Chapter 70: I Am the Chorus of Screams, Part 5

Losing an arm was truly awful. Beyond the obvious: the pain, the blood loss - so much blood, too much - and that feeling of lightness, as if his consciousness were a balloon ready to float away and never return.

That sensation that it was still there... All that phantom pain wasn't an exaggeration. Without looking with his own eyes, he would swear the arm was still there, attached. That's what bothered him most, really - not being able to trust his own senses.

I need control, he thought. That had never changed. Earlier he'd said they were running out of hallway, out of time, out of hope. Well, that wasn't true. Sam turned around and blasted a hole in the wall, big enough for a line of soldiers to march through. Several lines, even.

So the three of them made it through without trouble, jumping out. Dropping two floors and landing smoothly, breaking nothing, not even twisting an ankle. He managed it because he wasn't human. As for his sisters, they used their magic to cushion their fall.

They started running. At first they followed him, but Sam wrote them a warning: "Let's split up." More of an order, really, which they obeyed without question. There was no reason to fear the puppets now, if there ever had been. They could divide, confuse their pursuers, coordinate surprise attacks.

Well, logical or not, whether it was the best idea or not, they had tried it and it hadn't worked out. The best he could do was try to destroy War's heart again, the false heart she'd made with tentacles, before his own could regenerate.

"I'm tired of chasing you, Samuel. So tired of it," War said.

Yeah, and what about it? Sam thought. Am I supposed to let myself get caught?

He was hidden in one of the alleys, breathing deeply, trying to discern the location of those fucking apocalypse sisters by their footsteps. It wasn't as hard as it could have been. For one thing, it was dark - it was as if night sharpened his senses. Any living being would do the same, he believed. Secondly, the city was dead. If it had been full of noise, the sound of footsteps would have been hopelessly lost. But this way he only had one thing to focus on.

The footsteps, at least one set, were approaching his location. As if they'd spotted him, as if they were just playing with him. But that wasn't the case, he knew it wasn't. Sam would be very careful, but this would end with him pouncing on that bitch. And being triumphant - he wouldn't accept any other possibility.

Sam waited for the right moment to ambush War. The moment might or might not have come, but either way Hunger acted first. She grabbed him by the neck from behind, squeezing. He hadn't seen her coming, hadn't even heard her. He felt ashamed of how these two were toying with him tonight, almost effortlessly.

He knew they'd stopped playing. This was undoubtedly the most dangerous they could be without risking killing him and losing their lives to Lucifer's punishment. But still it felt like they were playing with him, like a cat with its prey.

I need control, he thought.

"You're not as clever as you think you are," Hunger whispered in his ear.

I need control, Sam thought, not for the last time, because control was the key to everything, the path to happiness. If you couldn't even control your miserable life, the world would do nothing but crush you.

It was all like that mansion. Everyone trying to uncover each other's secrets, destroying them to knock them out of the race. Though the objective wasn't clear, and the race never really ended. An invisible hand just moved the goal a little further away each time, just when you thought you could reach it.

Maybe he was thinking about such nonsense because Hunger's grip on his neck was too tight. Lack of oxygen. The bitch was acting like she meant to kill him, though she didn't have the guts to do it.

"Let me go," Sam ordered, and indeed she did let go - with a kick to his back, to be exact. Sam went through the wall, rolling in a cloud of dust. He nearly got deeply impaled by one of the wooden fragments. If not for a bit of luck, it would have pierced right above his heart. Well, not exactly right above, but still too close for comfort anyway.

Hunger grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head back and made to slam it against the ground. She probably saw herself in her mind repeating it until she knocked him unconscious, until she made sure he wouldn't be a problem anymore. But problems came to the bitch: two water tentacles grabbing her legs, lifting her like a complete puppet.

Of course, that forced her to release her grip. The tentacles overpowered her, throwing her against the ground as she had intended to do with him, only twice as high and with double the force. But that didn't have a definitive effect against that monster, just the blessing of getting her off him.

Cristina repeated the attack. On the third attempt, Hunger got rid of the water tentacles by shooting. She had no fear of shooting so close to her own head - it must have been something she was immune to. That, or she had aimed exceptionally well. Either way, he was willing to believe either.

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A few seconds after Hunger stood up, the water tentacles returned and pierced through one leg, forcing her to contort her face, to scream and groan as she fell to her knees. Another tentacle tried to bury itself in her neck, but Hunger caught it mid-air, squeezing hard, and it dissolved. The tentacle dissolved, becoming just water that trickled down her palm, stained with blood - both red blood and the tar from her damn sister's tentacles.

"There's no way to know where those water magic attacks are coming from," Hunger said. "You're a slippery little bitch, Cristina. But nothing will change the inevitable outcome. Come on, let's stop going in circles. Soon we'll have Sam at our mercy, and you'll crawl out of the shadows again. While you're at it, you might as well speed up the process, skip to the end, to save us all our valuable time."

Of course, neither Cristina nor Violet were foolish enough to respond to her provocations.

"Have it your way..."

Sam jumped backward, barely dodging the tentacles that came for his feet. Instead they buried themselves deep in the ground, breaking stones, sending earth and sand flying. It had been close. He didn't want to end up impaled like nothing more than food on some superior being's plate. He couldn't bear that humiliation - he couldn't bear almost anything, truth be told.

I need control, Sam thought. His demon eyes burned and his body felt full of strength. He could do this. Even if it was just one of them - ideally he'd get rid of both, of course, but even if it was just one. He had to kill one of them in this town or his problems would become too much. He'd end up drowning.

Castiel, Hunger, War, Pestilence, Death and Satan - at the end of that fucking conga line. He had to kill at least one of his enemies or soon he'd feel like he had water up to his neck.

Well, water was what had saved him, and not just now.

Hunger tried to pierce his head with a fist. Sam could have easily dodged, and he did, but he hadn't needed to - the punch was stopped by an earth wall that suddenly rose up. It was a trick they'd used before, but if it wasn't broken, there was no need to fix it.

With Hunger's fist buried in the stone wall, Sam took his chance to pounce on that leg again.

"Now I've got you, damn bitch." He threw himself at the leg, tackling it, unbalancing the bitch. Of course, he meant the injured leg - he intended to finish the job. It was only fair to finish what he'd started and not leave messes behind him.

So that's exactly what he would do.

This time, Sam didn't just use his brute strength. He sank his teeth into the wound, clenching and twisting. He sank his teeth into the flesh of Hunger's thigh with an eagerness he'd never had for anything in life. His mouth filled with blood and torn skin, but he managed it.

Yes, he tore off the damn leg, returning the favor. It wasn't exactly the same - she had taken an arm from him, not a leg - but it was much worse to lose a leg, at least during a battle. So Sam had decided on that.

War jumped on him and kicked him in the stomach. Sam doubled over, rolling away from Hunger and the pool of her own blood - that is, Hunger's blood. Well, in his body they were mixed from head to toe, he didn't know where his own blood ended and his enemies' blood began.

War kicked him in the stomach again, even though she could have used the damn tentacles. Sam doubled over, struggling to breathe. Damn bitches, both of them. He had to maintain control of his breathing and his life. He had to do everything possible to maintain it.

Sam grabbed War's leg as she was about to kick him, squeezing it hard enough that she was forced to lower it. Her grimace didn't promise anything good either.

War stomped his head into the ground with her free foot. "Just pass out already. Make things easier for everyone. Even for you. Even for me."

Sam gritted his teeth, trying to overcome the pain. Pain was nothing more than a temporary sensation, something that superior willpower could simply turn off to focus on what really mattered.

An earth wall rising between them separated him from War, gave him the chance to slip away, though he couldn't run very far. He vanished into the darkness of Anjenhong once more. No doubt both had seen him slip into the alley, but he didn't want them to expect his direction of surprise attack.

Yes, the surprise attack had to be effective. Sam was good at many things, and one of them was playing with people's expectations. He didn't want it to be difficult to catch those two by surprise, considering that he was probably the first serious opposition they'd faced in many years. A lifetime, maybe since they were created, or born, or however that worked.

For all he knew, maybe they simply started existing - one day nothing, the next day something. It was an interesting philosophical debate, but he didn't give a fuck about their current circumstances. However it happened, this had to be done.

Sam, Violet and Cristina synchronized very well again. They formulated a plan without words, on the fly. It was extraordinary coordination. It really was true that they were siblings.

First, Violet formed a stone circle around the sisters. It wouldn't cost them anything at all to shatter the stone walls, as Hunger had done twice already, and he knew that clearly, just as he knew they wouldn't allow them the time to do such a thing.

Next, Violet filled the stone circle with water. She left them up to their necks. It was in the blink of an eye, and the most important part, last but not least, fell naturally on Sam's shoulders.

The ice weapons, of all shapes and sizes, fell to fill the sudden stone public bath.

The walls could never be more than a slight distraction, but it turned out to be enough. The ice souls pierced into Hunger everywhere. War avoided the worst of it since she only decided to attack at the end and didn't calculate the movement well.

Yes, he remembered the rule perfectly, the little trick he'd discovered: War's defense system only worked while she wasn't attacking. Or rather, it took a second to switch from attack mode to defense mode. Nothing more than a second, maybe less. It was a very easy weakness to exploit - the only difficult part had been discovering it in the first place.

War and Hunger came out of the sudden bath thrown on the ground, soaked from head to toe, but alive. They hadn't been able to finish the job, not even get close to destroying the tentacle heart that War now had. But it was fine.

Sam licked his lips. It felt good to see them thrown on the ground, humiliated. It felt good to see them at a disadvantage, for a change, even if it was just once since they'd started this fucking fight.

Sam breathed deeply. He didn't know how much longer it would last, but in his heart he suspected not very long. One way or another, there was very little left now.

I Am the Chorus of Screams, Part 5: END