Chương 455: Day Four Hundred And Fifty-Three

Dear Diary,"Egalitarianism, Equality, Consequence, The first two require the third." Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Egalitarianism I remember that old speech by Doctor King; I'm sure everybody's heard it. The one line about people being judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Trust me, nobody gets that more than somebody who grew up in the hood. Yeah, I get mad, I make assumptions. In some cases they might even be right.

Like, I get that the dude on the roof of the Aquarium might have been like me, a really light skinned Hispanic who could pass for white in the right light. But fuck it, even if he was, ain't nobody in the hood who can afford a fuckin' sniper rifle, or even a hunting rifle. That's not even a racial thing, it's basic economics. You deal, you need protection, but nobody you need protection from is gonna sit down the street from you and let you take aim at them. Guns are expensive, so you're gonna buy what works.

A pistol, maybe an SMG, maybe an automatic carbine, but not a fuckin' sniper rifle. So yeah, I'm not calling the fucker nasty names because of the color of his skin. I'm talking shit about him because the motherfucker shot me for no better reason than the lead it put in his pencil. I mean fuck, if he was gonna do that, he could at least have been a gentleman and popped a cap in my brain after making sure I got my fortune cookie first.

Yeah, look, from what Saffron tells me that shit happened over a year ago, but from my perspective it happened a couple days ago. Less than that in, y'know, continuous conscious time. So I'm still fuckin' salty about it. But yeah.

'Content of Character'. How the fuck else do you judge that except by somebody's actions? Like, do I know what that asshole was going through? No, I do not. Do I know what his pseudo-ejaculation from his phallic substitute went through? My fuckin' skull. So yeah, I'm firmly in the corner of 'that asshole was a fuckin' asshole, and his character is shit'. They tell me I'm a Goddess here. Makes sense, if I'm writing 'Doctrine' and shit.

I dunno if I can get that dude's Soul in whatever afterlife I can send people to, but if I can, I have an in with a dude who makes Soul torturing devices, and if that motherfucker does wind up in my hands? I am absolutely gonna have my sociopathic little son use his soul to demonstrate all the newest in afterlife torture devices. Fuck. No idea why I'm the one stuck writing the intro to this section of the Doctrine.

I guess maybe having your Soul ripped out of your body and spread out across a couple dozen cubic meters leaves you with nothing much to do except think about shit. Okay, after the screaming's done. So much fuckin' screaming. So much pain. So weird that after that little psycho's machine spread my innermost self around the room that the pain died down to that weird stretched feeling so quickly. That might have been Marie's hand on the top of my head.

Before I even stopped screaming she lay her palm on the back of my head, her fingers stretched across my scalp, long fingernails just barely protruding into my field of vision. Weird, with the blurriness they almost looked like claws. Somehow, even through the agony of so much of me flayed open for little hooks to pull that glowing shit out of me, I felt her hand. It soothed me. Didn't make the pain go away, or the stretching feel less agonizing, but maybe it did?

Just slowly, like she couldn't just pull it all out. Maybe it was just me adjusting or going numb or something. But I wanted it to be Marie's hand. As the pain died away, I became aware of people talking. It wasn't as fuzzy as it had been back in the bedroom, but the distortion was, if anything worse. Hell, I hadn't even noticed the distortion until just now, although now that I did I realized it had been a problem in the other room. Marie? Show me? A moment later I saw the back of my own head.

Given the blood splatter across the floor that wasn't obscured by the table or my head, I wound up really glad I couldn't see what I couldn't see. Instead, I focused on the intricate webwork of... stuff spread across the area between the arch and the cabinets. I realized right then that whatever the fuck The Smith had done, he'd left my Soul way more distorted than Marie had. In her case, it had been me, or at least the me I had wherever here was, but expanded.

The torture machine, on the other hand, had just stretched bits of me out until it filled the space. That reminded me of how much painful stretching still tore at me, but with Marie there to buffer it, at least I wasn't screaming any more. Of course, I couldn't speak, so I wondered if I'd really been screaming out loud, or just inside my head. No idea, because being in so much pain you cannot stop screaming is not the best mental state for forming coherent memories.

Right then I remembered something one of the ROTC DIs told me. Well, told the class. I'd asked for permission to go to the nurse, because my period cramps were really bad that day. I knew she couldn't give me painkillers, but sometimes just lying there with a hot water bottle could do wonders. One of the guys in the class barked out, "pain is just weakness leaving the body!" I swear, if I'd been in less pain, I would have made some weakness leave his balls right about then.

But the DI stepped into that gap, like heroes do.

"You heard that in a movie, didn't you, son?" To his credit, the cadet didn't try to bluster. By that point in our ROTC classes we'd all learned that the DIs were both so much tougher and meaner than any street kid that they didn't even need to expend effort to keep the worst of us in line. Might have been because both of them were former street kids themselves, just with professional military training and decades of experience doing unto others before others did unto them.

"No, Sergeant." At the Sergeant's disbelieving look, the kid wilted and said, "YouTube video." The DI just shook his head.

"Do you know what's leaving Diaz' body right now?" When the kid shook his head, the DI smiled and said, "blood. At a guess, has been for a couple days. Probably will for another couple. When you can bleed for a week and not die? You have my permission to give her shit about it. Understood?"

"Yes, Sergeant." The DI nodded, then turned to the whole class.

"Do you want to know what pain really is? What it needs to be if you're really gonna pursue a career in the Army?" Everybody just listened attentively, even those of us who'd never intended to wear a uniform after we left school.

"Pain is your body telling you that you're damaged. Pain is your body telling you that something is wrong, that you forgot to duck, that you weren't watching close enough for tripwires, or maybe just that you went right when you should have gone left. That you're unlucky enough to be the one the sniper picked, or got the MRE some asshole poked a hole in six months ago in shipping, or that your body just decided to fuck you over because that's what bodies do."

When everybody looked the right mix of pretend shocked at the DI's salty language and comprehending his point, he got a little quiet.

"Pain is also proof positive that you're still awake, aware, and most importantly alive. The dead don't feel pain. Any of you go to the pokiest bit of the sharp end, you're gonna learn lots of ways to inflict a lot of pain, fast. You know what I used it for most?" The dude who'd taunted me answered, "taking out bad guys before they could take you out?" The DI shook his head.

"Nah. Don't get me wrong, I did that once or twice, but mostly? I used it to make sure they were dead. The dead don't feel pain. So if you're feeling pain? You're still alive. Maybe not for long. Maybe not in any condition to do anything about it. But so long as you feel pain? You. Are. Alive." Yeah, right then, with my Soul stretched out for the people who called themselves my wife and son and dad to examine? That long ago lecture was a fuckin' lifeline, keeping me something like sane.

Actually, fuck that, Saffron had already acted more wifey than anybody I knew back in Camden, and Loki... fuck, at least he showed up. Better than the dude who dropped his sperm in my mom. That's not really fair, what with him dying, but I was in pain, and I wasn't really interested in being fair to somebody who was decades gone and probably dead.

"The distortion is not making this easier, Son." The Smith... I realized right then that I'd never heard Saffron refer to him like that. Weird thing to realize, but fuck it. My son replied, "I am aware, Mom, but this does magnify everything by more than an order of magnitude." He pointed, careful not to cross into the glowing cube of me-stuff.

"See there? That pattern?" Stolen story; please report. Saffron nodded.

"The very same. Distorted, but... clearly... Wait... Lord Loki, is that what I think it is?" Loki moved around to stand next to her, then crouched to look down the line of her arm. I saw him... vibrate, maybe? As he did, a whole winding thread through the glowing thing vibrated as well, and I had all I could do to keep myself from screaming. I think Marie whimpered a little, I think I made her whimper a little, because everyone else in the room snapped their gaze to her.

"She sees through your eyes?" asked Loki. Marie nodded, and Saffron said, "please, Tabitha, forgive us for the pain we cause." De nada. Marie repeated my words, and Saffron replied.

"It is not nothing. But thank you, my love." She turned to Loki.

"Was that?" He nodded.

"The strand of her Soul which was once mine, which marks her as my High Priestess, as my Champion, as claiming me as her Patron. Those strands make up most of that pattern, in fact. But someone has braided something through them." Shit, if I'm a Goddess, how am I a High Priestess? Loki laughed when Marie finished conveying my words, the sound rueful.

"Because, Daughter of my heart, you have continually shown me that things I thought of as laws of nature were, in fact, mere traditions." So what does that mean? Loki looked at Saffron and our son, who'd been doing what I thought of as 'tech nerd muttering', heads close together as they looked at something and quietly discussed it using terms I had no clue how to even decipher. Siobhan stood not far behind them, nodding along, so at least somebody else knew what they were talking about.

Saffron nodded then turned to face Marie.

"It means that so long as those bonds remain, this curse will draw power from them. Even if we tried to excise it, should we fail to remove any portion, it might reassert itself."

"It's worse than that." Siobhan muttered. Everybody turned to stare at her, and she said, "the other threads."

"The what?" Loki looked more than a little perturbed. Siobhan moved around the perimeter of the machine, pointing.

"There, and there, and... I think there and there? Those two are so much dimmer than the others, like..."

"Like they're not connections to Divine Souls." Loki turned to me.

"Please understand, I bear you no rancor if you are, Daughter, but are you Champion or High Priestess of any other Deities? Or have you perhaps taken another Patron?" Saffron interrupted with, "a Mortal... no, any being can only have one Patron." Loki just gestured to me, and Saffron sighed, then shook her head.

"No. No, Lord. Forgive me, but I have become intimately familiar with many aspects of Souls and Auras over the past year. Much like a Deity can only properly have one Champion, a Mortal can have only one Patron. From all I can tell, that holds true the other way around as well; Mortals can have only one Champion, and Deities can only have one Patron." Loki nodded.

"I bow to your expertise, Archmage." Then he turned back to me.

"So, daughter?" Look, I just found out I'm your High Priestess and Champion. I sure as fuck don't know if I'm anyone else's. That's when Marie whispered.

"Mine." Loki blinked.

"Pardon, Maenad Marie, but did I hear you correctly?" My perspective shifted as she stood up. Stood up to her full height. I'd never realized how much she... slouched, I guess. The next tallest person in the room had to be Loki, and he wasn't much taller than I was. Standing like she was, she had to have at least two feet on him. Then my perspective jerked upward, and she glared down at him from at least three feet above his head.

"My. Right." A pause, then far less aggressive.

"My. Champion." Loki's hands went up in a conciliatory gesture.

"Oh, certainly, certainly. Maenads are in fact Demigoddesses, and as such may choose a Champion. Might I suggest, however, it might have been polite to inform the Deity of whom she was already the Champion before doing so with mine?"

"No." He nodded.

"Fair enough. Fair enough. I suppose if no one has ever done something before, the social niceties are in fact uncharted territory. You accept that she is, in fact, still my Champion and will remain so for the foreseeable future?" Marie nodded, slowly and regally.

"Yes." Loki sighed.

"I suppose that's the best I can hope for in this case." He turned to the others, flinching a little when he realized exactly how close Saffron stood behind him.

"Archmage."

"Lord. So," she turned to our son.

"From what I can see, the curse is embedded into each of those connections. If..." She stopped herself, took a deep breath.

"If those connections were severed, would that break the curse?" The Smith nodded, then held up a hand.

"I believe so. It is a theory. However, there remain two, perhaps three problems." When Saffron nodded, he explained.

"First, there are at least three unknown connections. I suspect Tabitha herself knows the two mortals, although they are obscured from her while her memories are obfuscated. For that matter, I suspect you and I both know of one of them." Saffron facepalmed.

"Karen."

"Exactly. She is, as noted, the High Priestess of Tabitha Diaz, not Mimic herself." Something about that word, that name, Mimic, made my whole Soul shudder, and everyone in the room froze as a whimpering moan of pain escaped from both my lips and Marie's.

"Forgive me, Mother." De... De nada. He didn't respond until Marie repeated my words.

"It is not nothing, but I thank you for your kind words. At any rate, Tabitha would need to disavow her High Priestess and her... Champion?"

"We'll have to ask her when the curse is next suppressed."

"Agreed. At any rate, the second problem is that we do not know whether the curse will reestablish itself around new connections; I doubt that my esteemed grandfather will refrain from reestablishing her as his High Priestess and Champion?" Loki nodded.

"I would do so the moment we knew it was safe, but now that I know it might not be?" Conrad went still for a moment, then turned to me.

"Pardon, Mother, but may I try something? It will be invasive, it may hurt, but I believe it will be diagnostically useful." Go ahead. When Marie repeated my words, something slithered into my Soul. Not painful, exactly, although it stretched things further. Something else wound its way around and through the thing slithering through me... I looked around a strange room, with a huge cloud of light in front of me, tiny people crowded around the cloud. My mouth moved without conscious volition.

"Worse." Something slithered out of me, painful suction like somebody'd yanked a string of beads out like a Beyblade cord... Holy fucking shit don't do that again.

"Son?"

"Yes, Mom?"

"What did you just do?" The Smith gave my wife a look I'd seen on way too many big badass gang members when their mother took a shoe off.

"I made her my Champion. Then removed that Title."

"Please do not do that again. It was traumatic for her." I didn't fucking remember anything. Like, just fuckin' woke up after being shot didn't remember.

"Apparently it also re-established the curse's memory loss." He nodded.

"I was watching. I am uncertain as to whether the increased potency was a factor of the new Title establishing a new base time for the curse, or if the greater potency of being my Champion is to blame."

"Excuse me?" asked Loki, looking a little put out. The Smith made a tossing away gesture.

"I outrank you." Then he turned to Saffron.

"Although if we could have my sister join us? I suppose not." Given that the look she'd given him should have hit harder than any chancla in the history of chanclas, I wasn't surprised he'd backed down.

"At any rate, I..."

"No, wait, please, I mean no disrespect, Grandson, but... you outrank me?" The Smith turned that way too big grin on Loki.

"When the daughter of your heart adopted me, she did so in a manner that recreated me a Mor Primordial, Grandfather."

"And that method?" Loki very carefully didn't choke out.

"Will not be shared with anyone but Mother Dearest." Loki nodded.

"Fair."

"May I continue, Grandfather?"

"Please do."

"As I was saying, we now know that removal of those connections would, in fact, remove the curse, but without knowledge of who that final Divine connection is with, we cannot have it removed, and cannot be certain the curse would wither with it in place."

"We could cut it." I'd never heard Saffron's voice that... flat. Emotionless. Cold.

"Mom. That could..."

"It would not kill her."

"Are you certain?" She lay her hand on my foot. I realized right then that my hands and feet had suffered less than my everything else.

"I am. Tabitha is the strongest Soul I have ever known. Her... other self reinforces that. Her Kraken," my Soul wobbled again, but Saffron never paused.

"Support her, not just her other self. She will survive. But..."

"But?" Siobhan asked.

"I do not know what damage cutting the curse would do." So we save that for a GOTH plan? Saffron smiled sadly up at me.

"Yes, let us save that plan for if everything else fails." She turned to our son.

"In the meanwhile?" The Smith nodded.

"Yes. In the meanwhile," he pulled open a drawer under a big drafting table on the far side of the open space.

"I will need all three of you to make detailed renderings of the curse as you see it. Determining which Fae did this ought be simple if we can unravel a clear enough image of the Mana and its Shape. But some Fae can, even at this remove, occlude some part of their essence from a single being, or even a class of beings. So the more imagery we have to work with, the more likely we are to find the correct culprit." Vlickies? Yeah? She raised her hand just enough to lower the pressure. Can you endure?

I wished I could have closed my eyes and taken a deep breath. I... I will. Marie stepped to where the others gathered paper and clipboards and pencils.

"Four." I... don't know how long I hung there, the strange stretched feeling growing more and more painful over time. I lost all sense of time, and eventually started to maybe even lose my sense of self. I know at some point I whimpered, then forced myself to think, no, when Marie's palm settled on my head. I didn't know if I would survive as me if this 'curse' went away. I wasn't sure of a lot of things as I hung there in pain.

But I knew that whoever did this shit needed a whole lot of weakness to leave their general crotch region.