Psyche

Chapter Twelve

Get up . . . Get up you son of a bitch . . .

Come now Father, I thought, that's my mother and your wife you're speaking of. Please, some respect. She's not a bitch.

Up. NOW!

I struggled to breathe in. My chest felt like something was rattling around inside it. It felt very odd to feel air in my lungs. Hard to Up when you didn't know if you were dead or not.

I opened my eyes, slowly. There were flames flickering across the grass, slowly eating it up. I stared at those flames, until I realized what they were from. The fight. Patchy. He's dead . . . Am I dead?

Is August Park dead?

I had used an offensive maneuver that I hadn't had to in over half a century, in a form I hadn't worn in millennia. Hard to believe Patchy was alive if I was dead. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be alive though. Not if August Park was.

I coughed, and rolled slowly onto my stomach, throwing up blood into the grass under my fingers. I clenched the blades tightly, my entire body feeling like it was coming apart, skin sliding off of bones, joints shattering, blood vessels erupting . . .

I felt a hand on my shoulder, "Nick . . . ?"

I coughed violently and hauled myself up. My clothes felt disgusting-I felt like some dirty film was covering my skin. I needed to get a shower, a couple shots of tequila, and a warlock capable of a non-damaging memory wipe.

You know you can't do that Phoenyx . . . she's in danger as well . . .

August Park flew by my vision as I attempted to stand upright and not weave. She caught my forearm, "Hey, are you okay . . . ?"

"It's . . . it's z'okay . . ." I slurred. Damn. Not a good idea to drink right now.

"Did you get trashed before you came here?" Disgust crept into her voice, "No wonder he kicked your ass . . ."

"No . . ." I trailed, and then tried to say more forcefully, "No. It's the . . . the . . . torpens . . ."

"What are you talking about?" She blew out a breath, catching me as I started falling again.

"It's a painkiller . . . released into bloodstream . . . powerful . . ."

"You don't say?"

I tried to learn how to breathe again as visions of the Cleansing: the dead bodies of my family, my people, the ashes of my life.

In some ways, the Holocaust is almost exactly like the Cleansing that victimized my people. Except, the leader of the Cleaners, as we called them, succeeded.

He did wipe out my people.

I heard, far off, snarling. It was maybe miles away-but I wasn't taking any chances. I was in no ability to run, and August wasn't able to fight herself. So we'd have to find a place to hold tight, fuck some people back, and then find the means to get out of here.

"My place . . . I have . . ." Weapons. I needed my weapons.

"Are you crazy?" She demanded, "There's no way we're going to your place! You're all . . . loopy! You need to go to a hospital."

"Don't be stupid." I gritted my teeth, "You think they'll want to see me in a hospital?" I almost saw the reflection in her eyes. I could almost guess what she was thinking. They don't want to suddenly have to deal with some big ass dog . . .

"But . . . you're human now . . ."

"The chemicals in my blood are out of control right now." To prove my point, I unceremoniously threw up blood in the grass, and tried to stagger towards my house, "Until they reach equilibrium, the hormones are going to cause me to shift again."