A Clockwork Green Ch. 10

Pain. Pain everywhere. Pain like I've never felt in my life.

My face is white hot. I have to resist the immediate urge to cauterize the wound. It's on my fucking face! Nevermind the fact that I can sense the fire again. It's my fucking face!

I try to open my eyes, but the pain is too intense. I slap my left hand over the ruined socket and try again. The air in the room is full of dust. Or maybe smoke. I try to take a step backwards away from the stocks, and stumble. The room seems like it's vibrating. I can't tell if that's just in my head.

A shadow lurches ahead of me and I instinctively throw a bolt at it. The body crumples, and I gasp. For a full two seconds, I'm in a dead panic. Charlotte is around here somewhere! Idiot! I rush over closer to the body so I can see it through the chaos, and breathe a sigh of relief that it's only Heimdahl. He stares up blankly, fearfully. "Good riddance," I mutter, although my ears tell me that I didn't mutter that at all.

Pain lances my head, and as I crumple to my knees again, the room rocks violently. I'm thrown down onto my side. My body jolts as I land, and my hand pulls away from the socket. Dark blood covers the entire palm, and runs thickly down my arm. Pressure. Gotta keep pressure. I reapply my hand, but I know I'm gonna need to put something on it soon.

Charlotte!

I roll back onto my knees and call out her name, but there's no response. A lot of moaning from other downed bodies, but none of them are her voice. I cry out again, but it's no good; she either can't hear me, or can't respond. Grimly, I climb back up to my feet and survey.

A guard comes crashing through the dark with his halberd raised. I take step back and fire off another quick bolt, and this time I really see what I did. The bolt was enormous. Well, big for a Bolt anyway. Most of the guard's torso is left smoking and blackened, rather than an area six inches across. I hold my right hand in front of me, flipping it back and forth. I know I've been suppressed for a while and that can cause a bit of a backup, but...

Gods, the PAIN!! I can barely think straight.

Gotta find Charlotte. Everything else is secondary. I work my way up to my feet, but stay low until the rumblings abate. I had no idea there was a fault line anywhere near New Verdia... Focus.

Focus!

Gods, I can't!!

More rustling not too far away. I try to spin and keep the noise where I can see it, but it's so hard to locate. I can barely see, and I can't defend myself one handed...

Slowly, I pull back my left hand and tighten all the fingers except the index into a fist. I whimper as the tip turns orange. Blood sizzles and burns and flakes away. Gotta get it really fucking hot...

When the heat is enough to start hurting the finger, I push it against the top of the wound just above my eyebrow and drag down. The building and I cry out in unison as another aftershock rocks the world around me. Distantly, a huge boom starts it's own set of rumblings. Feels like a part of the building collapsed. I stay there, on my knees, for at least a few minutes, just breathing.

Eventually, I stop seeing double and the pain begins to recede. Gotta find Charlotte.

I stumble out into the hall. It's incredible to see the difference a few minutes has made on the interior of this place. Small fires are everywhere, fed by gas pipes from light fixtures. Servants scurry in every direction, and more than a few of them have bits of silver huddled against them as they run. The chaos is a mockery of the perfect façade it replaced. I scoop a rag up off the floor and take a swipe at the blood on my face. A trolley next to a door offers an array of liquors. None of them labeled. I grab a clear one and take a swig. Souvet. I gasp and take another long drag.

I see him before he sees me. Rasputin comes barrelling down the hallway, looking toward the room I just left. I hurl the bottle at him with a loud grunt. He spins and draws his sword in one smooth motion, shattering the bottle. The glass shatters around him like a wave against the rocks, but the souvet... The souvet goes everywhere. With a grin, I unleash a stream of flame at him.

The gods-damned eye-ruining bastard must have known what was in the bottle, because he was ducking and rolling away as soon as I raised my hand. I throw another jet, and another, but he's out of range and retreating down the hall. I grit my teeth and give chase.

The servants know him by sight and clear a path for him as he runs, but none of them are looking behind him. I crash through four, five, six of them before I get to the corner he rounded and... He's gone. It's a dead end. I roar in anger, echoed once again by the building, and I have to brace myself against the wall.

"When they told me that some badass was assaulting the place, I thought I was finally gonna see some action."

Townsend. And I'm 5 steps into a dead end hallway. Think, Mack! Think! "Aww c'mon," I say, as I turn slowly to my right, "You gonna pick on an invalid?"

As I turn, he gasps and covers his mouth in laughter. "Did Raspy do that to you!" I nod and take a step towards him. Distance favors him. I need to be close. "I tell ya, that guy has no qualms about hitting a lady."

I bark. "I seem to recall you going quite a bit farther than you had to against a 17 year old girl."

"Awww Mack! You're not still sore 'cus your Captain brought me on for that job, are you?"

Every step I take, he matches. The distance is maintained. "You lured me into that duel, and you embarrassed me in front of my crew. You're damned right I'm still sore." Buy time.

"No, no, no. I showed a punk kid exactly how far out of her league she was. A lesson, it seems, she still hasn't learned."

"You were cruel."

"You were stupid."

I grit my teeth and... Holy shit, this is exactly what he did last time. Got me into a frenzy and beat me senseless. Shredded my clothes, held me in the air, and spanked me. Not this time. "I'm not stupid!" Keep circling.

"What do you think you're gonna do against me, Mack?" He pauses... no, he's completely still. The breath before the lunge.

"It's gonna be different this time," I say. "I'm not here for you." I grunt and lift my arms, and a massive wall of flame leaps up between us. I spin on my heel and dart through the nearest door. A wailing sound chases me as he turns the hallway into a wind tunnel. I don't need it. I make for the nearest window and dive through it. The walls on both sides of it buckle and groan as I roll through the dirt and run.

A thousand air mages in the world. The second fewest of any kind of magic. The only type guaranteed to earn it's practitioner a lifetime of easy money, through remote communication and air travel, and I've gotta keep running into the one sadistic fuck that likes to use it as a weapon. I hear his boots behind me just as I blow through a door and head back into the compound. This room won't do. I map out my next few steps and reach behind me to let off a few boomers. The walls erupt in flame and debris, but a bubble of calm breaks through in chase. I get through another door and into another hallway just like the last one.

I pick a direction and run, leaving as much torched debris in my wake as I can. I can hear him laughing, if perhaps not gaining, as I make it around another corner. A pair of massive double doors block the end of the hallway. I throw a boomer at them, and charge through the blast.

This... This must have been a temple at one time. I don't take Amaranth for the worshipping time, and the gutted wooden structure agrees with my thinking, if not exactly proving me right. I take a few quick breaths, each one faster than the last, and spin fearfully as the remains of the doors are blown wide open.

"Is that all you've got, Mack?" I unleash a torrent of bolts, arms pumping forward and backward with each shot, but he deflects them like he's conducting a symphony. I take a few steps back and gasp, and this time it's boomers. His casual pace isn't impeded in the slightest, and each of my attacks is carelessly, casually brushed aside. I gasp again, and he begins his counterstroke. I manage to get my arms thrown up just before a razor thin gust of wind slashes at me. I cry out in pain, and blood pours down my arms. Townsend grins and rears back, but the ground beneath him ripples. His attack goes astray as he tumbles down to one knee. I lob a boomer at him, and he deflects it down into the ground, but the blast still knocks him back. I try to keep pushing the offensive, throwing a wave of bolts, but I get slammed by a wall of air from my left. I wouldn't have seen it coming anyway. He cries out triumphantly.

"Well, you managed to singe my clothes this time," he says. "I suppose that's an improvement." I need to buy time!

I lift myself back up onto one knee and grimace. I hit rows of pews and chairs to either side of me with torches as I back away from him. He doesn't bother trying to put them out, he just hits them all with a massive gust and knocks them behind me. The gust picks up, and I have to plant my feet and lean just to stay upright. I can barely keep my eye open, and when he reaches back, I know it's coming again. I cringe and duck, and an enormous wall of dirt rises up out of the ground between us. It buckles as Townsend's attack lays into from the other side, but for one full second, all I can do is gape. 6 feet wide and 10 feet high. I have no idea how deep. I take a step back in awe, and then another, and praise be to the gods that I did because then the pillar explodes with incredible force. I'm laid out on my ass, shock painted on my features.

"I think that's enough screwing around, don't you?" Townsend sneers at me as he stalks across the room. I throw up a hand and unleash another torrent of boomers at him, screaming at the top of my lungs as I desperately crawl backwards. His deflections are less artistic now, and I feel the air tighten on my arm, bending it around. I keep up the boomers, sprayed in an arc around the room, until the last possible second when my hand has been bent around at my own face. I stare at it fearfully as he laughs. And then I grin.

"Have you finally sorted out that I can't make you shoot yourself, Mack?"

"Not until just now, actually." He laughs, but cuts off as his laugh turns to a short cough. "Awww, Townsend... Is it getting a little hot in here for you?" His eyes bulge, and he looks around. Fire touches every surface, every wall, all the way up to the ceiling 60 feet above us. It groans angrily, as if to hammer home my point. He spins all the way around but there's no beginning or end to the flames. "I don't need to beat you, I just need to outlive you." His eyes snap back to me, and I let loose a massive torch at him.

I can see the end of the torch flaring out as it hits some kind of shield. I let up and throw a boomer straight down behind it. It impacts directly against his wall of air and he grunts heavily from the other side of it. I charge and dive through the smoke, taking him into a full body tackle. We tussle on the ground. I've got one hand gripping his shirtsleeve and another on his chest, and he's desperately pushing my face away. I hit him with flames at the same time he hits me with-

I smack hard against the ground, and the air leaves my lungs in a rush. I try to flop onto my side as I gasp, and I can hear Townsend crying out painfully. There's no clear memory of what I just hit him with, but whatever it was landed. I get up onto my knees and look around. He's shambling towards the wreck of a wall we came in from. I lob a few boomers past him, and the resultant explosions knock him back on his ass. He mewls terribly and rolls around a bit, but no real effort is made to get back up.

"You know," I say, gasping more than a little as I stagger across the room. I heat up a finger and cauterize the gaping slash across the opposing forearm with a gut-wrenching cry. "I uh... " Another cry as I seal the second wound. Townsend manages to flip himself over onto his stomach, but his arms wobble terribly when he tries to lift himself. I kneel down in front of him and grab a fistful of his hair. He screams as I lift him. "Damn. You know, I had a great line I was gonna use when I finally beat you. Been thinking about it for years." I croak a laugh. "I just... can't seem to remember what it was." He gurgles and looks confused as I press my palm to his chest and end it.

***

The hole I put in the stone wall is perhaps a bit more than is strictly necessary, but I need the effect. As I stump through the cloud of dust and smoke, I can hear them. Down at the far end of the room. The serving girl hadn't lied. I puff myself up as big as I can as I turn towards them. "That is mine," I shout, pointing at Cherry.

Charlotte and the Duchess Amaranth lower their arms from the protective stances they'd taken and gape at me with equal levels of confusion. It's all I can do to walk straight, but every ounce of effort is put into that. Charlotte's eyes widen as her jaw drops, but Amaranth is unphased. "Stay," she says softly to Charlotte. "I'll handle this." She squares herself against me and takes a step. I use just about the last of my strength to ignite my fists and keep upright. Amaranth grins and takes a deep breath. "SUBMIT!"

Her voice land like hammerblows to a bell. She yells it again, and I tumble. My vision tunnels, lights arc and prism, and my head wants to split open. She yells it a third time, and I cry out.

"So much bluster," she muses at a normal volume. "So much... vigor." I manage to lift my head enough to see her bare feet pad around me slowly. "You thought you could come in here and... what? Intimidate me? Bluff me? Me? Like I couldn't see through your weakness the second you step foot in here? Into my sanctum?"

"How does it feel, Mackenzie? I've always wondered what it was like... Is it blissful? To feel your willpower slip away?" My ears ring, her words crashing through my head. "It's a gift, you know. I wasn't... born with this, but He saw fit to reward my loyal service with a taste of his own power." I try to turn to follow her as she circles around behind me, but I can't seem to move fast enough. I would really like to look at her.

"Of course, it takes all the fun out of it. All the nuance. Those are the bits I like the best, you know." She titters musically. "The real fun of breaking someone is watching it happen inch by inch. Inexorably. This..." The word 'this' echoes a thousand times, a thousand times a thousand. I clamp my hands over my ears and cry out. Why would she do that to me?! It hurts!! "This is effective, but hardly a challenge." As she passes my left side, I try to turn my head to face her, forgetting for a moment about my ruined eye. "Kneel."

I summon the last of my strength to push myself up, nearly rolling backwards in the process. I try to keep my eye trained on her, but the world seems to bobble around. I wish she would make the world settle. That would be nice. She seems to have no trouble staying still, though, as she draws a dagger from within the folds of her dress. "Of course, who am I to argue with res-huuuuurk!"

Red blooms across her dress. Amaranth looks down in horror at the blade jutting from her chest. The dagger clatters against the floor, forgotten. She reaches up slowly with both hands, grabbing at it feebly as her head lolls back and around to look at Charlotte. Tears stream down from my Cherry's red rimmed eyes. The Duchess' lips work soundlessly as she tries to turn around to face her pet, her attacker... her killer. Charlotte pulls the sword out of her back with a savage yank, slicing open her hands as they clench around it. She cries out weakly, blood erupting from her chest as her hands press against the wound in a desperate attempt to keep it all on the inside.

"I-," she cuts out, coughing blood. "I never..." My vision is foggy, but I can feel the scales falling away. "Charlotte," she croaks.

Charlotte drops the blade and stumbles. The Duchess, bleeding and moaning, reaches for her, and Charlotte scampers across the floor to hold her. "Tell me what to do," she cries. "Tell me what to do!" Amaranth gurgles and blinks, trying to desperately to speak, or to make any sound at all.

I fall forward onto my hands and vomit. I cough and spit and hack, anything to get the taste out of my mouth. When my vision finally clears, Charlotte is cradling the very still corpse of Amaranth against her shoulder. "She won't tell me what to do," she says quietly.

"We've gotta go, Charlotte." Her eyes are glassy and still. "C'mon Cherry! We can't stay here forever! Someone is gonna find us!" No response. "Charlotte?" I grab her arm and try to lift her up, but she doesn't budge.

"She won't tell me what to do..."

I did this to her. I drove her here. I drove her into those arms. I drove her into that collar. Amaranth was right about a lot of things. That's what made her so damn convincing. She used the truth like a... like a... doctors that cut...

Surgeon.

Gods, I'm tired.

What was it she said? I clear my throat and stand up straight. "Charlotte, stand up." She stops rocking and looks up at me blankly. I take a deep breath. Fuck you, Amaranth. "Charlotte! Stand Up!" I fucking hate you. I hate that you did this to her. "Charlotte!" She shakes as she slowly lays the body down on the carpet and rises to her feet.

This will not be your legacy. I will fix her.

***

I have to threaten a cook to find the way to the garage. We're given a wide berth on our way out the door. I think it's my eye that really scares them. Charlotte shambles alongside of me, her eyes never rising from the carpet in front of her.

The motor pool is a fancy lot of garish crap. Worthless junk that barely makes 20 miles an hour before it starts shaking. I ditch it once we're out of the Elysium district and almost steal a motorcycle, but I'm not sure Charlotte can handled riding behind me. I take a tricycle next to it instead. Less stylish, but more stable. I have to drive one handed, pinning Charlotte's arms to my front so she doesn't slide off the back.

The shop is dark and silent as I pull into the parking lot. Dawn is in a few hours. I raise one of the overhead doors and hide the bike inside the shop. Charlotte is nearly catatonic as I throw her arm over my shoulder and hoist her up. The garage is a little dusty, and the front desk no better. Her feet carry her mechanically up the stairs beside me, and I guide her into the bathroom. Her ridiculous 'dress' is covered in Amaranth's blood, and it's a bit of a fight to get off of her limp frame, to say nothing of the dried blood sticking to everything. I resist resorting to yelling at her again, though that might have been easier. I wash out her short brown hair, and clean the blood off of her fingers and fingernails. She hardly even blinks while the water runs over her face.

We walk naked into the bedroom. Charlotte stares blankly at the bed while I rummage through her side of the closet for some pajamas. I frown at them in my hands, thinking about how hard it was to get her out of what she'd been wearing. I lay them on the bed. "Charlotte. Dress yourself." Her face is an empty mask as she steps over to the bed and gracefully dons the shirt and pants I'd picked out. As soon as she finishes clothing herself, she twitches and whimpers. I look her up and down, but she seems fine. After a few seconds, she scampers over to the bed and straightens out the sheets. The bed had been sitting unmade for... I don't even know. Weeks? A month? I swoop in behind her and grab her arms. She tries to continue making the bed, but I gently push her into it. I think she'd almost forgotten I was there.