Empyrean

Chapter 15

Chapter 15-Fenix

House on the Palace, Zenith

Morning, 6th of Pachon, Year 612

            After another ten minutes or so of arguing back and forth over what we are supposed to do with this new information we decided to go back up to the house to Echo. No matter how much she had matured in since we met, she is still a child.

            “Do you smell something Fenix?” Eris says when I touch my hand to doorway.

            “I thought I smelled blood.” I pause and my pulse lowers, a natural reaction for an animal that feels a predator nearby. “Is that what you smell?”

            “Now that you say that word,” Eris pauses and rushes before me into the hovel. Before she enters I hear her say, “Blood is what I smell…” I guess on the fight or flight scale she tips the fight side down. I don't actually think I am on the scale. I just disappear.

            I look down and see a fresh pool of blood muddying in the rain. When I first looked at it I thought it was a circle, but I can’t see any resemblance now. After a while all stains just take the same form, lack of one. It’s a good thing I made the house a few centimeters raised above the surface of the roof, just to be safe. I mentally prepare myself and enter what I think to be a funeral. I pass through the doorway completely vulnerable. If someone has decided to ambush they probably will, and get their desired outcome.

            I hold my breath expecting to see Echo’s lifeless bloodied body and a trashed home. Instead I find quite the opposite. It seems that she has actually cleaned up a little, and the only blood on Echo is covering her hands, which are staunching the cut in the neck of someone else. Before I even see her face I know it is Serena. I don't know how. I just do.

            “What the hell happened here?!”  I say in a surprised but still calm voice. It is at times like this that my voice gains all of its quirks back and my intonation isn’t controlled. I decide to be apathetic about it and listen to Echo’s response.

            “This…well, this Alexandros walks in and I found her rude and quite self-righteous. Even more than Eris.” Eris and she exchange their usual looks of relative disdain and Echo continues. “She wouldn't admit that she just wanted to arrest us. She maintained that she ‘isn’t even an Alexandros yet’. I decided to wait for you guys so I slit her throat in the way you taught me. Just enough to make them pass out quickly but won’t kill them for a couple of hours if you do it right, you said.”

            “I know my words Echo. It is just if you didn't do it right then they can die very slowly and painfully.” I continue to let my voice flow unchecked and unintentionally expressing a righteous anger. “I am not angry Echo. It is just that a ending the life of another human being…it requires some of your own.” Three lives I have ended, were they deserved? Yes. Did I want them to die? Yes. Was it premeditated? For two of them.

“I understand that!”

            “You can’t. It’s impossible to know until you have actually killed someone, to know what it is like. It is simultaneously the most exalted high and the deepest low. You feel more powerful than ever, but weaker than a blade of grass. The feeling will drain you like never before.” Eris’ eyes lose their new sheen. After we had reunited I saw a new color to her eyes, they had become brighter and clearer. But the fog rolled in again. I knew it would, just not when. I don't make direct eye contact with her but the corners of her misty eyes are visible to mine.

            “Do you think I won’t be able to handle it?” Echo’s hands staunch the wound more ardently than before.

            “Handling it is not the issue, remaining who you are is.” I think Eris nods. But it might just be a pessimistic illusion.

            “Let’s save the girl, shouldn't we?” Eris says after presumably coming back to her senses or her denial.

            “I agree.” I reply and step around the three girls to get to the bookcase.

            “What could possibly help you from over there? At this rate she’ll need surgery and stitches.” Eris is furious with me. “She is good as dead here. Her best chance of living is probably taking her back. Back to her post. Considering that she’s here it’s probably the…Hey! Are you even listening to me?”

            “Uh huh. Of course.” I am rummaging through my books looking for my copy of A Madman’s Diary.

            “You aren’t at all.”

            “Would you rather me listen to you or save Serena?”

            “Well if you put it that way…wait, you know this bitch?!” I open the book and show her my emergency medical supplies. Echo claps.