of the city, into land so deep that even the casino seemed to dissipate into nothing. And just about the time when the emergency lights appeared on the dashboard, and the engine was going to blow up into a loud mess, Dion stopped the car. Before them laid the house.


    ¡°We¡¯re here.¡±


    There was nothing, some dangling fence perhaps a few acres away but nothing to mark the territory on the map. No address, no mailbox, not even a sign. No printed or digital map would probably show this house. And strange then, that they saw a car. A convertible whose black hood had a giant sunspot down the center. It was parked near a sharp boulder. And it didn¡¯t seem the type of car that¡¯d belong to anyone, certainly not the Wolfes.


    Apollo walked to it, searched the glove compartment. A clip for a pistol, some money and two fluffy dice roll plushie on the dashboard that rattled from the opening and closing of the doors.


    ¡°I couldn¡¯t tell you who this belongs to,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Probably Turnus, right?¡± Dion said. ¡°Let''s go inside and find out.¡±


    ¡°This is the house, right Dolores?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°Yeah. I think so. I¡¯ve never been inside myself though¡­¡± She said.


    ¡°What?¡± Apollo asked.


    ¡°He always kept me in the car while he handled stuff. I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve never been inside?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to impose, I¡¯m saying! It¡¯s his mom¡¯s house. He didn¡¯t owe me letting me in or anything.¡± She said.


    ¡°Alright. Alright.¡± Apollo took the keys from the ignition. ¡°Wait in the back then, we¡¯ll be out in a second.¡±


    ¡°I thought you were going to stake him out?¡±


    ¡°If he¡¯s smart, he probably already knows somethings up. At this point, I¡¯m going to look for a reason for him to find us.¡± He said.


    They closed the doors on her, Dolores, who pouted in the backseat with her arms still crossed and her eyes glaring at both of them.


    ¡°You¡¯re not going to cuff her or restraint her or anything?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°I mean, where the hell is she going to run anyways?¡±


    Beyond them, beyond the house, the waste expanded. A massive stretch of cracked dirt in a land so inhospitable that even the scorpions and the rabbits and the snakes were nowhere to be seen. The only sign of construction - of human touch - being the electricity poles. Even those were bent over and half deep into swallowing earth.


    They stepped in the house, small glass bulbs were centered across the walls of the living room and kitchen. They were burned out, blackened. They smelled of nothing, and the light bulbs lay fragmented inside. A bent lampshade rested on a table, there was dry blood on it. Apollo flipped a black switch, the bulb broke exploded. Dion jumped.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°Can you warn me before you do stuff like that?¡± Dion shouted.


    Apollo rolled his eyes. He turned his head to the window. There were markings along the frame where human nails had scratched out paint.


    Furniture was minimal, some blue rugs accenting grey carpet, brown sofas lying about in front of a tube television. The kitchen had not been touched, there were still scraps of food on year old dirty plates laying on one side of the sink. No food in the fridge.


    The stairs were the most peculiar. Apollo went up to the guard rail.


    ¡°It¡¯s snapped off.¡± He said. ¡°Someone had grabbed onto the wooden rail and had stripped it clean with one jerk. Or maybe they fell down the stairs, I don¡¯t know.¡±


    Dion looked at the walls leading up.


    ¡°There are holes here,¡± Dion said.


    ¡°Probably a fight,¡± Apollo said.


    ¡°Who against who?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    Upstairs the air was dirty. It smelled dirty, musky was the right word. Dreadful was the more poetic though. Two bedrooms and one bathroom waited at the end of the floor. They hit the first room, the master bedroom. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing worth investigation, a couple of drawers, a bed with a stained mattress. A signed baseball and a jersey.


    ¡°Thomas Wolfe liked the Yankees,¡± Apollo said.


    They went into the other room. And it couldn¡¯t have been more strange.


    When you think of worship, you think of idols, no? The cross or the Buddhist statue. A mat for prayer, a candlelit kneeling-station for forgiveness.


    When you think of worship, you think idolatry, no? It was no different here.


    Not at all.


    The walls were marked red with the symbols, some curving circle that went on and on into incoherent scribbles like a Pollock painting. The runes etched into the walls.


    Mammon. Mammon.


    In front, at the very end, the worshiping station laid. No other furniture but that singular little table. Upon it, the severed head of a desert wolf. An old decapitated and dried head, staring westbound, a singular blue eye staring back at the two Vicars. The body was strewn and pinned on a hangar. There was a pool of dried blood underneath.


    ¡°Jesus.¡± Dion gestured the cross in front of his body. Head to the chest, shoulder to shoulder.


    ¡°A wolf for the Wolfes.¡± Apollo walked up to it, the candles long since used. ¡°Though not surprising. Wolves are the associated animal for Mammon. Demons tend to personify themselves with a creature.¡±


    ¡°Paimon with pigeons. Mammon with wolfs. Satan with Jackals. Snakes sometimes too, right?¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Apollo said. ¡°God might have made the world, but the devils shaped it. That¡¯s why they personify and embody certain animals, in the same way, they personify and embody certain people - as a kind of lineage.¡±


    ¡°Wolfes, wolves, whatever. What do we got here?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°A monument. The wax is almost crystallized, and a little melted by the natural heat of the sun from outside.¡± He turned the rug in front of the monument away. There were stained and bruised markings on the floor. ¡°Whoever worships here does it often. Real often.¡±


    ¡°And¡­the walls¡­the runes¡­is that?¡±


    ¡°Dry blood, probably,¡± Apollo said. Dandelions scattered about the table fell to the floor as Apollo turned. They scattered their seeds across the air, Apollo covered his mouth. Dion stepped back, into the hall, sneezing. He wiped his nose.


    And there he heard the buzzing sound of flies.


    Dion drew closer to the sound.


    Apollo knelt down. He was inspecting the flowers, the head of the animal. The picture frame and the little statue. They seemed painted by hand, and depicted a strange green creature, with black eyes and scale skin sharp-fanged and with eccentric mirth about his smile. This figure was deep into the darkness of the canvas.


    He couldn¡¯t quite stop looking at it. He turned his head, his eyes focused keen onto the green-smiling face of painting. Like it was moving? Winking? Turning its smile?


    ¡°The demon of greed.¡± He muttered. ¡°Of the earth, of all valuable and material things.¡± His voice was drawn out, a little low. ¡°The Alchemists worship him. As do the money men. Mammon.¡±


    Apollo extended his singular hand out to the painting, just a touch, just to feel the canvas texture .


    ¡°Oh my God!¡± Dion shouted. He dropped the painting. He drew his hand back. One heavy footstep after another, running into the hall towards Dion who was walking away from the restroom. He had a hand covering his mouth.


    ¡°What?¡± Apollo asked. Dion closed his eyes, he couldn¡¯t look straight. He pointed to the restroom, still walking away.


    So he took stead into the horribleness. The whiff of sweetness, a familiar scent, hitting his nostrils. The flies dancing around his hand as he waved them away. The bathroom was simple, a toilet and a bathtub covered by a plastic curtain.


    And he had the idea, judging by the face Dion made and the smell protruding, that what he was going to see would be a hazard to his sanity.


    And he knew he had to see it all the same.


    He drew the curtains with slow shakiness.


    Oh, god.


    He keeled over.


    He held his mouth shut and tightened his throat. The vomit almost slipped out. He turned over and worked the muscles of his body to look up, straight at the mess.


    Blonde straw hair. Jewelry wrapped around the swollen fat-maggot eaten fingers. The infestation of bugs was deep into the tub, squirming. The body, separated from the bones, into a thick skin-glop mess clogging the tub.


    He stepped out. His eyes, darkened and weary. If there was such a thing as an emotional callous, they must have looked like how Apollo¡¯s eyes looked. The haggard, deep worn look.


    He walked up to Dion, now turned towards the edge of the guard rail.


    ¡°Blonde hair. I¡¯ve seen that jewelry in the newspaper clippings of the other brother, the other Santana brother.¡± Apollo said. ¡°I guess we found out who the car belongs to, huh?¡±


    Dion couldn¡¯t even answer. And Apollo couldn¡¯t blame him. So he walked to the other end, away from the smell as far as the house would let him. He looked out one window, into the backyard where plastic scraggy fake lawn looked back. Beyond the lawn, some old trees begging to be chopped. Around those trees, a shed.


    ¡°We¡¯re not done here, Dion. Leave the body.¡± Apollo said. ¡°There¡¯s more waiting for us.¡±


    ¡°More?¡± Dion asked.


    ¡°What else would you expect from this family?¡±

 Jigsaw Portrait 4

    "There''s a corpse in the tub, and you''re still not convinced that these people are weirdos?" Dion asked.


    "No. I''m sure there''s some kind of diseased mentality that pervades the household,"


    "Then why do we have to check the creepy shed, man?" Dion asked. "Can''t we just leave it for the police or something?"


    "We need clues, anything, that gives us an idea on Turnus or the circumstance."


    "Why? We''re just going to finish them off anyways."


    "I''d like to avoid killing people. And for that, I need to know more about them." Apollo turned to Dion. "Killing people is wrong, right? And they are people, aren''t they?"


    "Man, if you''d seen Floyd you wouldn''t be saying that."


    "Good thing I didn''t then, ignorance can make you merciful," Apollo said. "Justice will come to them, don''t worry. But we should do it the best way we can and avoid as much murder as we can."


    "You know, Old Apollo back in Havenbrook would be slaughtering your way through the mission, no problem."


    "Good thing we''re not in Havenbrook then, right?" Apollo smiled.


    "Then after you," Dion put his hand forward like a butler accepting guests, pointing himself towards the shed out back behind the house among the decrepit trees. Twigs fell, large arms that settled into small nests across the floor. They prodded the floor and stuck out like small stakes, barricades against the invaders who now walked up front to the shed. A chain locked the shed door, it rattled from Apollo''s touch.


    "They have it locked for a reason." Dion shivered. "Just think about it man, if they have a corpse up there just imagine what''s in here-"


    Apollo ripped the steel links, they scattered about the floor underneath him.


    "Oh man, oh man, oh man." Dion''s teeth could not stop clattering, biting his tongue. He lowered his head as he followed Apollo into the shed. It was sizable, a bit smaller than a barn and a bit larger than any normal tool shed. And inside? Well, it was hard to see. Thin lights came out from above in between the cracks of wooden roof-planks. The light shined down onto the floor where tiny footsteps laid fossilized into the soft mud below. It was moist, the floor.


    There was a bucket to the rear and a small little lever and faucet next to it that dripped water. It was spilled over, the trail soaked into the floor.


    There was hay, too much of it and no animal anywhere around to consume it. It was just there, hay, straw strewn about the room. Apollo revealed a flashlight and pointed it to Dion.


    "You''ve got two hands, spare ''em for me." He said.


    "As long as I don''t need to touch any gross things." Dion clamped hard on the flashlight, it swerved to the movements of his shaking.


    Apollo submerged himself into the shadows, his form reappearing and disappearing between the beams of light that made pockets on the floor below. Then he came to a stop, Dion pointed down the light in the direction Apollo stared.


    A skull.


    Bones. Femurs. A whole skeleton atop a bed of hay.


    "Jesus," Dion said.


    "It''s not the worst thing we''ve seen." Apollo knelt down and extended a black-gloved hand (the only hand, of course). He touched the bone. And as if disturbed from sleep, the whole skeleton rattled and rolled in the had bed. Dust flew out. Both of them extended their hands, half-expecting an attack, half-expecting the skeleton to animate. It went still. Apollo focused his hand on the neck of the skeleton, the vertebrae that seemed abnormally large. Almost beast-like in length. A mammoth of a man it must have belonged to.


    Apollo reached out for a chain, one attached to the neck bones and tugged on it. This chain was connected to the floor, via a metal stake.


    "He must have been a kind of slave for Thomas Wolfe or something," Apollo said. "I really don''t know who this person is. I thought only Ritcher and Turnus lived here."


    "And the mom!" Dion said.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "Yeah, and the mom." Apollo focused his eyes on that clattering chain.


    "Maybe it was someone Thomas kidnapped, who knows?" Dion asked. "Or someone else, kind of like the Santana guy? Just another victim they had to keep shush?"


    "Why chain him then? Why not just kill him?" Apollo rubbed his chin. "We''ll need to take him."


    "What?" Dion flicked the flashlight. He dropped it, then caught it midair. "Listen, I kill people. I can admit that, but I don''t want to collect them when they''re dead. That''s serial killer stuff."


    "There aren''t any larva, no residual sacs...nothing," Apollo mumbled. "It''s been a long while for this guy. We''ll need a skull and pelvis...wrist..."


    "You''re so weird."


    "Dental records too..." Apollo rubbed his gloved hand against the smooth bone. It was brown, craggy as if wrinkled with age.


    "You know when people think of souvenirs. They think of postcards and hats and little ceramic mugs." Dion shook his head.


    "I need to know when he died. Maybe even how, what type of person was he." Apollo said. "Go get the car.


    "This is kind of like...grave robbing, no?"


    "Do you see a grave?" Apollo pointed to the dirty floor, the piss and shit smelling hay, the suffocating musk in the air.


    "Alright! Alright, then, I''ll bring the car around then." Dion said, and out the door, he went. It gently rolled back and forth in and out of the room, Apollo remained in that little jail. His foot brushed against the shackles. Near him, a strange patch in the dirt lighter shaded than the rest. It was in the shape of a person, a grown man. His eyes, stuck in a daze, locked themselves to that little patch. His vision went sporadic. He stumbled forward, almost striking the bed and the bones into disarray. He held himself from falling with one hand on the floor. Strong grip, tense eyes. His legs could not stop shaking.


    And all around him the little demons roamed, materialized from seeming nothing. His eyes flared red and black and red and black, blink after blink. And like a projector starting up, running the stream of film across its light, so it was with each of his blinking eyes. The hallucinations animated, frame by frame.


    Were they even hallucinations?


    You know they''re real.


    The little demons and imps pranced around, their forms creating after images-across his view. They danced around the body and danced around the bed and played with the buckets and the silver plates of old slop and the worms and bugs in the corner of the shed. Small grey and red creatures with long ears and single eyes, gnawing on the hay like horses, jackasses.


    His head throbbed.


    Footsteps, loud plops in the mud.


    He turned around.


    Bug-eyed he looked at the corner of the shack. A man was there. Standing straight, a stab wound in his neck where blood ran out.


    You know it''s real, Apollo. Go on, talk to him.


    And Apollo shaking his head against the voice mouthing off in his consciousness, thinking and hoping it wasn''t real. The lights grew dimmer, the beige and brown and dirty-yellow colors around him bending and reducing to nothing. Black, bleakness.


    The wounded figure took a stumbling step forward, blood squirted from his neck. He had a hand extended out. Apollo could not move, not to any meaningful capacity. His knees bent, and he fell to the floor as the demons snickered and laughed around him, hands in lock with each other like ring around the roses. Fauna grew out the walls and floor, and he could only call what he saw "fauna" because he could not understand; eyes and fleshy walls and bloody veins that seemed to protrude from every surface like the intestines and viscera of an animal.


    The figure kept stumbling forward. A ghoul looking man with eyes deep in dark caverns in his skull.


    This walking corpse, this ghost mouthed off. "D-D-D"


    The noise seemed choked, air escaped the hole in the windpipe in the sound of a whistle.


    And he kept walking forward, deep step after deep step, churning and shooting wet mud out. It hit Apollo''s face, he kicked his foot away from the ghost and struck the wall. From whence the tentacles latched onto his neck, small little hands that caressed him.


    The ghost grabbed Apollo by the neck. Apollo flared his red eyes, with his single arm and all possible strength he tried to pry the ghost away. He felt his bones crack and fracture and snap, but the ghost did not let go, perhaps it couldn''t.


    And it said, black-blood shooting out its mouth. It said, with steam and dark-stained teeth and the shooting the kind of glop and bodily expulsions that cling to your body for days, it said - "No, daddy no. I''ve been a good boy."


    In a voice so eerily innocent, like a child.


    And it tightened and dragged Apollo''s body up, shaking the cabin.


    Apollo''s head pounding, his legs kicking away and the grip tightening against his neck; he tried to scream just to keep himself awake. He felt a final wheeze come out of him, he felt the blood vessels in his eyes just about to pop.


    "Daddy, I said I''m sorry." The ghost smacked Apollo''s body across the walls. The shed shook. The furniture, the hay, all slammed against the fleshy-walls blown away by a seeming pressure releasing from the ghost.


    "No, daddy." It shouted. "No! Not today!"


    The black blood shot out. Cold. And Apollo saw clearly past fear that compelled him to close his eyes, he took a strong look at the hollow cheeks and the large chin and deformed head of this ghost. A walking abomination, a slack-jawed titan of a man.


    "No, daddy, no!" The abominable thing screamed.


    A final breath. The ghost whined one final time, blood squirted out its neck. The grip loosened. The creature buckled and fell on its side, on to the haystack below.


    Apollo fell, he raised his head away from his body to breath and stare at the light in the cracks. Dion rushed in.


    "What was all that?"


    Apollo, breathed, he talked in his hastened voice. "The shed. The shaking. It all flew off." He breathed. "A ghost. You didn''t see it? The Demons. The walls? Everything."


    "What?" Dion asked. "All I''ve heard was you screaming. You scared the you-know-what out of that poor girl."


    Apollo looked down, he touched his neck. Not a single marking. He touched the floor, no more fleshy walls. He looked around nothing out of place. Not even a mess.


    He looked down and breathed heavy and let the sweat drop off his face. And he heard that mocking voice again in his head: Astyanax.


    How''s that for a clue then, detective?

 Jigsaw Portrait 5

    He took out his phone, and he put it against his ear, and he heard the final bleep of a phone call not going in, the quick noise of having been hung-up. Beep. The absolute noise of rejection.


    And he (Turnus) grabbed his phone and twisted it until it looked like a damn screw and he drilled that screw straight into the floor. And as it goes, plastic tends not to mix well with concrete. The glass screen shattered, the plastic phone broke into a thousand pieces, and Turnus was left there.


    "They got her," Turnus laughed, though it wasn''t for him. "They really found her and got her."


    And in front of him was the little man with the armband and the name tag. He was the bartender, was. Now he was a rat and a bit of a coward.


    This bartender shook the sweat off from his eyebrow and blinked and licked his lips for a taste of his salty perspiration.


    "Sir, they barged in, and they started hurting everyone and made a mess and sir-" The bartender licked his lips. "We had to comply. It was imperative."


    And Turnus looked at him. Here in this empty street, with the daunting light poles all around him, casting long shadows, in this wide range of space where no car approached, his breathing came loudly. And here in this empty parking lot, the bartender felt tenser and tenser. He took a step back and put both hands in front of him.


    Turnus approached him.


    "What were we supposed to do, sir?"


    Turnus remained steady and straightforward, his eyes laser-focused on the individual with the shaking boots.


    "What? What could I do?" The man said. "H-how can I pay it back?"


    "Pay back?" Turnus asked. "Your pay. Your debt?"


    Turnus''s eyes brightened. His smiled curled, "Do you even know how much you owe me?"


    He gripped the bartender''s arm. Twisted.


    Then softened. Caressing almost, like a massage. Like fraternal love.


    "S-Sir?" The bartender said.


    For a brief moment, it was a loving touch. For a very brief, brief, moment.


    Green energy shot out of Turnus''s arm with a force so quick and urgent that his clothes were ripped off from his forearm. The energy made its way, an electrical wire through the green currents from his shoulder to his fingertips.


    Then there was no arm, not for the bartender. It all happened in a moment so quick he couldn''t even scream.


    "Wha-what?" The man raised his stump to his face.


    Turnus came up in front of him, straddling the fallen body of the bartender. Mockingly, laughing almost, repeating; "What? What? What!"


    So both of them were at it, screaming like fools. And Turnus grabbed the stump of a hand once again. His arm lit up, and his hand went to work, quite literally reducing the man''s flesh into dust. It looked like his (the bartenders) arm was going through a wood chipper.


    What was left of the arm was on the floor in a pool of dust. Brown, black and a little grey with white sprinkled across the mound.


    "That''s what you''re made of, did you know that?" He said, laughing.


    "What?" The Bartender''s eyes rolled around in his skull.


    "What?! What? Don''t you know how to talk you fucking retard?" Turnus slapped him.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "Wha-what?" The man asked again.


    "Carbon, nitrogen, calcium." Turnus counted his fingers. "Potassium. A little sulfur...and I forgot the rest. Shit."


    "What?" Now he was watching his arm with deliberation, now the pain was registering into him. His eyes rolled into his skull.


    "I just told you what, are you listening?" But he wasn''t talking to anyone conscious anymore. The man was on the floor, sleeping, with his eyes reaching the back of his skull.


    "Fucking idiot," Turnus muttered. "That''s an arm, I''ll come by for the leg later."


    He spat. Left him there belly up in the middle of the road as he headed into the casino.


    "I''ll get her back, right after I deal with you." His face looked up, to the vaulted ceilings of the casino.


    ?


    Jaimi and Kacey walked closely together through the slot machines, giant rows of black and gold square boxes with ripped off lever arms rolling on the floor like swollen red limbs.


    Most of the machines were shot or exploded or mismanaged or blasted with sand that the grit was still falling down from the cracks of the slot machines.


    It was like their younger days in Morocco, running hand and hand, stealing from stalls. They weren''t thief''s anymore, of course. And they weren''t human (were they ever?), but it was nostalgic feeling at least to Jaimi. And because of that, she slacked, dragging her hand against the leather stools and metal machines. It wasn''t quite Moroccan grass or Bindweeds, but it didn''t matter.


    Kacey stepped on a glass panel, it was one of the three slots. A cherry.


    Jaimi stepped on a Seven as she stopped next to her brother.


    Upon them, a staircase leading up, emergency it read.


    Kacey''s eyes flashed orange, and something moved within, what looked like a small sperm or tadpole or other auxiliaries, drilling its way into his orange eyes. It looked like live impregnation, maybe it was.


    Because the minute that little parasite drilled into Kacey, something appeared on his shoulder. A bump. A movement that road down his back, and swelled and tightened his skin.


    Then it exploded, near his kidneys. He didn''t flinch, nor did he bleed.


    A shadow quite literally grew out of him. It spun around the two like a hurricane before settling into corporeal form in front of Kacey. A sleek creature, whatever it was (because there really wasn''t quite any kind of species to compare it too). A homunculus, sort of. This creature, this strange thing looked like a lion - feral and lean - with three-fingered claws like a kind of fowl. Five eyes looked back, two on each side of its red-furred face. Two tails erected out from its sides, like kind of gliders. And this animal keeper extended his hand out, he shot a finger upwards to the stairs.


    It had mostly feathers, and the few inches of flesh were thatched, scaly.


    "Go on, find him for us," Kacey said.


    The animal walked up a few steps, the first into the emergency stairway. A body still dangled by the guard rail. The creature took a sniff of the corpse and growled and jumped from the edge of the metal rail, upwards.


    He disappeared into the above darkness.


    "We''ll have him in five minutes. When that happens, I''ll get the other one out." Another tadpole grew out from Kacey''s second eye, it swam close to his iris. "I''ll distract him. You go for the kill."


    "Alright." She said in a hushed voice.


    "How long can you bring it out for?


    "Ten minutes." She said. "I didn''t have too much to eat today. Sorry."


    The man rubbed her forehead. He smiled.


    "That''s alright. We''ll have him in five."


    They waited by the side of the building, waiting for a kind of message.


    They got it. The feline creature let out a throaty-roar. Or cry. Plead. It followed them all the way down the steps, touching each floor before hitting them. They nodded and walked and looked for the guttural sound.


    They arrived at the scene with the same patient calm that brought them here in the first place; the slow, almost dragging footsteps. The same closeness, locked in hands.


    "And who are you two?"


    They heard his voice across the room near a draft from a shattered window not too far off. The curtains dangled.


    "Why would I even ask? You''re Turnus¡¯s taxmen, no? Here to collect a debt¡­" Ritcher lifted his hunched body. Below him, Kacey''s creature. ¡°I thought he¡¯d take longer to try and kill me, I guess he didn¡¯t want to wait. A quick striker, a surprise even to me.¡±


    It released a strained growl. The tip of Ritcher''s cane held the creature by its neck, he pressed down. Snap.


    The creature turned to dark dust and came back to Kacey''s eyes as such. The black particles swimming into him as if falling into the drain of his iris.


    Black eyes returned back to orange, almost yellow in their neon glow.


    Kacey blinked. His left eye bled, he covered it with his hand.


    "We have to kill you, mister," Kacey said, whose boyish voice was anything but compelling. Jaimi took a step back, aligning herself directly behind her brother''s shadow. She peeped with one head out, tip-toeing past his shoulders.


    "It can''t be any other way." She muttered.


    "I wouldn''t want it any other way." Ritcher smiled. "There''s nothing I despise more than the diplomatic man. What''s a paper to the battlefield? The pen to the sword? Ink for blood? It''s not even comparable. Let war be its own diplomacy. Have no mercy. Cleanse the enemy so that there is no man left to negotiate. Like a flood."

 Jigsaw Portrait 6

    "You''re going to start talking. And you better talk real fast." Aenea kicked the doors open to the chapel. She carried her sister by the hair, pushing her and dragging her through the halls and into the wedding room of the church. Thaddeus was there, not waiting of course (because if he was, he was waiting for two witches wrestling each other, he probably would have been less surprised). No, he was working his craft. Chemistry or alchemy, it was hard to tell. He had a big slick piece of black crystal along a table, which used to be Floyd''s arm.


    Then he pushed himself away from his table as something - No, someone was slammed on it. Floyd''s arm fell.


    Aenea pinched Luanne from the neck, pinning her against the table. Luanne kicked and screamed, knocking down the three monitors Thaddeus had put.


    "Y-y-you could have called before you brought her!" Thaddeus ran away to the corner of the room, knocking down several chairs.


    "I don''t want to talk about it right now, just close every damn door and window you can so the bitch doesn''t get away." She said as if she forgot both of them could just cave in walls in with swift anger. Maybe it was more sentiment than anything.


    Luanne gripped Aenea''s hand, pushing her nails deep into the crevices of Aenea''s wrist.


    "You''re not breaking free." Aenea brought her other hand down, pinning Luanne''s arm. "You were real polite when you were crying, I wish you''d show that restraint again."


    "You''re choking me." Luanne struggled to say. And Aenea narrowed her eyes. But seeing Luanne''s deep expression of animosity wasn''t quite as convincing as either of them hoped it''d be.


    "If I let my hand off your neck, will you promise not to hurt me?"


    "I promise not to hurt you," Luanne said.


    "That doesn''t mean anything, promise me on your son." Aenea tightened. "Promise it on little Flint that you won''t fucking attack me, or God so help me, I''ll strangle you with your pretty little dress."


    "I will not try to hurt you." Luanne cried. Aenea slammed her neck down onto the table again. "I swear on my son!"


    And she let go.


    "Why''d you try to kill me?" Aenea stepped forward. "You better have a good answer, because it might be your last question.


    "Please don''t do this here." Thaddeus cried. Aenea shot him with her famous glare, the shut-your-mouth-or-you-get-some-too face. The kind of face you make with a tightened nose and with raised eyebrows and with slanted eyes. Clint Eastwood would be proud.


    "Aren''t you tough? A real hardass, aren''t you? A few weeks ago you were bitching and moaning about the job, about your own blood." Luanne said. "Now you don''t have a problem threatening me. I bet it wasn''t hard killing Floyd, was it? Never even made you question anything, did it?"


    "What do you mean?" Aenea asked.


    "I mean I don''t owe you anything! I mean to say that you killed Floyd." She said.


    "I didn''t kill him, alright?" Aenea knocked down a plastic chair, it folded on itself and skid against the brown floorboard. "And I won''t lie either. I knew about his death, and I wasn''t sad about it either, I sleep a lot easier now that he''s dead."


    "Of course you do, you bitch." She grabbed a candle-staff. It looked like Poseidon''s trident.


    "Don''t you do it," Aenea said. "Or I''ll really get you this time."


    "Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no." Thaddeus rolled into a ball in the corner of the room, chanting. He had on him a small brown bag that he hyperventilated into.


    She threw the spear at Aenea. Aenea who grabbed it, the wooden and candlelit trident. Her arms glowed and what became of the trident? Wood. Specifically, a branch, the candle reduced to honeycomb wax and string and ash.


    A deconstruction completely of every entity composing the damn staff.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    "You''re not going to beat me." Aenea put her hands on Luanne''s neck. "So I''d really appreciate if you stopped trying."


    "You killed Floyd," Luanne screamed, her hands flailed about, looking for Aenea''s eye sockets to dig her fingers in.


    "You keep saying that, but I keep telling you I wasn''t the one who did the damn job. Dion did." She said.


    "Your pet dog." She screamed. "The witch-hunters you brought. You paid them off to kill us, it''s the same thing then!"


    "No, it''s not," Aenea said. "First, they''re demon hunters. Not witch hunters. Secondly, I don''t pay them anything. I brought them here to protect me. That''s it."


    "A crime by proxy." So she hissed. And Aenea couldn''t believe that this was Luanne. The same maternal, loving Luanne. The shy girl in the back with the little baby on her chestline, feeding away. It was hard to believe this was anyone even closely related to her.


    "Why''d you do it?" Luanne cried.


    "Floyd came after us. He was going to kill Dion, that''s what I heard. And when he was done with him, he would have come for me." She said. "So Dion did what he thought was right. Or what he was forced to do. That''s how it happened. You know that''s the truth."


    "No." She said.


    "You know he wasn''t right in the head."


    "No, no." Her face scrunched.


    "You know he had it in him to be a monster."


    "Why-" Her eyes broke with red veins. The heavy lines of her tired eyes stretched out, she cried. It streaked down her face. "Why''d he do it?"


    She turned her face, her blonde hair falling and covering crying eyes. Aenea stared for a while, she felt the hot water hit her palm. Then she let go, slow and steady.


    "Why''d he do it? Why?" Luanne said, hands on her face. She crawled onto a ball on the table, grabbing her dress and raising it to her face. Most of her bottom was dirty, filled with mud and trash of the dump before. It didn''t matter. She brought it against her face and let it soak brown and black.


    Aenea watched, her hands behind her back, her head looking away every so often they made eye contact because watching her sister felt painful. It felt like someone gripped her heart and pulled it down, like a lever.


    "He went quickly..." It was a lie. She knew it. She couldn''t help but say it to her though. "It was painless..."


    "We could have run away." Luanne cried. "We could have gone anywhere in the world and forgotten about all this stupid shit. Somewhere where beyond mom''s reach, somewhere safe. Away from everyone." She pointed her finger at Aenea. "Away from you!"


    "I understand how you feel, but I need you to know I''m not your enemy," Aenea said.


    "You''re definitely not my friend!" Luanne ran the back of her hand on her nose. The snot was on her backhand.


    "I''m your sister. That should count for something, right?" Aenea put a hand on her shoulder. "Do you think I want any of this? Do you know how disgusted all of this makes me? Seeing you all dead or dying or killing. It''s like cancer, this greed in us, it''s just eating us away. Distorting. I never asked for this, as much as you didn''t."


    It''s like the words didn''t even register as sound. Luanne''s blank stare just peered off into the empty wall.


    "Luanne?" Aenea shook her.


    "Floyd died for nothing," Luanne said to herself, Aenea just happened to be the eavesdropper. "He''s gone now."


    "He died for his pride." She said. "That''s not a bad thing to die for. Not the best, but not bad. Better than most, honestly. Because most just go remorseful, miserable, alone. But Floyd? He went like he lived, like a warrior."


    "What''s the difference? Dying like a warrior? Dying from disease? Dying alone? He''s dead. Dead is dead. There''s nothing different about that at all. If he wanted to die, he could have done it comfortably as an old man. He could have!"


    Aenea took her hand off Luanne. She rested it on her side. Her head hung low.


    "I don''t know what I''m going to do," Luanne said, the tears long since stopped. She sniffled, her body upright on the table. It was as if there were no more tears left to cry, like the well of her emotions had been drained or siphoned. That''s what her eyes said at least, the haggard, dark circles around her eyes - they said; we¡¯re spent, call later.


    "Ritcher will kill us. If not him, Turnus. If not Turnus..." She turned to Aenea. "You."


    "I''m not going to kill you. Not anymore, if I wanted to, I would have done it two times over."


    "You say that, but I can''t believe you."


    "Then why''d you come here?" Aenea asked. "Why are you still here? Why don''t you turn invisible and run away?"


    Luanne went quiet. She looked at the floor, her legs dangled by the edge of the table.


    "What am I going to do about my son?"


    "Flint?" Aenea asked.


    "His father is dead. What am I going to do?" And it was like it didn''t even matter what she admitted to. She just said it as matter-of-fact, with the coldness and apathy of a natural disaster. An action without passion or anger, just a bowel movement of the planet. Even if it is (or sounded catastrophic), to Luanne, it was just fact. Cold fact. Indiscriminate.


    His father?


    Aenea covered her mouth.


    Floyd was his dad? Jesus Christ.


    "I..." And Aenea looked back and forth.


    "Don''t look at me," Thaddeus said, in his little corner. "This is weirding me the f-f-frick out."


    "I mean..." Aenea looked down at her dejected sister. Luanne''s lifeless palms were cold, touching them she could feel a pulse, faint, nothing much more. It was like she was touching a doll. Fake, inanimate, plastic and wood and pig-leather skin.


    "I''ll protect him." She sighed. "I''ll protect your kid. But if you want me to do that, you''re going to have to help me."


    Luanne looked up.


    "I need you to tell me everything you know about this family. About Ritcher. Your mother. Our dad."


    Aenea clenched her sister''s hands.


    "And tell me about Turnus." She raised Luanne''s chin. "If you can do that, I will guarantee your sons safety against anyone and everyone. I promise. As a Wolfe. I promise."

 Jigsaw Portrait 7

    "I swear on my sword, on my Honor as a Vicar to protect you." He rolled his eyes. He didn''t really mean it, because promises really didn''t mean much to him.


    "Alright." She said. "So..."


    She took a deep breath. Her baby riled in her chest, she rubbed his scalp and touched his nose and tried to force a smile upon her face.


    "Well, let''s take it from the start then, right? I..." She said, and all of them were on their plastic seats with the back legs slanted so that it looks like they were almost about to fall. "I killed dad."


    She said it cold, lifelessly.


    "I dug a blade through his chest." She said.


    "Why?" Apollo asked.


    "He found out about Floyd and me."


    "That you two were fucking?" Apollo asked.


    "That we had a child." She hissed at him. "An innocent boy, yes. And he threatened to take that away."


    "He was going to kill your kid?"


    "He was going to do something. Lord knows what and we didn''t take the risk, so Floyd got behind him and held his neck and arms and I...with the statue piece...I just.,.went at it. And he struggled, and he bled...and Floyd just wouldn''t let go..."


    "So it was a two man job. Makes sense." Apollo said. "How''d he find out about your relationship?"


    The other two were almost impressed by his candor.


    "Turnus told him. I know it. I don''t know how, but he did." She said. "I don''t have evidence, but this is what my gut tells me."


    "Goddamnit. This still doesn''t answer my question!" Apollo shouted into the air.


    "What do you mean? We know everything." Thaddeus said.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "I still don''t know why Turnus killed his dad. I don''t know who the fuck the body in the shed is. And what all of this means for us anyway? It''s like I answer one question and ten more take its place."


    "A body in the shed?" She said. "I don''t know about that, sorry. But I think I have an idea what Ritcher and Turnus want. Have wanted, really."


    "What''s that?" Aenea leaned in, braced for the news.


    "He''s chasing after it, the emerald tablet. The Tabula Smaragdina." She said. "All of them, all of us. Whether you know it or not."


    "What''s that?"


    "The Philosophers called it the tablet of all knowledge," Apollo said. "An alchemist''s masturbatory fantasy. It''s said to give anyone any access to any secret they''d so love to know. Any problem, any formula. It can produce any solution to a hundred percent accuracy. A sort of...living Wikipedia, I guess. But more, much more."


    "I don''t know what they''ll do with it. Mother wanted it for immortality." She said. Aenea made a disgusted face. "Some people say you can even predict the future with it. It''s a boundless thing."


    "And...you''ll get this...how exactly?" Apollo asked.


    "With the blood of Wolfes. That''s how it goes at least." She said. "Mammon promised it to dad. I believe he promised it to mother too, and father. I don''t know how it''ll work exactly, but I wouldn''t put it past Ritcher or Turnus to know. I know it involves all our deaths though."


    "Well, that''s great, real swell," Apollo said. "These answers were shit. And now I''ve got another burden on my shoulder. Are you happy?" He looked at Aenea who had her head by the chair''s back, it held her chin. Her eyes looked adrift, looking out the window.


    "Huh?" She woke up. "What? Am I happy? No. But it'' doesn''t change much. I''ll defend my sister."


    "Really? After I shot you?" She asked.


    "Yeah, after you shot me," Aenea said. "As a business person, it should always be beneath you to hold grudges. I''ve got bigger problems anyway."


    "They''re going to come after you all, you know that right?" Luanne said.


    "We''ll figure something out. If talking doesn''t get us anywhere then..."


    "Then we kill ''em." Apollo clapped his hands. It''s that easy."


    "What about the emerald tablet? Or me? Aren''t you mad? I killed dad. Me." She said.


    "I never liked him," Aenea said. "Hard to get mad about that, really. It''s like getting mad over a strangers death."


    "And my kid? He''s Floyd''s son, you''re fine with that?"


    "You keep asking if I''m fine or angry or whatever," Aenea said. "What you should be asking is if I''m willing. And yes, I am."


    "He''s your problem then," Apollo said. "I''ve got more things to do than run around playing bodyguard again."


    "So what now then?" Aenea asked. Apollo raised his hand and just behind him, the doors burst open.


    Dolores stepped through, sweating, heaving.


    "You left me in there, you asshole." She said.


    And they all looked at her in surprise, curiosity. Everyone but Luanne, who looked with a glare more than curious, it looked almost...opportunistic. Wry. Like a smile half-formed.

 Jigsaw Portrait 8

    "We¡¯ve kind of railroaded ourselves into fighting them I guess, and that means we''re not going to need a way to bring Turnus out of his hole," Apollo said. "I know none of you want to hear that because violence seems to be the one thing most of you want to avoid."


    He looked at everyone; Aenea, Dolores, Luanne, the child, the OTHER child (Flint) and of course Thaddeus. Dion still waited outside, by the window, due to problems with relations between him and Luanne (she hit him with a folded chair when he tried to talk to her) and because of this, Dion had to shut his mouth and just listen and tighten his lips every time something uncomfortable passed his ears. It was convenient for Apollo because Apollo had a knack for saying uncomfortable things. He could run his mouth off without any problems now. There was no better blessing than that.


    "It j-j-just seems that we really don''t need to kill any of them, you know? There''s only three left right? Turnus, Ritcher and the mom?" Thaddeus.


    "My mother is dead," Luanne said. "Ritcher killed her."


    "How do you know?" Apollo asked.


    "Because I betrayed her."


    "Should I say sorry for your loss or thank you?" Apollo said.


    "Asshole." He wasn''t really sure who said that it seemed to come from everyone''s mouth. Even Dion''s.


    "Whatever. We need to focus, right? Maybe we don¡¯t need to kill them, maybe we just need to beat them so hard they¡¯ll wish they died. Now earlier, Aenea, you told me you were willing to fight?" Apollo looked at her, she nodded. "It seems as though we''ve found an opportunity for you to fight. If I had to take a guess, Turnus really wants Dolores. Maybe it¡¯s love, maybe it¡¯s something worse, an obsession. Or a mockery, if he even has pride."


    Aenea and Thaddeus nodded.


    "That¡¯s good. He¡¯ll come. We have the advantage in numbers."


    "I''m not on your team -" Luanne said. "I''m just not against you, that''s the deal."


    ¡°And I¡¯m definitely not helping you kill Turnus,¡± Dolores said.


    "Not kill, fight." He turned to Luanne. "And you really don¡¯t have a choice, you understand? You¡¯re an enemy by association, they¡¯re not going to stop hunting you down, and if you want to be as safe as possible, you¡¯ve got to help us. Better start playing buddy-buddy."


    He looked at them all.


    "We''re going to attack Ritcher."


    "That''s insane," Luanne said. "You really don''t know what he''s capable of, do you? He''s the strongest out of all of us, period. It''d take twice the men we have here to even try. Floyd was the closest thing to reaching Ritcher, but even he wasn''t even ground."


    "Well if Floyd was the closest thing to Ritcher, I don''t think Ritcher¡¯s that far ahead of the curve, is he? I mean where''s Floyd now?"


    She tightened her face and looked away, murmuring.


    "You can get mad, or you can start being a team member. If you want asylum, that is. Because here''s the truth, Luanne." He walked up to her, his back straightened and eyes peering down. "You can run away from Turnus or Ritcher or Aenea, maybe even for a few months. Tops. But I¡¯ll make sure the Vatican kills you in half that time, if not by my hands then by another Vicar¡¯s."This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    What he forgot to mention was that this was the same Vatican trying to cut his head off.


    "You''re threatening me?"


    "I''m telling you the truth. You tried attacking the person I¡¯ve been tasked to defend. That''s warrant enough to have your head. On top of that, you''re a witch. Unstable, too. What do you think would happen if I brought that up?"


    "You''re not an asshole, you''re a demon." She spat.


    "I am what I eat." Apollo smiled. "Now if you¡¯re done complaining, shut up and listen up.¡± He clasped his hands. "Dion and Aenea and myself will be assaulting the casino, we''ll be killing Ritcher." He said. "You''re going to sneak us in. You told me your power allows for the muting of sound too, right?"


    "Only on solid ground. Water...anything wet really makes a sound." She said.


    "Mud also leaves tracks. Dirt of any kind." Aenea added.


    "That''s fine. You''ll get us as far as you can, and we''ll lead a focused attack on Ritcher, no splitting up. We fight together."


    "You''ll die together," Luanne said.


    "After you''re done helping us, you''re free to go wherever you want." He said. "You''ll leave your kid with Thaddeus until then."


    "No, hell no." She said.


    "You''d rather take him onto the battlefield?"


    "I have someone I can leave him with. Will that be good enough? Or are you going to threaten my child too" She turned a bit away from him, in disgust.


    "Not yet," Apollo said.


    "Come on!" Dion shouted from behind the window. "Be a little nicer."


    "How is this going to get Turnus out?" Aenea asked.


    "Well, once two targets disappear; Luanne and Ritcher, there¡¯ll only be one left he''s able to kill. With narrowed choices, we¡¯ll make him come out. And then-" He turned to Dolores. ¡°We¡¯ll try our best to convince him to change his mind about everything. I¡¯m sure you want to talk to him too, right?¡±


    ¡°A little.¡± She said.


    ¡°Well, this is the only way you¡¯re going to be able to, on even grounds.¡±


    "That¡¯s still optimistic. What¡¯s guaranteeing Turnus doesn¡¯t just leave himself?" Aenea said.


    "That''s my read on Turnus. He''s a narcissistic sociopath, he indulges on causing suffering, especially on people he hates. In effect, you."


    They all stood silent, a fan moved above in slow pace. The wind wasn''t strong enough to cool Apollo, who felt claustrophobic in the wedding room. All the space in the world could not capacitate the weight of their nervousness. It was dripping. It was hot. It was dense and crushing.


    ¡°You¡¯ll protect me? Can you even do that, you¡¯re a witch hunter, right?¡±


    ¡°Demon hunters!¡± Dion said from outside.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Apollo said. ¡°We can.¡±


    "Alright," Aenea said. "Luanne, if you want what you want, you should take the offer. It really won''t get better - for any of us. And they can protect you much better than I can."


    Again, Apollo lied. He was good at it, didn''t even frown or smile or make a move or twitch. What was the lie? Protection. It was a half a lie, really. Half of him was sure they''d accept his request to protect the witch. Half of him thought they''d cut his head off too.


    "Fine," Luanne said. "It''s not like I have a choice, is it? I mean, what choice do any of us have?" Her eyes fell. "It''s just dumb bad luck, isn''t it?"


    "Existing is dumb luck," Apollo said. "Some of us either just accept life for the suffering it is, or lie to ourselves."


    They didn''t need to hear more. They just agreed, with silent resignation, and split apart into their own corner, each one taking a chair or a table or the side of a window where they could stare freely and emptily at nothing. That''s what thinking looked like, after all, the face struggling to make any kind of face.


    Thaddeus came up, a little shaken. He had in his hand a cloth, that resembled the wrapping of a baby.


    ¡°I was waiting for things to be done,¡± Thaddeus said. ¡°D-d-didn¡¯t want to interrupt, ya know?¡±


    "What''s this?" Apollo asked.


    "Look inside, I had it fitted for you. I think it''ll help." Thaddeus said.


    He uncovered the clothes, whatever inside made his eyes widened. Then he looked up, to Thaddeus'' face.


    "I thought you didn''t like making weapons?" Apollo asked.


    "Is it really a weapon though? It''s more like a tool."


    "I guess you can call it that." He said.


    It was an arm. Cast in black crystal. And Apollo raised it to the little nub on his own, lopped off arm and the ends of the black crystal arm clinched and clipped into him. His nub was forced into a small chamber within the prosthetic, it felt like a dog biting him. The clamp broke skin and muscle and bone. He made a face, one that melted away. Like the very pain he felt, quick and sharp and fickle. It made way to numbness. Then that too went away, almost immediately and he noticed his arm felt¡­heavy. Very, very, heavy.


    "How''s it fit?" Thaddeus asked.

 Jigsaw Portrait 9

    So they were in the middle of the fray; Ritcher and the two beastmasters. Or summoners. Or vessels, whatever name they thought most honorable.


    Kacey the brother, Jaimi, the sister.


    The lion with its was jaw forward leaped out, Ritcher swerved to his right. The cuff of his shirt was ripped away where a wide cut appeared across his arm.


    It''s not a lion, but it''s the best word that comes to mind when he saw it. Whatever animus Kacey has conjured, landed behind Ritcher and muffled its roar. Almost as if a purr. The most hostile purr you can imagine, but playful, still.


    "I thought I killed your cat once before." Ritcher pushed himself off the floor with his cane, jumping, in a move so quick that all they saw was the black blur. He landed on the stairs behind them, the summoners.


    He moved his head across the horizon of the terrain, slamming his cane and making sonar scene out of the whole thing; the two stood in the middle of the hall behind a bloody fountain and the shadow of the marble Greek Muses. Beyond them, the elevator and above the elevator is a balcony only reachable by two fleets of stairs.


    The second floor houses the Wolfe''s domains. The caves of each Wolfe now closed forever.


    "A stubborn spirit, your cat. I think I''d be better off putting you down, no? Would that be easier?" Ritcher asked. Not a single response. "You fight like cowards. To have animals suffer the battles between men-"


    He ducked. Something flew fast past his face, a screeching creature that struck the wall behind him. It stuck itself in there, gnawing away at the wood and granite of the wall. It turned around and faced him, what appeared to have the face a woman and the long elongated neck of a vulture, the kind of crane neck that you get from having lazy muscles. Its sleek body made it appear small until it expanded its wingspan. Ritcher made out the shape in his blindness when it struck the wall.


    It recalled back, almost the same direction.


    Ritcher jumped. The flying creature mauled the rail guard and came back to the girl''s shoulder.


    Dangerous.


    "So, that''s how you think you''ll win? With numbers?" Ritcher smiled. He couldn''t see much. Couldn''t really make up the terrain to the fine details that any proper vision could have, but he could feel it, hear it. He slammed his cane down on the floor, and it seemed like every piece and inch of building laid itself up to him, like blueprints. Sonar, tonal blueprints. And he slammed his cane down again and from the floor rose small particles of black sand.


    "You''re not the only ones who have tried dog-piling, there was an army before you. I''m sure you saw them down the stairs, no?" Ritcher said. "They thought their guns and science could best me. But there is no besting God. I am His sword, of which no shield is necessary."


    "You talk a lot." Kacey extended his hand. The lion came up the stairs, climbing the side of the walls. Midway, It leaped at him. Ritcher felt its claws sink into his shoulder and its body heavy against his own. He saw the bird too. Or perhaps, better yet, he heard the bird. Its fast, gliding feathers (they almost resembled fins) zooming towards him. And it seemed fatal, the two forces coming at him, the girth of the lion''s maw and the zooming sky-piranha, nipping the air.


    He felt a rush. A straight fire on his groin, ecstasy, and thrill to challenge any kind of erotic degeneracy. Because violence to him was just that, a kind of erotic play.


    Though he''d never admit it.


    He smiled. And his body disappeared. Or...rather...dematerialized into fine black sand.


    His clothes, his cane, everything about him sunk into the floor, the small grains falling in between the gaps of the balustrade, onto the floor below. He disappeared, the two animals were too far into their trajectories. They struck each other.


    The lion''s jaw was ripped clean off.


    The girl looked to the boy (at least Ritcher assumed so, based on the ''Sorry'' she said).


    He reappeared, on the bottom floor, fully realized as a man.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "As I was saying. You''re going to have a very hard time killing me. So why even try?" Ritcher said. "Is it for pride, does it seem nobler to die in battle than not? Fools would believe so, but philosophers understand that there is no nobility in any death. Only in life, under the service of the greater can nobility be achieved. You are on the wrong side."


    The lion wagged its face. Ritcher could hear it''s long fur and fat shake and slap itself and its two whiskers whipping the air and guard rails. The bird ate away, like a wood chipper, grinding the walls.


    The lion went quiet. Then the sky broke into a loud noise, like a thunder.


    The lion was above him.


    It came down with its broken, bitter face, looking to crush Ritcher with weight alone. Kacey hadn''t even moved an inch, he just gestured his hands the way to move the giant monstrosity.


    Ritcher smiled. He struck the floor with his cane. The black sands came out again. As spikes, this time, sharpened and hardened. A whole army of thorns that appeared to wrap themselves and shield him.


    The lion fell, its own weight propelling it deeper into the spikes. It was stabbed in the abdomen in two different spots, once in the leg, and a fourth in the skull.


    It was a kill so fast the creature hadn''t even groaned.


    It disappeared into nothing, just dust, that returned to Kacey.


    Kacey''s left eye bled as the particles entered his eyes.


    "Are you alright?" She asked.


    "How much time do you have left?" He asked. She didn''t respond, she pointed with her fingers the number. Ritcher was good, not good enough to see hand movements out of nothing though.


    He tilted his head.


    A time limit, huh? They could at least offer me more a struggle if they''re going to go through the effort.


    So it was that the air was still and not a single word spoken for the next few minutes. He could barely hear the faint breath of their lungs exhausting themselves. And he could barely hear a footstep - No, there were none after a while. The room was dead with sound and dead with the life of violence, the cacophony of claws and fangs and vexed air. He wasn''t even sure anyone was still there, perhaps couldn''t know. Not until a light noise was made. There! On a pillar, to his left. A finger touched the marble, scraped it, plucking dirt and other small particles from its surface. He turned his head in the direction. Not another sound. And he resolved then to slam his walking cane down on the floor and to see the room with that strange sonar vision of his. It was like a wave coursing through the room, a pulse that gave the darkness of his eyes detail. It appeared to him as such; the stairs and the carpet and the chandeliers and the rotundas above, the fountain with its still murky waters and the window (broken, windy), but nothing else. Not the two, certainly not the lion either. It was as if they vanished.


    Then it suddenly struck him like a diamond bullet straight through his skull. He raised his head up, quickly. The ends of his eye band touched the back of his neck, a cold touch that ran down his shoulders.


    He heard a roar, only for a millisecond. He put his cane up in front of him. The massive beast gnawed at his cane, chewing away at the wood. The slobber fell down his neck, the breath hot and moist made his suit stick to his body. Like a swamp, or the air of a swamp at least.


    From the floor the black sands protruded, seeping through the tiles and coming forward. A spike launched upwards, where he predicted the lion would land. There wasn''t a scream, not even a squeal, though he had struck something.


    The room returned to silence. He stood himself, tried to at least with his cane and found it broken and shattered when he put the front of his weight against it.


    It must have gotten bitten off.


    He smiled.


    "Oh, now this is a thrill, isn''t it?" He asked. "The soldiers weren''t much, not to their faults. How would they ever be trained against someone like me? But you two, I''m sure you have more than enough experience dealing with savage beasts."


    He turned his ears left and right.


    The lion struck again. And once again, only milliseconds away from Ritcher. He moved, to his right. The lion mauled his arm clean off. His lopped arm fell some paces away, striking the floor once before rolling towards the wall and stopping. Once again the lion stopped, once again his breath and vile scream ceased. Ritcher felt the limb, or where the limb should have been. He did not squirm, did not make a face or scream or shout.


    No, he smiled.


    He let go of his cane and let it drop and with his other hand clenched his bicep (as that was all that remained of that limb) and squeezed. Squeezed, contracted his muscles. The blood spilled, juiced from the flesh of his severed arm. The blood fell to the floor into a pool. Sand rose, soaking up the red stuff. It was like making cement, or clay or any other kind of hardening agent. He placed this mixture - the black sand and the blood - and pressed it on his exposed wound. Then he made another layer until a small mound was there to band-aid himself.


    "It''s been a while since I''ve lost a limb." He said. "We''re not like Vicars, us Witches. Not gifted with the capacity to heal our mistakes. Not to the extent of a Vicar, at least."


    His head swerved left and right.


    "I wonder how I''ll reconstitute myself." The blood-sand plopped on the floor. "Maybe I''ll go ahead and take one of your arms."


    He heard the air break.


    He pointed to the sky. For what reason? Because that''s where they had to be. In the sky, floating above on that bird.


    The bird that had not made an attack. The two that had not made a sound.


    "Witty. I''ll give you that. I can''t see that of which isn''t on the floor, right? Clever." Ritcher said. "But nothing much more than that. Cleverness doesn''t win wars. Will does. Will and faith."


    So he said and raised his left hand and behind him, like the flood that ended the earth once, came a long tidal wave of black sand. And he flung his arm forward, and let the sand go. A burst, outwards, that collapsed the windows and shattered the doors, and he was sure, had struck them.

 Jigsaw Portrait 10

    "Don''t let go," Jaimi told her brother, who hung by her arm, whose legs floated atop a three hundred yard drop. His legs dangled and he swerved as Jaimi brought him in closer. The beast, the lion, fell past them. It swooshed, then landed, then splattered. It looked like a black ink drop, from the height above that they stood from. The bird, right below Jaimi''s feet, balancing her atop its back. The wings, flapping and eventually gliding to a lower floor. The creature mawed at the glass and it shattered, Jaimi threw her brother in. Kacey rolled on the floor, some glass digging into his skin as he struck a column and stopped.


    "That was close." She said. The bird retracted into black mist and it returned to her eye. "If I waited a little longer I think he would have gotten us."


    She turned around, outside the black sand fell in small streams from the floor above. It looked like rain. "Are you okay?"


    He stood, fumbling. He braced himself against a concrete pillar and put his forehead against the surface. He had one hand against his eye.


    "I can''t see." He said. "From my left eye, it''s all black and white spots."


    "You overused it again." She said. Then brought a finger to her lips. "Let''s whisper when we talk, he¡¯ll hear us." In a hushed tone.


    "What happened?" He asked. "I didn''t see much, then you grabbed me and threw me out, and I was dangling in the air." He whispered, he put his back against the column and lowered it until he touched the ground. Beyond him, a slew of roulette boards, some of them spun. There were balls scattered across the floor and little pieces of red and black plastic with numbers all along the ruined tables. Most of them were, at least. Workable roulette tables had plastic sheets over themselves.


    "He shot out a tsunami. That''s what it looked like, I guess." She said. "Just black sand and it rushed at us."


    "Is he chasing us?" He asked.


    "No." Her bird hovered behind her, flapping wildly in the open sky. "Lucy hasn''t spotted anything."


    "I don''t think I can use Harold anymore." Harold, of course, was the very human name to that very inhuman monstrosity he had for a summon. "It''ll take a few days for me to even see again."


    "I''ve got a few more minutes in me." She drew her hand back, towards the bird and extended her palm. The creature materialized into ash and returned to her.


    "I''ve got the other one, still." He said. "She''s hungry. Much hungrier than Harold."


    "I have-"


    "Don''t," Kacey said. "We don''t need that right now, and you know what happened last time, right?"


    "Yeah." Her head sunk. "I can control it a bit better now."


    "Why risk it though?" He asked.


    "Because we''ll die if I don''t try."


    "Don''t think like that. I think he¡¯s worse than us right now-" The ceiling above him rattled. It was like a small quake that moved the tile and granite and shook the foundations. Grit and dirt fell from the roof, it landed in little spots around the two. Jaimi helped Kacey up. He brushed the dust off his shoulders.


    "Let''s move." He said. They ran, with as gentle steps as they could as they made their way to the exit. "We''ll fight on better grounds." He said.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    "And where''s that?" She asked.


    "Somewhere open. Where we can run as much as we want."


    He grabbed her hand. His cold palms gripped her hard, he jerked her arm as they went down the stairs. And they made it only two floors down.


    "Alright," Kacey said. "We¡¯ll fight him at the entrance, and we''ll lead him out the front."


    "Where all the dead soldiers are at?" Jaimi asked. Her eyes narrowed. Her brother looked stone-faced, unmoved even. Each word as natural as the violence he committed.


    "Yeah, we''ll stake him out there. There''s a lot of light. There''s a lot of room and cover -"


    Sand fell on his head. Her eyes opened wide. He noticed, a second late. He swerved, pushing her down the stairs. She fell, with her vision jumbled and messy as she rolled down. A spike came down from the stairs above. Ritcher''s figure appeared upon the edge of the guard rail.


    The spike had landed on Kacey. His arm plopped off. Kacey threw himself into twin doors, where it read emergency entrance. The rest of him flew into the twentieth floor, near what seemed to be a sport gambling bar and concession stand. Around him, potted plants and picture frames. All shattered on the floor. His blood mixed with the dry soil, his body, rolled around the carpet. That''s all she saw, briefly, before her head thumped against the wall behind her.


    She was a whole floor down.


    "Kacey!" She screamed.


    "I''m alright." A hoarse voice. He breathed in quick repetitions as if hyperventilating.


    "Meet me down there!" He screamed. She stood herself up, took one step forward. A spike came down, striking the floor next to her foot.


    "And don¡¯t die on me!¡± Kacey screamed from above.


    She grit her teeth, she looked up and down and up once more, Ritcher was still above, his silhouette obscure in the darkness of a ten-floor distance. But he was there. Green eyes reminded her that. The spikes assured her of it. So she looked down and went at it. Her body tired and aching with each fumbling step down the floors. The spikes falling on her like glaciers, then dispersing into puffs of black sand behind her. She called out her bird. It squawked once. She grabbed it by its shoulders and aimed it down the center of the spiral staircase, and she came down a blur. Her hair fast behind her, the air cutting around her. Spikes came down each direction around her, slicing her cheeks and arms. The bird spun. It maneuvered, as well as anything could in about ten feet of wingspan.


    Flying down. Fast. Her cheeks were pushed in.


    Floor five. She saw the image briefly in her vision, it was a big neon light on the elevator shaft.


    Behind her. She heard the noise. What looked like a spear, black and following her. It was spilling sand with each meter of air distance it covered, but it did not dissolve. It followed her. She pulled on the bird, raised it up. Then turned it around. The spear struck the bird straight in the head, a clean decapitation. Jaimi fell to the floor, the corpse of her beast below her. Her body aching, the soft belly of her creature crushed below her knees. It was flattened to the shape of her person. It dissolved, immediately. Her eye bled, immediately. Then she jumped away. With as tired and exasperated as she was, she dragged her ruined body through two big doors. The spears fell behind her, into a whole graveyard of the skewers.


    He was still throwing them like he was hunting out at sea.


    They sounded like arrows, and this is what she imagined the Spartans faced. The sound of breaking wind, the urgent feeling each step of her thin feet brought her. This was death. This was the arena like she remembered it.


    She went through the twin doors, she collapsed on them, rather. Then closed them and put her body against the door. The black sand stabbed through the doors, four times, right above her head. The sand stuck through the ground and dissolved. She ran away from the stream about to fall on her head, she didn''t want to even touch it. Not even see it.


    She crawled away, down a few steps, onto the undulating floor below.


    Her breathing finally caught up to her, her back against a guard rail. She spat her black curly hair out of her mouth. Bronze skin was reddened, cut up, bruised. Red, green, purple spots contaminated the even tone of her flesh. She was dry. Her lips, her elbow, her hands. Skin flaked off from her. It didn''t matter, not as much as each stinging breath.


    She closed her eyes and took in the air. Blood trickled down her left eye.


    Then she opened them up once more, to see the rest of the hall.


    The corpses of a dozen soldiers lay in front of her, their guns and knives and gear and body parts, all pointed to the sky. They were dead. Long since dead. Their bodies drained of all fluid. A mummified war-zone.


    And she curled up and brought her knees close to her breast. She put her hands underneath her legs, and she made a face - not fear, a face of anger.


    Her right eye was beginning to glow orange. As if begging for a chance.

 Jigsaw Portrait 11

    I¡¯ve spent ten years in a cell. That¡¯s too long to live anywhere, and here I am, ten years later, with someone trying to sentence me to an even longer prison. Out from the arena, into the coffin. No, not today.


    Kacey dragged his shoulder around the corner of the emergency exit doors and into the room. The potted plants, the glass frames, a hallway leading into a small stadium. Not an arena, a horse track; a big dirt circle stretch that composed most of the floor. Dirt, no bleachers because there was no space for them and certainly no men for them. No, the people (or where they should have been) were about the same position Kacey now stood in, behind some metal bars a top of the carpeted floor and near dishes and liquor stands, where could drunkenly lean over and throw their gambling tickets onto. It was a little private track, had no doors save the emergency exit and the single elevator.


    How¡¯d the horses get here?


    He looked behind him, the scattershot of spears still falling to the floor. The raw air had that heavy musk of iron and dirt and smoke that made him cough. He leaned over the metal guard rail, his shoulder hugged the steel. Blood fell from his stump-of-an-arm down to his thighs, stained baggy rags hid shaking legs. His vision blurred.


    No, not here. I won¡¯t die here. I did not die for rich men, I will not die for a rich psychopath.


    His head leaned forward, then his good arm, until his stomach was over the rail and by then gravity had more a hand than any of will of his. He slipped down. His body tumbled down the slope. Each roll producing a new kind of thump as he fell from a metal wall to the pliable dirt floor. When he hit the end, he was on the track. It was a wide donut, the center had a portion of grass.


    The spears no longer shot from outside. Or maybe the sound was too far. He stood. His knees locked and he took heavy steps forward. Each one left a trail, small, but noticeable amongst the orange dirt. He tripped over, his chin struck the floor. It scraped along a few inches before he put his knuckles against the floor and pushed. Lifting himself with one hand was almost impossible, almost. The pebbles dug into his skin. He grit his teeth, spit flew out from his coughing mouth. A heave. One singular scream, he stood up again.


    Not here for the rich to gamble on my corpse. Not here, to be a made show for those with dainty hands and whose hidden smiles hide rotten souls.


    He made it to one end of the track.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    I was landlocked in this country to be made a fool. To be taught just enough to know I was a fool. That¡¯s been my whole life; withheld, with enough knowledge to know I was miserable. That¡¯s a curse, right? Not being stupid enough to be happy with life, but not being smart enough to do anything about my misery. All I wanted was to go out, to meet people. That¡¯s it. People like me. That¡¯s all.


    He dragged his feet through the aged track, the dirt was barely leveled and even the struggling breath he carried unsettled the floor. The tracks he left were thick, heavy, like a nomad or exiled ones should be. Heavy enough, out of sheer stubbornness, to remind the earth that at least he walked. It may have been all he¡¯s done, but he walked. He walked through the grass, tripping over the rail, to drag once more. All the while on this grass, he cut his shirt and tore it into a small rope. He bound it to his arm and squeezed until the pain was too great that he could not help but kneel and scream and struggle with the light feeling in his head and the myriad bright spots in his vision that dangled over him like bleacher lights.


    Like halos, like angels downcast for him.


    He galloped over the second railing, a horse following his jockey¡¯s kick. Live.


    Live. If I live, they¡¯ll never expect it. They¡¯d have lost; money, ego, anything. They¡¯ll lose. They¡¯ll hate me if I live. So live. It makes them suffer, so live Kacey, live.


    The noises came back to him, the arena came back to him. Familiar sand, familiar pain. The boos, the groans, the moans, the thrown and cursed tickets and shells of food that hit the pit and made their place amongst the bones and blood. How many men had he killed by now? Were they even men? With histories, with purpose?


    It was not a pleasant fantasy that encroached on him. It was just the one that had endured. He couldn¡¯t help but think of the old crowd, of his hands high in the air and the blood of another man in the sand. Though, this blood was his this time around.


    Each lame step he took made his imaginary boo¡¯s louder, they followed him to the end of the track.


    He heard sand trickle behind him. He rushed. His cheeks went cold.


    I will live. They will know it too.


    The blood trickled out his left eye like a faucet left alone with slight ajar. He stopped all of a sudden, bruised and calloused feet placed firmly next to each other. He looked down. He felt cold air hit the soles of his feet. So he wiped the sweat off his face because it stung his eye and he bent over and placed his face against the cool air, and it felt like a gust, like he imagined an ocean breeze to feel (he¡¯d never been there, he¡¯d love to though). He pressed down, his fingers careful and spider-like as he reared them around himself until finally, something crushed his thumb - a gap! He dug his hand deeper, the pinching pain almost comforting.


    Not today. Not ever.


    The sand storm was coming, he could hear it through the doors, above, on the little stadium with the bar and carpet. He heard the sand falling.


    His fingers wiggled inside the gap.


    Come on. Come on.


    He pressed up, then down. His bleeding eye closed, the other prompted wide open. Ready.


    It glowed orange.


    ¡°Not today.¡± He pushed up. ¡°Not ever!¡±


    His eye glowed with the sudden realization; now he knew how they brought the horses up.

 Jigsaw Portrait 12

    Off the edges of Ritcher''s senses, where sound and touch were just about to fade, he heard the platform move down, it went somewhere deep and landed with a clank. Or at least, the person who had taken it had gone somewhere with a clank. He stood by the edge of the guard rail, in front of the track, his hand against the metal as a sheet of sand solidified below his feet, it traveled along the air and down to the floor. He floated along, as if on a magic carpet, to the point at which he had heard the elevator rise above the sandy track and fall. The metal door covering it was broken, he stuck his finger in the gap and pulled. It moved up some and hearing inside, there was nothing but the buzzing sound of sparks flying out.


    "Rat." He said and jumped away from the platform, out to the spiral and from there, jumped down to the first floor. A long drop, what must have been at least fifteen feet. A green glow from his eyes, and green veins, seemed to guard him though. He struck the floor, and the shock went up to his legs, traversing along the veins and out to his shoulder. All kinetic force, absorbed through the small green capillaries.


    The holes on the door were there along with the sand dissolved on the floor below them and each step he took forward moved the black sand up and into the air, summoned almost like a dog by his very presence.


    "Where are you?" He pushed the doors open, they rolled back and forth before petering off to silence. "Rats, hello?"


    He walked up, the corpses were laid out in front of him, their hands stiff and cold, arms extended out as if in prayer. He could feel the outline of their bodies through the displaced sand that floated around him. Most of them were on their backs, and their dry skin cracked, skin shavings peeled off from the mummies with each of his foot steps as he walked through the halls. Behind him, like a kind of tail or garb, a trail of black sand follow Ritcher.


    No light came from the window, yellow tape and metal sheets covered most of the outside windows, a few had open patches in the glass. Only cool air came through.


    Fine. He sniffed.


    Not even a scent. It was all corpse here, mummified and sweet.


    He tapped his cane on the floor. Nothing.


    And he raised it to his armpit and stood center-most of the room.


    "We''re here." The voice came soft and gentle. It was a woman, she was in the furthest section of the room, next to a hole in the glass that whistled with the air outside. Her soft sounds had been too subtle, too nuanced for him to isolate.


    "We?" He asked. His head darted across, a full three-sixty as he searched for the sound. And there was a sound, more than just her voice. A rumbling that came from somewhere he could not point out. A noise that came from the walls and the ceiling and then...the floor.


    He jumped. A giant wave of black sand followed him, providing a platform for him to stand.


    From below, going straight up. A worm erected itself from the floor to the ceiling, destroying and mutilating a full floor worth of stuff. It rained down; the slot machines, some bodies, beds, potted plants, bars, alcohol. Glass and flesh and concrete and metal came roaring down, blitzed to fine powder. It rained down on him. The worm rose up, through the ceilings and then slithered along the floor above. His carapace (at least, it sounded like he had one given the clanks and hard-bumping along the floor) shuffled through the turns, the metal-like armor it wore chafed against the floor and carpet.Stolen story; please report.


    "A worm?" He laughed. "A worm is going to eat me? You''ve been watching too many films."


    "No. I am."


    Another voice, to his right. He heard someone jump off a wall, heading towards him. Not a worm this time, the wind was not breaking in front of him. No, it was a small body.


    Ritcher shot out a wave of black sand. It went forward and caught the person midway, which, judging by the groan, was Kacey.


    The sister had remained still. She hadn''t moved, and if she had, he was sure he''d hear the broken glass below her feet.


    "The lion is dead, isn''t it? Otherwise, you wouldn''t have needed to take such a drastic measure." He brought Kacey closer, gripping him in a small coffin of sand. It held him still, everything but his neck and mouth. "She won''t attack. She wouldn''t risk killing you."


    Kacey came to his face, Ritcher could smell the musk of his sweat, strong and salty. It smelled like grease, grit underneath a rock, a mineral scent that carried into his tongue and the back of his palate.


    Pennies.


    "Do you have anything to say?" Ritcher asked. "Or have you come to confess before your death?"


    Kacey took a deep breath. His heartbeat slow, Ritcher could feel it in his sandy grip, the rhythmic and even pacing of his heart slowly lifting the sand that held him in place. Not an ounce of fear. Not an ounce of any feeling, at all. And though he had sweated, he wasn''t anymore. And though he was strained and stressed and hot in the head before, he was quiet now.


    Kacey came up (or rather, was brought up) to Ritcher''s face. The sister, behind the two of them on the furthest end, stifled a small heckle.


    Kacey took a deep one, a giant gulp of air as he''d just come from drowning. Ritcher felt it, like a vacuum or vortex.


    Then Kacey stifled a laugh.


    "That''s your problem. You know that?" Kacey said. "You''re too full of yourself."


    Heat came from Kacey''s face, from his eye. It bled. The blood ran down the black sand, down to the actual platform of which he stood on.


    Ritcher extended his hand out, immediately. He gestured. The hand of sand closed in on Kacey, to crush him.


    But it didn''t even get close to that.


    Something struck him. A force, maybe? Or something¡­contracting and suddenly expanding. It was like a trampoline launch.


    His body flew out. It slammed against the wall furthest from him, the blunt force traveled through his veins, but with no means of dispersion, it pained him. A sharp pain, right along his lower back. Chips of marble fell from where he had struck against.


    His head rattled. Shaking hands struggled to lock, to lift himself from the floor.


    "W-what?" Ritcher asked. His cane laid by his side, he felt it bump into his body as he skid along the floor in the confused frenzy. His hands raced to catch the stick.


    The room shook again. Twice as much, twice as many monstrosities were here now.


    And he heard Jaimi in the corner, he could almost hear her smugness, almost feel the smile burning into him.


    "I thought you wouldn''t get eaten by a worm?" She asked.


    He was blind. But he could still feel, hear, smell, taste even.


    Blood. Destruction, all manners of in the form of sediment and wood and old corpse flesh - falling on him from the floor above.


    It was hard to miss.


    The worm took up all the real-estate, after all. He figured it must have been twenty yards wide, given the sudden coolness in the air as the heat of the work-lights seemingly vanished. The worm''s shadow must have eaten them. Just like the worm itself, was about to do.


    He guessed it must have been draconian, by the way, the wind shifted and broke and ran away from the monster. Or by the way, the earth hesitated, and quivered.


    All black sand around him collected to a spot, below his feet. He looked up, though he could not see.


    And the only thing he could really feel after a while was dampness. Moisture. And then, all of a sudden, muscles crushing him.


    He gagged. He coughed, as he was swallowed whole

 Jigsaw Portrait 13

    "I thought the hit would have just splatted him across the walls," Kacey said. "I guess he was a bigger stubborn fuck than we thought."


    His left eye glowed and receded back to grey, a tired eyelid hid the deteriorating color.


    "It''s over, at least." He bent over. To his side was the beast. It was...something of a large order, not larger than the worm. A giant, almost puffer-fish kind of monstrosity, with vesicles across its black flesh and a myriad of little arms extending out of its round body and two eyes that filled with blood and who released it with every outward ''puff'' of the creature.


    It puffed in and out, with such speed, with the small spikes and fines outstretched across its round body.


    This creature fell to the floor next to Kacey, wobbling, almost in injury. It breathed in and out and each time, destroying portions of the concrete and making small craters as it exploded and imploded.


    "That''s enough." Kacey extended his arm out, he waved across, and the creature disappeared into dust, into his eye.


    "It''s unwieldy. That''s why I hate it." Kacey told his sister. "And what about you, I told you we didn''t need that thing."


    Of course, the worm. That thing that had dug underground and rumbled beneath their feet with each of its slithering movements.


    "We did need it. We wouldn''t have won without it."


    "I know, but look at you." He walked over. She held the wall, her legs angled a bit and shaking. The blood underneath her eye pooled and fell like a tear, hitting her chin and then the floor like droplets from a faucet. Each movement made her worse; a large waterfall ejected out of her eye sockets. Her stiff mouth was open, slightly, the drool came out of her. It was as if half her body was paralyzed, at least from her shoulder to her eye. The veins in her neck protruded, seized almost, clenching her muscles into an eerie stiffness.


    "Let it go." Kacey grabbed her by the shoulder and helped her up. "It''s done now."


    Her knees gave way, she put a hand against the floor.


    "No." Her feet shook, she tried to stand but fell. He lifted her up.


    "Come on, you''re hurting yourself. Just let it go."


    She turned to him, eye red-shot and wide. The other, blind nearly, grey and turning white.


    "He''s still alive." She said. "I can feel him. He''s struggling, he''s alive."


    "What?"


    The worm rose from the floor, halfway up to the vaulted ceiling. The chandeliers swerved and fell like glaciers across the room, he pushed her to the side. A chandelier fell, splatted right next to them.


    The worm moved, jerked itself along the walls and up them and then collapsed.


    "Where is he?" He turned to Jaimi. "Where''d he go?"


    "Inside-" She held her stomach. The strained muscles extended out her body. Then she knelt down, and there, prostrated, she vomited across the floor. There wasn''t even food for her to vomit, there was nothing but yellow, green-sickly sludge. Over-use was what it was. Though, they had learned to call it Summoner''s Sickness.


    "Let it go, release it!" He shook her shoulder. She turned and regurgitated.


    Then he looked up to the loud scene where the creature screamed and wiggled on the floor. And from its stomach, it came out, sand. As if a leak in a pipe, it came out the gaps from its carapace, spilling onto the floor. Black sand. The leaks grew, every few feet the monster was bleeding sand.


    "Release it!" Kacey screamed. He touched his eye, the grey one.


    The lion came out, almost in apparition-like state. A blurred, less material form realized itself in front of him. This lion chimera was unfinished, like a half-done portrait. All traced lines, no color.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    His eye faded into pure white, the pupil disappeared.


    "It''s going to die." He held his breath.


    The worm screamed, one last shout before it all went quiet. Sand came out of its mouth like foam or blood would to any corpse.


    Ritcher...came out.


    Exploded out of the stomach. A bulge in the worm''s tummy flashed for only a moment before a large rift of sand flew out from the fresh hole. It covered the bodies, the walls, everything with five inches of sand.


    "All that force in one spot," Ritcher extended his hand out, he grabbed onto the body of the worm to pull himself from the dune created. "It can create a blade, a force, strong enough to cut any metal. Or flesh. Or bug."


    He turned to face Kacey. Kacey''s right eye flashed this time around, the giant ball with limbs, the fish or mutant or chimera, whatever abortion of nature it was, rolled out onto the floor. Its arms latched onto the sands, grabbing small handfuls of them as it rolled down.


    "It was a good effort, I''ll give your sister that," Ritcher said. Sand, like armor, came out of his body in small tiles. They fell to the floor and blended with the black sand sea. "But now she''s done, isn''t she? And you? You''re here, to fight a battle you already know is lost. To fight in my home, with the expanse of my advantage before you. This is an... an...away game, that''s what you''d call it, right? Fun."


    He slapped his arm to stop the shaking.


    Which didn''t help at all? His sister laid to his side, her breathing a sporadic and suffocating slur of sounds. Choking, and exasperation and sighing happening so fast it blended together.


    She sounded like a clock.


    It was like having a timer tick down to a fateful end he could only imagine, but was sure would become a reality. Had he not tried. Had he not stepped up.


    One leg moved forward. The two animals attacked, with sluggish and telegraphed movements, with such dramatic gestures that it would be difficult not to dodge.


    The lion charged a claw, shot it in the direction of Ritcher. Ritcher jumped.


    The monstrosity, whatever it was, came rolling down with its small hands pulling and digging into the sand. It expanded, breathing out, making a crater and large track where it rolled down, to hit Ritcher as he fell from his jump.


    Ritcher raised a wall of sand. The creature collapsed into it.


    "You''re the annoying one." A platform of sand formed beneath his foot. One hand, still missing, the other holding the half-broken cane. He pointed his cane at the giant ball of hands and distorted limbs and covered it with a sleek coat of sand. Then he turned his cane, clockwise. It compressed the monstrosity. Drowned it. Crushed it in the prison of sand. Until the blood squirted out.


    "Like an iron maiden," Ritcher said. The sand fell with grace, with calm, from the corpse of the beast.


    Kacey''s right eye exploded in blood. He tripped midway his run towards Ritcher. Trying to stand, he pushed his arm down. Not enough.


    He tried his other hand. He moved his shoulder instinctively, but there was no arm there. There was nothing.


    "It''s painful, isn''t it?" Ritcher asked. "And see? You''re blind now too. You''re like me. Though I''ve lived with it longer, I''ve known what it feels like to see the world not in images but in the fear conjured by sound and smell and touch."


    Kacey felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head up, both eyes bled. Both were white.


    Beyond him, beyond the breath of Ritcher before him, he heard the groan. His lion stumbled over, he heard it. The scream.


    "You can''t see it, can you?" Ritcher gripped Kacey by the shoulder. He pushed him down, face first into the sand and laid his foot upon the back of his head and stomped, firmly, until his face imposed itself on the floor. The screaming, mouth open, frightened face.


    "Your lion, the cat? Yes, I''ve stabbed it in the heart." And Kacey knew it was the truth because of the groan and the pain sudden in his chest. "What makes this, the third? The fourth time I''ve killed it?"


    Kacey pushed himself, tried to. His arm gave up. Ritcher stomped down.


    "Do you have anything to say?" Ritcher asked. He pressed down on his foot. The sound of gathering sand was above, it was the sound of dragging, like an invisible ocean wave pulling every particle towards this singular spot. It gathered on him, on his back, past his severed arm, up the sleeves of his rags and in his pants and on his torso like a heavy blanket.


    "Run, Jaimi. Run." He let out, the blood spat out of him with each word. He breathed it in, blood and sand. His heart beat fast, but his body did not move. The smothering was slow moving, but all-encompassing. Exactly how he expected it, exactly how he expected Ritcher to kill him. With patient perfectionism.


    Like any good butcher or craftsman.


    "She already ran," Ritcher said. "That isn''t a lie. Lying is a sin after all."


    The grin formed across his face, wide, a bit stupid-looking (if he saw it).


    "She''s smart." He chuckled. His heavy eyes slunk down. His lion, somewhere further beyond, groaned. It''s heavy lungs exasperated, releasing the final bouts of tension in its body.


    "Smarter than you," Ritcher said.


    "She always was."


    "Is that the last thing you want to say?" Ritcher asked.


    "Last words? You''re the only one who''d care for them." Kacey''s face fell down, rested on the sand. It was warm. "You''re the only one I''ve really spoken with."


    "Sad," Ritcher said. "Sad and stupid."


    "No. It''s not sad." He said. "She'' still alive, I can''t be sad."


    His lungs were the first to get crushed. One of his ribs punctured it, the pain was sudden. Brief.


    His thighs were next.


    Then his neck. By then he was already gone. All that was left was warmth, warmth, and wetness.


    And far behind him, beyond even Ritcher. The lion roared and cried.

 Episode 11: Ozymandias

    They watched her lie to him and did nothing of the fact. No - the did less than nothing. Apollo yawned and looked around with his tired eyes to see the other group idling away in their van. So it was, him and Dion in their little Volkswagon. And the rest, the gang of degenerates (as he knew them as) all in Thaddeus''s van. What a loud and obnoxious group too, with no more humility or civility than a pack of dogs.


    They rocked the van, left and right. And screamed and all the while Apollo watched the doors of the house for Luanne who spoke to her betrothed (or at least the guy she was fucking that wasn''t Floyd). She pushed her hands together, perked her chest forward and did all those actions of surrendering humility she was prone to do. It''s not seduction, but it''s what came to his mind. She thrust the child into his chest, and he took him in his arms. Then she walked back, drying fake tears from her eyes and cleaning the mascara.


    Of course, they were around the corner, the very long corner that stretched past the estate. Past gates and lined dried cactus trees and artificially grown grass and yards of gates with vines.


    "He''s the man I was going to marry." She said. "I was trying to get a clean life before everything happened."


    "Does he know you fucked your brother," Apollo narrowed his eyes. He pointed to the closing gates. "Or that the kid ain''t even his?"


    She glared at him.


    "What right do you have to be angry?" He asked. "Incestual, schemer, liar. As far as I can tell, you''re all of the above and then some. What right do you have to be angry?"


    She walked past them, to the van.


    Dion sniffed and coughed.


    "I''m surprised you didn''t tell me to stop," Apollo said.


    "Even I can run out of pity."


    "And here I was thinking you had enough to spare for years."


    Dion leaned out the window, hot air brushed his hair back.


    "Do you think this is going to work out?" Dion asked.


    "What is?" Apollo asked.


    "The plan. Do you think Luanne''s going to cooperate? Do you think we''ll lure Turnus out? Or that we''ll kill Ritcher?"


    "Kill Ritcher? I ain''t got the mind to do anything that severe." Apollo said. "I just want to talk to him."


    "Your talks are never just talks." He said. "Besides, you met him, right? At the dinner? He''s intense, and it''s the type of intensity that you can only get with a strong-willed conviction. I would know."


    "You used to be like that." Apollo started the car. It hummed twice, by the third it murmured. "I think I preferred you when you were preaching that god shit."


    "Me too," Dion said. "But some things die, and there isn''t any use in bringing them back. Not like I could anyway."


    "That''s about the smartest thing I''ve heard you say."


    They drove to the left, out to open streets, following the van that went with true aim towards the main street of the city. Broken streets, like a vein, leading to the heart, a malfunctioning tower where all insanity could be found.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    It didn''t take them long to go there, and it took even less time to figure out something was wrong.


    Because one look into the main hall of the casino; the cashier''s desk where a body slumped over a table, and you could tell something had gone wrong. It doesn''t take a genius to spot trouble where bodies are.


    And they were everywhere. Slumped over each other, some huddled and sprawled out on the floor with their mouths open and dried tongues out. Tongues, so drained of all moisture and life and color that they looked like the bark of trees.


    The bodies were even toned, the same brown sludge color. They wore body armor. They had goggles and helmets (some of them), and they were all terrified before their existence ended. Their faces showed the stiff expressions - mangled, crooked eye terror.


    Apollo stepped out. He looked to the boy with his little bird flapping about. Then he looked to Dolores.


    "You two are going to protect each other." He turned to Aenea. "You''re helping, too."


    "I want to go in there with you." Aenea stepped forward. "He''s my brother and my problem to deal with. I''m not a kid."


    "Your problem is with Turnus. You''re dealing with him." Apollo turned to Dion. "We''re dealing with Ritcher."


    He nodded his head up and down.


    "So that''s how it goes. Got me? And you -" He pointed to Luanne. "You''re definitely coming with us."


    "Is that how it is then?" She said. Her voice awful and hoarse with the qualities of not so much a frightened woman, as a bitter one.


    "Don''t try anything either," Apollo said. "For your sake, because as far as I could see inside that big ass hall - I think Ritcher is a bigger problem than you thought."


    He sniffed and spat.


    "So I''d think real hard about your chances - him or us."


    She rubbed her arms then looked to the group and to the two hunters.


    "Maybe if I did kill you two, I could serve you in on a platter for h-"


    Apollo looked her down, with a stare too deep and encompassing that she could not look away. He stared into her. Her eyes lowered into submission, her arms opened up a bit, and she stepped forward, into the hall.


    "Alright. Call us if anything goes bad, call us if Turnus shows up, got me?" Apollo passed Aenea a phone. "I''m trusting you. Alright?"


    "I can handle myself."


    "We''ll see." Apollo smiled. "A pampered princess versus the obsessed psychopath. I''d like to know how that ends."


    They made their separate ways, Apollo and Dion and Luanne all walking forward into the rising dunes of the main hall, waves of sand so high that they were halfway the twenty yard long vaulted walls. Sands so high, they were their own tiring journey just to get over. Behind the hills, an elevator smacked against a lodged object. A corpse forced the doors open. The elevator cart itself was broken. Sparks flew out the control panel, cable lines dangled and swayed in placid, near-silent, circles.


    It looked like a ripped noose, a sabotaged noose.


    They made their way past a hill. There was supposed to be a concessions stand here, a bar next to it and a few machines. Perhaps some half-nude women with drinks; loud noises and problematic drunks - there was nothing. Corpses. Death.


    Death so overbearing and ubiquitous, it wasn''t just hard to miss, it was hard to ignore.


    Apollo almost tripped, he caught himself midway and looked down.


    There was a body below him- strange too, not that it was dead but that it was freshly dead. Apollo looked down, it was a crushed corpse with bones protruding from its flesh at strange angles, he must have suffered disheveled amounts of pressure.


    His skull, his femur, his shoulder blades, all collapsed in as if strangled by a grip. His ribs, sticking out, almost all of them protruding from his flesh like a bear trap, with the teeth ready to bite down.


    "This happened recently," Apollo said. "Looks like there was a fight here."


    He looked out to the horizon, craters in the floor distinguished themselves, small pockets where sand collapsed into with a slow slide.


    He rubbed his chin, the front doors looked so far now behind the undulations of sand.


    "I mean, does it matter?" Dion moved his head away, fingers over his nose.


    "It means he might be close, right?" Apollo asked.


    Luanne tugged on Dion''s arm. Lowered shoulders and a tucked in chin hid skittering eyes.


    "Be careful." Apollo looked up. His eyes widened. "You won''t know what you''ll find."


    There, clung to a wall, with her own eyes wide and a hand upon her mouth, was Jaimi. She stood on a bird, her muscles tense around the neck.


    And as if shock, or perhaps as a gesture of peace, she collapsed from her bird and fell to the floor in spasms, then stiffness. It looked like she was trying to make an angel in the sand like children do with snow.


    Without that same, childlike innocence. With a more...obscene sporadic movement.


    "Jesus Christ." Dion made the cross with his pointer finger. "We should help-"


    Apollo walked up to her, with calm, without heat in his voice.


    He bent down to her and looked into her spastic grey and orange eyes and said; "Can you tell us what happened here? Or are you going to die on me?"

 Ozymandias 2

    He pointed his sword against her face then grabbed her by the head and dragged it down the blunt edge of his sword. The cold that stung her flesh, that prickled her skin.


    "Don''t try anything or I''ll cut your head right the fuck off," Apollo said. Dion pointed his gun down at her, the barrel staring like a hole straight to hell.


    "I don''t feel comfortable doing this." Dion scratched the back of his head with the other gun. "She''s not the guy we''re after. She''s not even a guy."


    "But she was here, among all these bodies, bloodied up. What does that tell you?"


    "I don''t know," Dion said. "You''re the detective. You tell me."


    "That''s why we''re asking," Apollo said.


    "This isn''t asking. You have serious issues differentiating between asking and bullying. And talking and threatening. They''re not the same thing." Dion nodded his head. "No, no, no."


    Her fingers twitched, a slip that sent a few flecks of sand down a small hill. Apollo straightened his blade and pressed it tighter against her neck until the back of her head touched the marble column behind her, and the blade shaved some skin from her chin. She bled. It went down the white-silver steel, a red streak until it entered one of the three exhaust holes on Apollo''s sword.


    She woke up, one eye following lazily after the other and when she felt the cut, her eyelids sprung like two tensed window shutters.


    One was white, almost to the point of the iris dissolving The other was orange, a fading color too.


    "What am I doing here?" She moved, just a bit, just enough to worry Apollo and for him to press his hand against her chest bone and keep her pinned against the wall.


    "I''m going to cut you if you move like that again," He said. "And it''s the type of cut you''re not going to sleep through."


    "Where''s my brother?" She screamed. Her head turned, it widened the cut, but it didn''t seem like it mattered. All the blood in the world, all the shaved skin did not make a difference to her temperament.


    "I don''t know what you''re talking about, but you need to tell me what''s going on," Apollo said.


    "You''re not polite enough." Dion put away his gun. He knelt down, his head over hers. "Hello, my name''s Dion. We need you to help us out by answering a couple questions-"


    She grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at both of them, with a wide arc. They reeled their heads back, she slipped through the grip and crawled on the sand a few feet away. Like an ape, on all fours, desperate, sliding down one of the dunes.


    "Goddamnit." Apollo turned, jumped, and stomped his foot against hers into the sand. He threw his blade away to the side and wrapped his arm around her neck, then flipped her. Until he had a complete grip against her neck until he could feel the bone of his arms press against her artery and her arrhythmic pulse through his forearms. Her feet flailed. He locked them with his own. Strangling her, like a python. She opened her mouth, her tongue came out like a small worm.


    Her eye glowed, orange. That was about the time Dion raised his gun once more and put the barrel on her forehead.


    "Please ma''am." And Dion, still wiping the sand from his face with his free hand. "We''d just like to have a word with you."


    She struggled and rolled and then in defeat, stopped. Not because she was tired. Or injured. No, she stopped at the sight of a corpse, a body soaked into the sand, with bones protruding and with a face so mauled it might have been unrecognizable to anyone save a forensics lab. But at the sight of this mangled scene, she paused. Life left her. Her struggling eased to limp retreat, she slunk into Apollo almost.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    And her glow disappeared. And she stopped fighting. And Apollo loosened his grip. She was crying.


    "You know, this wouldn''t have happened if you weren''t so aggressive," Dion said. "You could have just started with something soft. You know, like hello?"


    "She''s a summoner. Like the kid. She isn''t normal and deserves all the shit she can take one slip, and she''ll kill us."


    Luanne watched from a distance, her arms held together tight to her chest.


    "Just ask your questions and get this over with, I feel uncomfortable in here," Luanne said from a distance.


    "Do you sense your brother is near?" Apollo asked.


    "He''s everywhere, that''s the feeling I get."


    They stayed quiet, their heads tucked in. All Apollo could hear was the sand falling from the small, disheveled lands. Slopes, slanted high against the walls.


    His head turned again, to the girl now, who''d been sitting on the floor against a column. A destroyed bar behind her, the bottles rolled against the sand-ridden counter and fell. Vodka, judging by the smell, soaked into the yellow sand and stained it a muddy brown.


    "Alright. I''ll try being easy on her then." Apollo said and turned to her and walked to where she sat. "What''s your name and what''re you doing here?"


    "I don''t need to answer to you."


    "Oh for fuck''s sake." Apollo puffed his cheeks and blew out like steam exhaust.


    "Look," Dion brushed Apollo back as he walked up to her. "Take some notes."


    "Hello, my name is Dion." He extended his hand out. He wore a tight smile, from one edge to another, it seemed obscene, perverse in a way.


    She eyed him and waited for him to stop.


    Jaimi looked around to the other two, they shrugged. So she grabbed a finger - just one, and shook it up and down.


    "Great," Dion said. "We''re demon hunters, Vicars. My friend, Apollo and myself."


    Her eyes narrowed.


    "We''re not after y-you." Dion put his hands up in defense. "We''re after the man we believe attacked you. Ritcher."


    She stayed quiet, her eyes were still swollen. Thirty minutes hadn''t done much to ease her. Yet, still in her, was a kind of defiant animosity. It wasn''t the first time she''d seen death, Apollo could tell.


    "Can you talk? I know you suffered something-" Dion said. "Something bad.


    "I can talk." She said. "You''re vicars. You kill witches. Summoners too. People like me."


    "Technically, yes." Apollo walked in. "And you are aggressive."


    Jaimi flashed her teeth, almost growled at him. "But you''re not the witch we''re after. The one we want is the Wolfe."


    "He''s the one." She lowered her head. "The one who killed my brother."


    Apollo paused and looked back, to the body she had previously stopped to gaze at before.


    "Is that so?" Apollo asked. "Why''d you two attack him?"


    "Because we had to."


    "By whose orders?" Apollo asked.


    She dipped her feet into the sand and turned them like a tow on the field. Her chin rested on her knees, her chest was forward and her body arched.


    "I can''t tell you that."


    "Is that kind of attitude imperative to the type of success you want?"


    "What do you mean?" She asked.


    "I mean don''t you want to catch the man who killed your brother?"


    "Apollo," Dion said. "Jesus Christ, she just lost him."


    "That''s more of a reason. While it''s still fresh." He said. "We''ve got a job, and it seems both of our interests align. What''s the problem here in sharing information?"


    She looked at both of them. Her eyes, dim. The life in them, dim. A scab opened on her forehead, a small, sleek line trickled down her face.


    "Turnus sent us here." She mumbled.


    Apollo turned, immediately.


    "Of course," Apollo said. "Why am I not surprised that little prick had a hand in this."


    "He told us to kill his brother, Ritcher." She said. "So we obeyed."


    "How much is he paying you?" Apollo asked. "It''s gotta be a good sum to risk your life for. Maybe we can even it out, pay you out, if you know what I mean."


    "He''s not paying us with money." She tugged on her collar. "He''s paying us with freedom."


    And they all stayed quiet, even Luanne who at a distance had been slowly approaching.


    "So you were slaves? The fighters underground?"


    "Yeah." She lowered her head back into her knees. She wiggled her toes in the sand.


    "I''m sorry." Dion lowered his head. "For everything."


    "You''d be the first." She said. "And I''m guessing the last."


    So Apollo knelt down and turned his head and watched her expression as she came up and down, as she looked to her sides and back to her feet. He waited until they locked eyes and all sound and animation in the room ceased to commemorate the moment.


    "This is a raw deal you got, isn''t it?" Apollo asked. "It''s the kind of deal that ought to be repaid, don''t you think?"


    She bit her lip. The blood dripped to the floor.


    "What if we told you we were going after Turnus too? Both brothers. Both at once." Apollo extended his hand. "Would you help us then?"


    She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes.

 Ozymandias 3

    "Are you sure you want to do it this way?" Dion asked. Of course, Apollo nodded his head.


    "I can''t imagine it going any other way." He said.


    "For someone who hates heroics, you certainly always find a way to make yourself a hero, don''t you?" Dion asked. "I''m beginning to think you''re a liar."


    "Maybe," Apollo said. "Or maybe this is just the best way to do things."


    So he (Dion) waved him away. The three of them; Luanne and Dion and the barely-conscious Jaimi set upon Dion''s back headed out. They went into a back room, behind a small bar. Then all three were out, and it was only Apollo.


    "What''s that in horror movies they always say?" Apollo walked up to the staircase to his rear, to the corpses lining the stairs and the blood and the small potholes made by the impact of blades sometime ago, and he looked away. "Don''t ever split up, right? I guess I didn''t pay attention."


    He moved away from the stairs. He moved away from the mounds of corpses. He walked towards the elevator shaft and the hanging steel cord. Getting past the static exhaustion''s of a broken control panel, he leaned forward into the gap, below him a seeming infinite darkness (and this was the first floor, so what hid below?) and above, the tuned-warping sound of rubble falling through a tunnel. Echoing. He grabbed the cable stiff with his good hand. He jumped onto it and started the trek. Shimming up, slow and steady with his thighs and hands, rubbing himself up like a worm does on a leaf. Wiggling, slithering almost.


    It didn''t take long for things to go wrong.


    Ten floors up he heard a snap. The wire smacked against the wall. He fell. Fast.


    [i]Shit. I thought he was just going to let me through.


    He reached into his coat (with his good hand, of course) and took out a blade. That steel, taller than himself. Slamming it into the wall, with one wide arc. The steel beams holding the shaft together bent as he forced his way inside, the sword lodged itself like a cork. Crooked. So he made a little platform with his stabbed sword and stood up, with bent knees, on the flat side of his blade.


    "You''re not going to play nice, are you?" He said upon the darkness above him. Not a noise, not a movement. And it was almost like he was getting the idea that maybe it''d been a mistake and this whole thing a joke, because it seemed like no one was there. That the snap might have been coincidence.


    Then he heard him, somewhat faint. Far.


    "You should have brought an army with you." The voice said. "It''d be the only chance you''d have."


    And Apollo smiled, his heart raced. Each thump, each swollen pulse of his blood reddened his face. He slammed his hand into a door next to him, an elevator door. He ripped them open. The static flew, the metal grate against the floor.


    He jumped in, reached his hand out and picked up his sword.


    "And what floor is this?" As if by talking, by just breathing and existing he could ease the growing tension in his palms. The sweaty feeling of nervousness that grew in waves across his body dragged in and out. He was too far from the top and too far from the first floor which to him seemed the worst place to be.


    Floor thirty-five. It wasn''t a looker, then again, nothing much of the Casino El Rey was anymore. Most of it was covered in plastic or blood or bodies or all three. He was in a restaurant, the buffet. The long tables flipped on their sides, some of them at least. Others had chairs and stools sat atop their faces. And he couldn''t help but remember it, Sophie, that newspaper place. It wasn''t like he was trying to remember anything at all, who tries to remember terrible things, after all?


    Maybe it was Jaimi who reminded him of Sophie, a girl almost half her own age, maybe it was the empty dinner tables that reminded him of the newspaper complex, the rotten wood of it - the empty staff kitchen. Yes, the girl and the kitchen. They reminded him of that terrible place in that terrible time. These are the small things that bring back terrible shivers. But he wasn''t dealing with a simple loony psychologist playing God, not anymore. He was playing with a witch, a heretic, who claimed himself a servant. One with the power to commit to that kind of title.


    In other words, Ritcher was much worse.


    He walked in with careful steps, bringing his foot up gentle and easy across the tile floor. There were porcelain plates and knives that he tip-toed over. He scrunched one. It broke underneath his heel, and he looked down. There was no light here, nothing but his red eyes staring back from the dozen piece of shattered plate. So it looked like two dozen eyes then, looking back at him, trailing him. His own eyes.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    And among one of them, one of the many pieces he saw a distinct color. Just a hint of it. Just enough to give him the chills.


    A green eye.


    Just one.


    He snapped his head up. He looked across the ceiling where chandeliers rocked with playful turns. His black prosthetic arm poised in front of his chest, his other hand on the blade.


    Apollo ran to the kitchen, vaulting over the food bar, going through the kitchen and all its grills and stoves and ovens. He ran out the back door, where smoke from a busted pipe spilled out from the ceiling. Up. Up. Up emergency stairs (god there were so many, and they turned and curved and lead to three different red and white doors he could have exited from) and through the last door at the top of the last stairs, he came out. Nearly leaped out, in a club. A bar. Roulette tables laid out around him,stabbed at the center of them were platforms and stripper poles. The weeks of emptiness hadn''t made the room lose its natural smell of cigarette and alcohol. It only added a layer of dust. Apollo turned to the bar, looking around. He flipped a switch, nothing.


    [i]Of course not.


    On the roofs were disco balls. They didn''t even turn.


    He slapped a construction light to his rear, it flashed a bit, illuminating the room with fractured light. Light that went through the crystal balls and fragmented itself. And among the light, he swore he saw something odd.


    A green, small, circular light moving. He kept eyeing it, kept following it.


    The construction light turned off. Suddenly.


    He jerked his hand across the bar table next to him. Something broke.


    [i]Jesus.


    He jumped.


    An ashtray. It was just an ashtray. He hadn''t felt it touch his false hand, he wasn''t used to having a false hand. From the bottom, he saw a half-finished cigarette and picked it up. Nasty habit. He lit it and smoked it, the half-ruined, half-finished bent cigarette. It hung from his lip.


    He lit it.


    It was enough to ease his nerves to have him moving across the room, towards the center. Enough to get him to stop shaking. One hand held the blade, the other black hand was open palm (and would be for the rest of his life). And with this open palm hand, he turned over and brushed aside the furniture. He threw roulette balls and poker cards and chips and empty (half-empty, some) glasses from their tables. There was a stage with an empty band set. There were speakers, large, almost half the length to the ceiling. There was an announcer desk with an empty-manned computer in the corner of the room. Drinks as far as he could see, all standing like starved animals come to feed. Empty and tall glasses and glistening from the intense crimson glare of Apollo''s eyes.


    Table cloth dragged on his feet. The air tasted of blood of ash of alcohol. Of luck. Of Las Vegas, though they weren''t even close.


    Money. That was the taste. Then iron.


    He sniffed. He spat out his cigarette.


    A cord blew across the room, it came from the bass on the band floor. Apollo turned his head to the awful tune, an echo-less F minor that rattled his shaking body stiff.


    And he saw it, upon the stage. Not Ritcher, he''d know him soon. He saw something else, in his suit, dancing. The room, morphing, fleshy. Eyes bulged from the tables, weeds grew from the glass. His head -! His head couldn''t stop shaking. There, on the stage, the devil danced. A figure in all black, red tie, with shiny shoes and some form of spotlight that came down to him. And he (this strange figure) danced, laughing like a hyena. Danced, and played with the microphone and put the damn stand against his shoulders to stroll it in circles. He stopped. This figure, whose shadowy face was low and aiming at the floor. He put the microphone to his face, which to Apollo, seemed to not even connect to anything. And this shadowy face, whose details were nothing more than blurs, smiled. And Apollo knew he smiled, not by looking at him, but by feeling it. The strong, eerie chill that went across his body.


    [i]A hallucination. He tapped his chest with his black hand. [i]Another one, it has to be.


    And this figure put his lips against the mic and said in a voice he could never forget, a voice that sounded something shrill and jovial and loud and bright; a clown having a roar through an asylum, strolling down with a wheelchair and an unstrapped, loose vest.


    This figure, this devil, said: "Behind you, kid."


    Apollo turned, sword out. He struck a wave of sand. Apollo turned his blade by its side, it absorbed the force. Most of it. His body flew out, towards one of the stripper poles. He must have cut it in half, must have because the top half of the pole fell next to his head and his shoulders hurt like hell. He put both hands against the floor to stand himself, his prosthetic slipped underneath him. He fell face first. Then, he tried again.


    Beyond, a few meters across, Ritcher spoke.


    "I was wondering when you were going to wake up." He said. "You were staring far off at that stage a little too long."


    "Fuck," Apollo dragged his body up. "I wasn''t supposed to fight you this quickly."


    "None of us can choose what we want or when we get what we want," Ritcher said.


    "No we do not, do we." Apollo stretched his spine to the side. "You don''t look too good, Ritcher."


    "And you look too good." Ritcher smiled, blood fell from his eye. "Your knee is better. And is that a new hand?"


    Ritcher raised his own hand from the sleeveless side of his body.


    "What a coincidence. This one is too."


    "I can thank your brother for my hand." And he was expecting some kind of frustration from Ritcher, anything really. But Ritcher smiled, chuckled.


    "Oh, did he donate it?" Ritcher said. "I''m glad he was useful to someone, at least."


    "If I asked you to talk, would you even consider it?" Apollo asked.


    The sand rose, levitated some few feet into an even level so that across the horizon Apollo could see the plane, even in the dark. It was a layer of sand, even, almost at his abdomen. This layer of sand retreated, returning back to Ritcher into what looked like a tendril. And it wiggled and wagged behind Ritcher, slapping and crushing with a temperament only describable as giddy.


    "What''s there to talk about?" Ritcher asked.


    [i]I guess that''s all there is to it, then.

 Ozymandias 4

    The stage behind them, blackened and empty with all furniture and electronics knocked onto the floor. Between them was the large area of chairs and tables; a bar sat at the side with a few empty glasses tipped over the edge.


    Apollo rushed to Ritcher''s flank. The tendril of sand behind him black and brown, like the tail of a tanooki. It dragged along the floor and carried with its tables and chairs and glass and broke dividers and raised tile from the floor.


    "So what''s this all about, Ritcher?" Apollo asked. "Didn''t get the news? Floyd is dead. Your father''s murderer is dead. If you didn''t know now you know-"


    "One of them is. The other lives" He said.


    "You''ve known?"


    "Turnus told me." He said. "And I know your friend killed Floyd, too."


    "How''d you find out? Get a postcard?"


    "It was a hunch." Ritcher turned his body once. It forced Apollo to freeze in place like an animal caught in the light. "When I went to go kill the matriarch, he was not by her side. I found it strange that Salome would die alone."


    "It couldn''t have been that strange." Apollo poised himself with the blade in front of him and the wall behind him. The sweat came down to his forearms, to his lower back. "The old bitch was always destined to die alone."


    "Maybe," Ritcher said. "But that he would not defend her was strange. What confirmed it was the day later when the surge came to me like a steroid to my heart. The blood rush, almost uncontrollable. The power, the will of Mammon. I knew a Wolfe had died and that it was Floyd, knew it."


    "Salome''s dead. Floyd''s dead. Why waste your time doing this now, Ritcher? It''s over. Your father''s been avenged, there''s nothing left here for you." Apollo dug his feet into the floor. "What''s the point in killing the family?"


    "Family?" Ritcher asked.


    The air went cold and all across the floor shook in small trembles, the expanse lay before Apollo, growing. Sand came out from behind Ritcher, poured onto the floor into a thin layer. Paper thin. Apollo stepped away, and it continued, encroaching on him.


    "I am doing this exactly for the family of which I owe myself to. I endure for it. For the Wolfe''s." The sand grew, faster. Apollo jumped back, onto the stage.


    "Killing your kin is what you owe to the family name?"


    "Yes," Ritcher said. "When I was, a young man father told me, and I''ll never forget it. He said a man''s worth was not in the vanity he could accrue, but in the covenants, he could uphold. That no wealth or awards or prestige could change that a man''s name and karmic credit was all that mattered. Keeping a promise. Upholding the rules. That was what he taught me."


    "Considering he was drunk, I''m impressed by his eloquence," Apollo said. "Did he beat the shit out of you afterwards, too?"


    Ritcher''s didn''t so much as blink.


    "That whether weak or poor, so long as he could keep to himself the promise made, that if every breath could be taken to uphold that code, then all was right," Ritcher said.


    "Seems like a far cry from the Thomas Wolfe that died." And he was sweating down to his toes, it soaked into the socks, and each step felt like he was smooshing his feet into the swollen sponge that was his socks. "What''s this got to do with killing your brothers?"


    "They broke it. The covenant. They broke it long ago, in too many ways nonredeemable." Ritcher said. "The incestuous whores. The slave drivers. The power-hungry capitalists. All of them, guilty. All of them, greedy."


    "Well, that''s something we can agree with."


    "Money broke my father. Salome destined him to ruin." Ritcher said. "This casino, this wealth has done nothing but destroy us. And after all, ''s been done, I''ve come to realize there is no redemption. Not in life, at least."


    "But in death..." Apollo said. "You want to clear your name through their deaths, for God?"This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    "For all our souls." He said.


    "You''re really fucking insane, did you know that?" Apollo asked.


    "It makes no difference what you believe." Ritcher slammed his foot on the floor. The sand rose to the air into a small cloud. A mist.


    "You''re hurting a lot of other people besides your family," Apollo said. "The detectives your mother sent after you. The prostitute we spoke to. God knows how many more."


    "Don''t forget Junior," Ritcher said.


    "So you''re the one who caved his head in, huh?" Apollo ripped a bit of his sleeve and wrapped it around his face, he stepped into the powder and dust floating in the air. "I got a lot of shit for that. You killed him for no good reason."


    "It was a good reason. They blockaded too much of the natural path we''re all destined to play." He said. "I course corrected."


    "Do you even have an ounce of remorse, at all?" Apollo gripped his sword tight, he dragged it along the floor. Each step it screeched. "Will you ever stop, I wonder?"


    "I''d do it again. I will do it again." Ritcher''s form disintegrated, slowly, from the feet up. His body reduced to sand as it dispersed across the mist. "If you''re looking for a man struggling with his redemption, look elsewhere. I am not confused. I am not remorseful. I am not..."


    "Here." Apollo finished. Ritcher disappeared into the mist. His form, completely gone. Apollo stood, sword clenched, in the middle with the mist surrounding him and nothing so much as city lights to cast their glare through the cloudy tinted glass surrounding the room. Sound morphed, disappeared. His steps no longer were there. It was all gone, all missing and before this strangeness, the black mist, the sand that dragged along his face and scraped at him, Apollo shook.


    Thrill. Fear. All coming together and behind it all to fast drumming of his heart and the drummer, Astyanax. Egging him. Go on, go forward into the unknown.


    Apollo walked.


    With nothing but the comfort of his blade by his side, he wandered the mist. His body slamming into the desks and chairs, every so often. Something swerved. Something moved. But each turn of his head, the movement disappeared. The sand storm was so thick he couldn''t see past a few inches from him. It almost got him. The insanity of the obscurity, the figments he crafted in the haze, blurs, and shadows. He was almost beginning to think no one was here at all.


    Something to his back.


    He raised his blade, it struck his steel. Strong, blunt, something that pushed Apollo back a few inches.


    "Good reflexes, much better than the other two," Ritcher said, whose voice seemed omnipresent. "I heard Vicars were quick, I''m glad you live up to it. But how long can you keep it up, I wonder?"


    The strikes came again at random, all across his body. He raised his blade. He swerved his head. He looked up and down and left and right, at limbs that appeared from the dark sand screen, hands and fists and kicks and toes.


    Again.


    Ritcher came out like a ghost, out of the sand and into some concrete form to slam his cane down at Apollo. Then he returned back.


    "Sand. It was the gift I was given. Dirt. I never wanted any more, I never needed any more." Ritcher said.


    "Mammon, ruler of Kings and Alchemists. It must be annoying," Something from above, Apollo raised his blade. He felt the force down his shoulders, his feet broke the floor from the absorption of the kinetic energy. Then he smiled, as he gained breath to speak again. "While your brothers and sisters gained riches. " His feet pressed deeper into the floor. "While they gained power over the very nature of existence. All you got was dirt. Must be annoying."


    "How could I be mad over things I''ve never known? Dirt is all I need, Mr. Apollo." Another attack, the wind vexed along his feet. He jumped, it clipped him. The cane scraped his foot and rolled along his skin, ripping cloth from his pants. "This is the result of a thousand days of training. Thousands of hours. Years of passion and ambition and diligence to one conviction. Dirt and dust are all I am, all anyone is. Dirt before God."


    A tendril of sand slammed down at Apollo. Apollo blocked. It wrapped around, whipping his back. He felt the blood down his spine.


    The tail retracted back into the smokescreen of black sand.


    "Impressive. You really know how to get the mileage out of this shit, don''t you?" All of him hurt and the blood-soaked his socks.


    More blows. More blocks, fatigue that grew. Blunt trauma that shook his bones and tired his muscles. It was only just ten minutes in, and he felt his breath tire, the hot steam that left his mouth wrap, out into his blade where it condensed on the silver.


    "You''re already going to die?" Ritcher asked.


    The cane, the hot rod came at his side, aiming for his ribs.


    Apollo jumped. The wind brushed past him. He aimed up, to fire extinguishers. With one strike, he swiped them.


    Come on, please.


    It came out slow, a stream that looked like a few drops of rain.


    Come on, come on.


    Then it stormed out. A torrent that washed over his face. A torrent that activated the other sets of fire extinguishers, pipes that spat out rain to the field. Rain that struck the sand lifting itself in the air. Sand that fell to the floor, heavy. Then, it was just mud. And from it, in an almost tired uprising, a human figure appeared among the mud. One that dragged itself up, whose features became more and more defined as it condensed into organic form.


    Ritcher, standing somewhere near the bar, held himself against the table.


    Apollo took one good look. His black crystal hand interred itself into the wall, his foot latched itself to a pipe. The enemy before him, his blade lit up. Fire climbed up the long steel, to its very tip. His eyes lit red. And he jumped.


    Apollo''s blade pointed down, the fire spitting out; he struck something. And it was soft. Tender, almost.


    He put his hand against his sword. The fire consumed his vision.


    "You''ve tried dirt. You''ve tried mud. How about a little ash?" Apollo said. And it came out, like the sprinklers overhead, a giant flood of fire that burned everything in a cone before him.