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.
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“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.