Chương 978: Day Nine Hundred And Seventy-Six

Dear Diary, Every now and then I get a feeling that I ought to be more pissed off than I am. I'm not talking about that old bit about 'people aren't angry enough'. Fuck, I saw that shit so much online back in the day. Part of me kind wonders if that's gotten better or worse. Most of me hopes it's gotten better. I've avoided looking at the news when I Scry on my old world, but I can't help but noticing some shit sometimes.

I saw an article about the crime rate going down in Camden, which made me kinda hopeful, but then I read about cops shooting people, and it wasn't even like a big shocking thing. Like it had gotten school shooting bad, where there were people who just shrugged and said 'what are you gonna do' and shit.

So yeah, I get that sometimes there are situations that demand mass response that just don't get that response, because people are fuckin' exhausted by the state of the world and they're 'not angry enough', but that's not what I'm talking about. Funny, back in the day I'd be talking about how 'intuition' is just my subconscious noticing shit and doing emotional responses to stuff that my conscious brain didn't notice. But here and now I can actually fuckin' Scry.

My first Halloween here, I sort of accidentally did so with the Marshall and Hero Castro; I think I might have even squished the Levies and Heroes surrounding them. Not sure. So how the fuck do I know if my impulse to be angry is my subconscious noticing shit, the brain dead part of my body noticing something and trying to get my attention, or, I dunno, fuckin' indigestion or some shit like that?

Then again, it could just be some part of me fighting against me consciously keeping my existing anger under wraps, because at the moment the only Spartans we know the location of are dead ones. So I collapsed back to myself a little early yesterday. Well, those of me at the Homestead and the one at the Academy, at any rate. I brought Saffron's electromagnet along, and proceeded to electrocute myself tryna clean up the Bath. She laughed at me, but then I hadn't really injured myself. Okay, not enough to matter.

Sort of like taking the cookie sheet out of the oven and dancing around going 'hot, hot, hot' until somebody had the trivets out. Okay, that normally would be screaming pain, but as noted I have some defenses against that kind of thing. Which do not work when hip deep in Cold Iron laced water. Tonight's dinner had a mix of easy to eat stuff, like bisque and mashed veggies and soup, and slightly heartier stuff like paninis.

I definitely gotta do something nice for Ria, because she shared her eggy grilled cheese with the new girl. Even when she couldn't stay near her for very long, because of the whole Cold Iron thing. After dinner, on the toilet, the new kids were still chelating. I think that's the word. Still dumping iron out via piss and shit. I guess I'm just thankful they're not sweating it out, because that would be creepy as fuck.

Not sure if sweating iron out would look more or less awful than crying it out, but whatever meds Saffron stole and Marie employed are clearly working, and keeping the excretion of iron to their normal bodily waste. As the boy sat there on the pot, I pulled Lindsey over.

"You been making sure they use the toilet on the regular, and get new absorbent panties?" She smiled at me, almost a smirk.

"Yes, Mama." Not quite a 'teach grandma how to suck eggs, why don't you', but almost. I pulled her into a hug.

"Thanks, Lindsey." When I pulled away I quietly asked, "Daya helped you?" The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. That got her.

"How'd you know?"

"None of the kits or Fae or Menace can touch them without hurting themselves. Davey's gregarious and she means well, but she's not exactly the type to remember stuff like that. Alex is... Too much like Isnomi?" Lindsey chuckled.

"Just a little, yeah." That brought something else to my mind.

"You're working to become her Priestess, right?" She nodded.

"I get where Alex would, but... Why her?" Lindsey thought her answer through while we helped the boy with his underwear. Poor little bastard didn't even react to some strange women dressing him. When we had him dressed and ready to go get showered, she tossed her head slightly to get my attention, then murmured, "she isn't always noisy. Just... young?"

"Huh. Good to know." No soaking in the Bath tonight. I'm usually the one who wants the soak the most, and right now the Cold Iron in the tub contraindicates that. Once I got everybody dry after the shower, we all trundled down to bed. Half a dozen quiet conversations about nothing much at all ensued as our girls and kits settled down without their normal warm bath. Not sure how she managed it, but right about when we'd normally come down or decide to sleep in the bath, Isadora quietly growled out, "time for sleep."

Wonder of wonders, the conversations shut down and everybody went to sleep at that point. That made me wonder if she's gonna wind up cutting in on Morpheus' thing. Or if he's even alive and kicking here and now. Shit, I'm pretty sure there was a Greek Goddess of Healing, like a dedicated Goddess without any other real Domains, but for the life of me I can't remember her name, or where she was in the family tree, or any of that shit. Maybe I could go ask Hades and Persephone.

Dreamt of my ladies continuing to brainstorm ideas about how to find and deal with the Spartans. Think they were talking about other stuff, too, but I couldn't tell what. Something good, I think, because they weren't frowning the way they did while discussing the short four score of Spartans wandering around our backyard fucking with people. Woke up realizing that that poor pair of kids might well have been subjected to the Spartans doing exactly that. Which would absolutely be reason to be angrier than I am.

Midway through the day, with the new kids seeming more lethargic than normal, I put together some liver bisque, because the last thing we needed was the kids dying of anemia while we tried to fix their Cold Iron issue. I brought it out along with sandwiches and salads for all the kids. As I sat there ignoring the faint itchy tingle I got sitting near them, I decided to work on the name thing.

"What's your name?" I asked the boy. I did not expect him to shudder and close his eyes. He never closed his mouth, though, so I spooned another spoonful of bisque into him.

"You have a name, right?" He jerked his head back and forth, more an instinctive negation than answer. I realized just then that the girl had winced at my question too, although she kept eating as Lindsey spooned bisque into her.

"You're safe," Lindsey murmured.

"Mama won't hurt you. She won't let anyone else hurt you, either." That brought a round of murmuring agreement from the other girls. Made me feel all kind of warm and fuzzy, but didn't seem to reassure the new kids very much. I had an ugly thought, and it slipped out before I could stop myself.

"What did the Spartans call you?" The boy's eyes slid open, any self-awareness fading into a kind of dull, aching sense of something beyond terror.

"The... bad guys I rescued you from. The ones who fed you the Cold Iron. The ones who hurt you." I almost didn't understand his response when he breathed out, "two." Half in shock at finally hearing either of them say anything, the question slipped out of me as I turned to the girl.

"What did they call you?" She closed her eyes, even half turned away from me as she whispered, "three."

"Did... Did they have three of you to start with?" Their heads turned to me, eyes slipping open, the first thing other than fear or dull acceptance entering into their gaze. I wasn't super thrilled that the first unified, clear response to something was both of them looking at me with a clear 'are you an idiot' look, shading quickly toward, 'WTF, Diaz?' But anything was better than the nothing that was there before. If I had to be the dumbest of asses to get them to heal, so be it.

I have no idea why some part of me got big mad about it. Not at them, not about the snark, even subtle snark of dimmed expressions. But my rage against the Spartans burned ever so much hotter, and I couldn't even tell myself why. I dunno what it's gonna take to find them. I dunno what it's gonna take to help these kids. But I'm gonna do both of those things. I just wish I knew why I was so pissed off about it.