Chapter Four: The Red Rivers

Mortimer stopped Gaelie when they has reached an alleyway not three blocks from the tenant building, his white-clouded eyes rheumy and weeping in the cool fresh air.

" Here," he said, " in this alley, at the end. I can still smell it."

Together they walked, though Toad noticed her hesitancy as she led him deeper into the rubbish-perfumed darkness. He could hear her breath roiling in her lungs, and he squeezed the shoulder upon which he leaned.

" Strength," he said, and he felt her hair against his cheek as she nodded, gulping.

At last he pointed to the ground ahead, and barely managed to keep from breaking his brittle legs as he landed suddenly upon the asphalt, for when Gaelie saw what he was pointing at she had ceased to support him and rushed forward, falling to her knees and sobbing brokenly.

On the ground, in a large round pool, Lorne's blood reflected the stars.

Gaelie, still sobbing, dipped a finger into it and frowned when it came away wet; she noticed also that little runnels of it had seeped among the cracks, forming tiny rivers upon whose banks ants worshiped ceaselessly.

" It is still wet, though it has been two years since he was murdered. It will remain forever, never drying, never washing away."

Gaelie looked up, startled by Mortimer's voice, and she saw him sitting on the ground, spindly legs crumpled awkwardly beneath him, hands scraped. He watched her calmly, his eyes led to her by the sound of her voice.

" Oh God," she gasped, going to him swiftly. " Mortimer… I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me… I didn't mean to drop you!"

He blinked as she wiped his hands upon her coat, brushing away the gravel and blood, fussing over him. " Do you wish to know how it happened now, or is the sight of this enough of the story?"

She sighed and shook her dark locks regretfully. " I wish to know, no matter how horrible it might be. If I am not told, I know my dreams of it will haunt me forever."

" Lorne found another that night," began Mortimer, and struggling he finally sat up upon his haunches in a shadow of his former crouch, shifting his weight from leg to leg as he told the story, his eyes shifting nervously. "He had been watching her the previous evening, and he knew in his way that she needed him. He called me out with him, and I went, though I didn't want to. But I was never one to deny Lorne; none of us were.

" So we went, the two of us, into the night. I was frightened and paranoid, constantly wanting to run and hide at the slightest sound or hint of people. Lorne hushed me and made me stay with him, and told me to trust the night again, as I once had; no one could see me for what I was when the sun was asleep. I trusted him, and at his order we scaled this tenant building to my back; at that time I was not so degenerated and my powers still enabled me to climb, and Lorne as well.

" The girl was below, in this very spot, kneeling and weeping amidst the garbage. My heart went out to her; I had felt very much the same as she seemed to feel then. Her skin was covered with yellow scales… she reminded me of a…of a friend that I knew once, before I was Forgotten. We watched her for a long time, and Lorne said nothing to me during our vigil, appearing very deep in thought. Suddenly he turned to me and said, 'Down, Mortimer- let us met her now.' So we scaled down, dropping the last two stories and landing in front of her; she was very startled. When she saw us she drew back in fear, but when Lorne began speaking to her she lost that fear very quickly. She knew we were mutants.

" I don't need to tell you what he said to her; you know already because it was the very same words he spoke to you the night you became Forgotten. It was the same as he said with each of us when we were discovered. When he asked if she would join him she nodded, and Lorne was very pleased.

" But before we even set foot outside the alley toward home a figure clad in black moved very swiftly out from his place behind the wall, and quick as a shadow he was upon us. The girl screamed abruptly and then fell silenced, her throat cut. In these short seconds Lorne had shoved me physically toward the wall and hissed, "Up, up- go up now!" I ran up the side of the building, thinking Lorne was behind me."

Gaelie's eyes were like moons in her pale face, and she let out a breath. " He wasn't, was he?"

Toad shook his head sadly. " He remained down in the alley, facing the figure that had now begun to scalp the girl. By the time I stopped I was five stories up, and I watched as he held up a hank of blonde hair and laughed. Lorne roared at him and made as if to attack him, but the figure was too swift. He was upon Lorne before my eye could follow, and I saw blood spurt black in the darkness and the figure vanished.

" By this time I had reached the ground, but I was too late. Lorne lay dead, his entrails out. There was never a last goodbye, or words of reverence, so don't envy me. There was just the darkness and the steaming blood.

" I took his body to the harbour," Toad said quietly, his head down. " I weighted it with stones and swam with it, out to the middle, and let it drop from my hands. He will never be found."

Gaelie wiped tears from her face. " The figure… you referred to it as 'he'. How do you know?…"

" Because," Mortimer said, smiling grimly, " he lives among us. You know him well."

Gaelie stared, thunderstruck, and then a voice came out of the darkness.

" Enough stories for one night, Green Man," said Rakla, stepping out of the shadow of the wall behind which he had hidden himself.