Pauline couldn't believe her eyes when she saw Lyta, looking like someone had used her as a punching bag, drag an unconscious boy out of her car who looked even worse. Lyta had called her and said she needed help, had told her to meet her at her apartment, but by the looks of it, Lyta should have asked for a ride to the hospital instead. She said as much when Lyta carried the boy inside.
"Too many questions," Lyta said briefly, then collapsed on the sofa. While cleaning up Lyta and the boy and dispensing band aids galore kept Pauline busy, she couldn't help but wonder whether she shouldn't ignore Lyta's wishes and call the police in addition to a doctor. All the talk about gods and powers and the other weird shit that seemed to dog Lyta's footsteps didn't change fact Lyta had just come to blows with what appeared to be an adolescent psychopath. Feeling sorry for the kid was one thing; but surely he would be better off with professional help, where he couldn't do any more damage?
Then she remembered how much help the professionals had been with her father, and what they would do if they ever found out, and kept her mouth shut. Her disapproval must have manifested on her face nonetheless, as Lyta said:
"He's my responsibility, Pauline."
Watching Lyta watch the boy as he lay on the couch, Pauline said softly:
"You never did tell me how your son died. You didn't... I mean, you did not..."
She faltered, feeling ashamed and yet afraid of what she might hear. There were several photos of Lyta's son Daniel around; an adorable curly-haired toddler, and that was all that could be told from them. Lyta still kept some of his cloths, and his old bed, but his death was a subject they had steered clear from. Pauline only knew that Lyta had had some kind of mental breakdown afterwards because Lyta had told her when they first met, years later.
"No," Lyta replied, with her voice hoarse, still looking at the boy. "But I might as well have. I thought he was dead, I thought I was avenging his death, and when I was done with my revenge, he had become..."
She stopped, as the boy regained consciousness. His eyes snapped open abruptly. For a moment, he looked confused at the two of them. Then his expression changed to horror. Pauline, who assumed this was directed at Lyta, waited for Lyta to explain, but instead, Lyta just looked back at him, silently. Finally, the boy said:
"Why didn't you kill me?"
"Because that wouldn't have changed anything for you," Lyta returned. "What do you think would have happened to you after your death if you had died attacking an imago of the Ladies? They would have taken you with them, and believe me, I've been there, and it's worse."
The boy sat up, gingerly.
"How can it possibly be worse?" he asked bitterly.
"You could ask your parents' daughter," Lyta said, face impassive. With a shiver, Pauline recalled how Lyta had called her a patricide and told her she would be scourged. That was the thing with Lyta; it was sometimes hard to tell who was talking, and if Pauline had not seen with her own eyes how Lyta fought against monsters, if she hadn't been dragged into the impossible together with Lyta by a creature calling himself a god, she would have classified Lyta as a schizophrenic years ago.
The boy's face shifted again; something of anger left, but the horror remained.
"What was her name?" he asked quietly.
Lyta shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "That's not how it works. It comes in fragments to me, mostly images and emotions. They know everything, of course, but they don't tell me."
She gave him the glass of water Pauline had poured her five minutes ago, and to Pauline's surprise, the boy accepted it. He drank in slow, considerate sips, like someone who had experience with this kind of situation, so much experience that it had become instinct not to be greedy.
Finally, he put the glass down.
"I have to find out," he said. "And not just her name. I have to restore those memories to Mom and Dad. And Mercy." He flinched as he said the last name. "She wasn't there when you arrived, was she?"
"No," Lyta said. "But she might start to remember anyway, just like your parents. Larissa said the spells around you were starting to unravel. She also said someone had called on the Ladies and pointed them in your direction. You have an enemy, Connor, and apparently one who thinks he can use me as well. I've been used before that way, twice, and I'm sick of it. So tell me, who knows what you have done and knows enough about the powers that shape this world to conjure the Kindly Ones?"
"It doesn't really matter, does it?" he returned, with something of the temper he had displayed earlier returning. "Everything you've said is true. They're still all dead because of me, and I can't bring them back. Any of them. Not the girl, and not my...do you really think I care who brought it up again?"
Professional help sounded like an attractive prospect again, and not just for Connor. Pauline froze when Lyta grabbed the boy by his shoulders and hissed:
"Don't you give up. Don't you dare."
"You don't know..." he began, and she interrupted him, digging her fingers deeper into his shoulder. Pauline didn't understand why he didn't move away.
"I had a family once," Lyta said, and a passion burst from her which Pauline had never observed from her friend, "and we were happy together. But we were not living in the real world. We were living in dreams, and dreams are treacherous. He came and destroyed them, and then I had nothing but my son, and he vowed he would claim him one day. They burned my son, do you understand, they burned him and I thought he was dead, and then I didn't think anything anymore. I gave myself to the Ladies, and we tore his realm apart. You think you are a murderer? I killed everyone and everything in that world, and I didn't care, just as long as he suffered and died in the end. And I got my wish. Oh, did I ever. I saw my son turn into the thing I hated most, and now they are one, and it is my fault. So don't you tell me what I know."
The boy stared at her, transfixed, doubt and comprehension mingling with a sudden need in his face.
"But how do you go on after something like this?" he whispered.
Lyta let him go, and regained something of her composure while Pauline felt torn between the urge to hug her and the wish to slap her for burying something like this in silence for such a long time.
"You try," Lyta said, sounding tired and worn out. "You just – try. It took me years, but then I finally could do what he wanted me to do when I saw him again. Pick up my life. I'm still trying."
The boy got up, but made no move to leave. Instead, he began wandering through the room, restless, slightly limping, now and then stopping to look at the photos of Lyta's child and her dead husband, or at the Greek mask Pauline had given to Lyta and which now hung from the wall.
"I do remember my parents visiting Disneyland with me," he said, "except it must have been with her. I remember someone spilling orange juice all over me, except I never knew oranges existed until years later. I remember her blood on my hands, and that it was my choice. And that was just the first death. Jasmine killed hundreds, you know. Not because she hated them. She devoured them because she needed their energy. I knew she was doing it. The others, they loved her because she made them love her, they had no choice about it, and so they didn't protest, but I always... I knew what she was doing, and I loved her anyway."
Pauline had been visiting Florida at the time, but she still remembered the news about a charismatic cult leader named Jasmine. She recalled waiting to watch the broadcast during which Jasmine would address the world, with a mixture of incredulous disgust at the thought of the fuss raised by some religious freaks and the tiny nervous hope that Jasmine might really be the genuine article. When Jasmine had started to speak, she had felt the overwhelming love and peace exuding from the woman in an instant, and then it had all fallen apart as some horrible creature was revealed.
"She was my daughter," Connor continued, "mine and Cordy's. And she was a monster. She killed more people in the few weeks of her life than all the monsters I ever fought, and I loved her, and I helped her, and when she died, when I finally killed her, I couldn't feel anything anymore. Anything at all."
"Flesh is the food of the earth's justice," Lyta said, in that infinite voice that was not her own. "Blood shedding its own blood calls the judgement of the earth. We shall ride you to the land of the death, and there we will ride your ghost forever."
Then she abruptly said, sounding like herself again: "But you let Pauline go. You did not scourge anyone but Cronus these recent years, and I know we met more than one who has shed family blood. You will be with this boy, one way or the other, in any case. His life of dreams is destroyed. Why not let him live, let him try to make amends?"
Pauline caught her breath. The eternal sceptic in her told her there was nobody here but two very unstable people and herself, but she could remember the monsters, and the mad run to escape from them, and the dead body of her lover pinned up like an ancient sacrifice. The boy, for his part, seemed to have no doubts whatsoever. He knelt down in front of Lyta.
"I think," he said hesitatingly, "I think we already went this way together once, you and I. You were with me that day in the mall, weren't you, Ladies? If I have to die again, let it be now, here, where nobody else gets hurt."
Lyta clenched her fists; violent shivers shook her entire body, as if she was trying to contain another birth. Finally, she exhaled, a deep, shuddering sigh. Then she said:
"They're considering. But someone did call on them, and that hate and thirst for vengeance is feeding them. We'll have to find out who it is if you want to live."
She looked at him, stretching out her hands.
"Do you?"
He remained immobile, and Pauline wondered what she would do if she saw Lyta, possessed or not, start to kill another human being. Try and stop her, she supposed; and knew she would fail.
"I'll try," said the boy, took Lyta's hands and rose, and the relief that shot through Pauline made her dizzy for a moment.
Lyta smiled at him, a shaky, uncertain smile; only now did Pauline notice that her friend must have bitten her lips. There was blood on them. Silently, she fetched two more glasses of water for both of them. After Lyta had thanked her, Pauline addressed the boy, attempting to sound as if this was every day business.
"So who do you think is after you?"
Connor frowned. The name he eventually said meant nothing to her, but that was nothing new; aside from Jasmine, nearly every name, term or occurrence mentioned today had been bewildering or terrifying or both.
"I could be wrong, of course," Connor added. "But I know where we'll find out."
"Too many questions," Lyta said briefly, then collapsed on the sofa. While cleaning up Lyta and the boy and dispensing band aids galore kept Pauline busy, she couldn't help but wonder whether she shouldn't ignore Lyta's wishes and call the police in addition to a doctor. All the talk about gods and powers and the other weird shit that seemed to dog Lyta's footsteps didn't change fact Lyta had just come to blows with what appeared to be an adolescent psychopath. Feeling sorry for the kid was one thing; but surely he would be better off with professional help, where he couldn't do any more damage?
Then she remembered how much help the professionals had been with her father, and what they would do if they ever found out, and kept her mouth shut. Her disapproval must have manifested on her face nonetheless, as Lyta said:
"He's my responsibility, Pauline."
Watching Lyta watch the boy as he lay on the couch, Pauline said softly:
"You never did tell me how your son died. You didn't... I mean, you did not..."
She faltered, feeling ashamed and yet afraid of what she might hear. There were several photos of Lyta's son Daniel around; an adorable curly-haired toddler, and that was all that could be told from them. Lyta still kept some of his cloths, and his old bed, but his death was a subject they had steered clear from. Pauline only knew that Lyta had had some kind of mental breakdown afterwards because Lyta had told her when they first met, years later.
"No," Lyta replied, with her voice hoarse, still looking at the boy. "But I might as well have. I thought he was dead, I thought I was avenging his death, and when I was done with my revenge, he had become..."
She stopped, as the boy regained consciousness. His eyes snapped open abruptly. For a moment, he looked confused at the two of them. Then his expression changed to horror. Pauline, who assumed this was directed at Lyta, waited for Lyta to explain, but instead, Lyta just looked back at him, silently. Finally, the boy said:
"Why didn't you kill me?"
"Because that wouldn't have changed anything for you," Lyta returned. "What do you think would have happened to you after your death if you had died attacking an imago of the Ladies? They would have taken you with them, and believe me, I've been there, and it's worse."
The boy sat up, gingerly.
"How can it possibly be worse?" he asked bitterly.
"You could ask your parents' daughter," Lyta said, face impassive. With a shiver, Pauline recalled how Lyta had called her a patricide and told her she would be scourged. That was the thing with Lyta; it was sometimes hard to tell who was talking, and if Pauline had not seen with her own eyes how Lyta fought against monsters, if she hadn't been dragged into the impossible together with Lyta by a creature calling himself a god, she would have classified Lyta as a schizophrenic years ago.
The boy's face shifted again; something of anger left, but the horror remained.
"What was her name?" he asked quietly.
Lyta shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "That's not how it works. It comes in fragments to me, mostly images and emotions. They know everything, of course, but they don't tell me."
She gave him the glass of water Pauline had poured her five minutes ago, and to Pauline's surprise, the boy accepted it. He drank in slow, considerate sips, like someone who had experience with this kind of situation, so much experience that it had become instinct not to be greedy.
Finally, he put the glass down.
"I have to find out," he said. "And not just her name. I have to restore those memories to Mom and Dad. And Mercy." He flinched as he said the last name. "She wasn't there when you arrived, was she?"
"No," Lyta said. "But she might start to remember anyway, just like your parents. Larissa said the spells around you were starting to unravel. She also said someone had called on the Ladies and pointed them in your direction. You have an enemy, Connor, and apparently one who thinks he can use me as well. I've been used before that way, twice, and I'm sick of it. So tell me, who knows what you have done and knows enough about the powers that shape this world to conjure the Kindly Ones?"
"It doesn't really matter, does it?" he returned, with something of the temper he had displayed earlier returning. "Everything you've said is true. They're still all dead because of me, and I can't bring them back. Any of them. Not the girl, and not my...do you really think I care who brought it up again?"
Professional help sounded like an attractive prospect again, and not just for Connor. Pauline froze when Lyta grabbed the boy by his shoulders and hissed:
"Don't you give up. Don't you dare."
"You don't know..." he began, and she interrupted him, digging her fingers deeper into his shoulder. Pauline didn't understand why he didn't move away.
"I had a family once," Lyta said, and a passion burst from her which Pauline had never observed from her friend, "and we were happy together. But we were not living in the real world. We were living in dreams, and dreams are treacherous. He came and destroyed them, and then I had nothing but my son, and he vowed he would claim him one day. They burned my son, do you understand, they burned him and I thought he was dead, and then I didn't think anything anymore. I gave myself to the Ladies, and we tore his realm apart. You think you are a murderer? I killed everyone and everything in that world, and I didn't care, just as long as he suffered and died in the end. And I got my wish. Oh, did I ever. I saw my son turn into the thing I hated most, and now they are one, and it is my fault. So don't you tell me what I know."
The boy stared at her, transfixed, doubt and comprehension mingling with a sudden need in his face.
"But how do you go on after something like this?" he whispered.
Lyta let him go, and regained something of her composure while Pauline felt torn between the urge to hug her and the wish to slap her for burying something like this in silence for such a long time.
"You try," Lyta said, sounding tired and worn out. "You just – try. It took me years, but then I finally could do what he wanted me to do when I saw him again. Pick up my life. I'm still trying."
The boy got up, but made no move to leave. Instead, he began wandering through the room, restless, slightly limping, now and then stopping to look at the photos of Lyta's child and her dead husband, or at the Greek mask Pauline had given to Lyta and which now hung from the wall.
"I do remember my parents visiting Disneyland with me," he said, "except it must have been with her. I remember someone spilling orange juice all over me, except I never knew oranges existed until years later. I remember her blood on my hands, and that it was my choice. And that was just the first death. Jasmine killed hundreds, you know. Not because she hated them. She devoured them because she needed their energy. I knew she was doing it. The others, they loved her because she made them love her, they had no choice about it, and so they didn't protest, but I always... I knew what she was doing, and I loved her anyway."
Pauline had been visiting Florida at the time, but she still remembered the news about a charismatic cult leader named Jasmine. She recalled waiting to watch the broadcast during which Jasmine would address the world, with a mixture of incredulous disgust at the thought of the fuss raised by some religious freaks and the tiny nervous hope that Jasmine might really be the genuine article. When Jasmine had started to speak, she had felt the overwhelming love and peace exuding from the woman in an instant, and then it had all fallen apart as some horrible creature was revealed.
"She was my daughter," Connor continued, "mine and Cordy's. And she was a monster. She killed more people in the few weeks of her life than all the monsters I ever fought, and I loved her, and I helped her, and when she died, when I finally killed her, I couldn't feel anything anymore. Anything at all."
"Flesh is the food of the earth's justice," Lyta said, in that infinite voice that was not her own. "Blood shedding its own blood calls the judgement of the earth. We shall ride you to the land of the death, and there we will ride your ghost forever."
Then she abruptly said, sounding like herself again: "But you let Pauline go. You did not scourge anyone but Cronus these recent years, and I know we met more than one who has shed family blood. You will be with this boy, one way or the other, in any case. His life of dreams is destroyed. Why not let him live, let him try to make amends?"
Pauline caught her breath. The eternal sceptic in her told her there was nobody here but two very unstable people and herself, but she could remember the monsters, and the mad run to escape from them, and the dead body of her lover pinned up like an ancient sacrifice. The boy, for his part, seemed to have no doubts whatsoever. He knelt down in front of Lyta.
"I think," he said hesitatingly, "I think we already went this way together once, you and I. You were with me that day in the mall, weren't you, Ladies? If I have to die again, let it be now, here, where nobody else gets hurt."
Lyta clenched her fists; violent shivers shook her entire body, as if she was trying to contain another birth. Finally, she exhaled, a deep, shuddering sigh. Then she said:
"They're considering. But someone did call on them, and that hate and thirst for vengeance is feeding them. We'll have to find out who it is if you want to live."
She looked at him, stretching out her hands.
"Do you?"
He remained immobile, and Pauline wondered what she would do if she saw Lyta, possessed or not, start to kill another human being. Try and stop her, she supposed; and knew she would fail.
"I'll try," said the boy, took Lyta's hands and rose, and the relief that shot through Pauline made her dizzy for a moment.
Lyta smiled at him, a shaky, uncertain smile; only now did Pauline notice that her friend must have bitten her lips. There was blood on them. Silently, she fetched two more glasses of water for both of them. After Lyta had thanked her, Pauline addressed the boy, attempting to sound as if this was every day business.
"So who do you think is after you?"
Connor frowned. The name he eventually said meant nothing to her, but that was nothing new; aside from Jasmine, nearly every name, term or occurrence mentioned today had been bewildering or terrifying or both.
"I could be wrong, of course," Connor added. "But I know where we'll find out."