#initia

Breathing wasn't something that one had much of a choice in, in doing or now, and he gave up to being lulled into the constant drawing in and out of oxygen.

After a few moments he opened his eyes and on the next breath he could smell the layers of dark and deep scents that were around him. The only lights in the room came from a candle to his left and the blood red crescent moon that was just of from center his vision, on the other side of a rounded sky light with cast iron bands cutting through it. There was smoke in the room and it smelled like earth, frankincense, and ozone. There had been more candles but they'd all blown out and were still smoking, trails rising into the dark room. Other than that there was little to see. The sweat though, the tacky iron smell of blood, and the grave dirt was so close that it could only mean one thing.

He was alive.

He didn't understand why that was the meaning behind this realization, that there was something within him that had felt that not being alive was, if not just the way things were meant to be, but the way things had been. He was fairly certain that the humans hadn't found a way to bring the dead back to life. It had once been that the greatest of men could make gods and return them to the mortal coil but that was different from bringing someone back to life and it had been centuries since a god rose or fell at the hands of mortals.

The next thing to come to him was his hearing and it was a clinking, a cursing, a violent song that he heard. It was blade against blade, it was skin tearing, it was screaming. He looked into the darkness and found it less dark than he'd thought. There was light bouncing off the blades and armor, not knights but some sort of guard, fighting against rogues and cultists. There was steel and iron on one side and clothe and leather on the other. The cultists were not made for battle but the rogues knew how to distract and evade, could do with daggers as much as the guards could do with swords.

Blood splattered as one rogue slid a dagger under the breastplate of one guard and three more went up against them, shaving their short swords into the leather and through it as if they were wearing nothing at all. They had no choice to retreat, surrender, or die. He was no general, he knew not the context of this fight or which side he should have been on and he did not know which he wanted to win. He was sure that the cultists were the ones that had brought him here and he should have felt something for them but he didn't, he did not know why they had brought him here.

Shaking and there was rattling to his left, some light shining against his eyes and he winced pulling away from it. There was something warm and slick on his arm though, blood mingling with blood. There was metal scarping on metal and his wrist had been bound to the glass covered table he'd been raised on. The person beside him was unlocking the shackle that kept him down before rushing to the other side and getting the other unlocked, moving the light with her.

"Keep quiet and follow me!" she whispered in a harsh voice, young, frightened, but definitely in control of his situation if not her own. She tugged on his arm and pulled him off the table, but he fumbled, crashing down further than she intended and the pain in his knees as they cracked against the marble was even worse than breathing was.

He did not have the capacity to agree with her, could hardly figure out how to wiggle his tongue in his mouth, but she was pulling him along, dragging him away from the table and all the blood that he hadn't noticed was pooled on top of it and away from the fighting. He leaned on her heavily and his breathing was ragged and he was too confused to be self pitying, even though he could have been strong enough to get out of there, he was sure of it, at one point in time.

"Through the door, Little Wolf!" she ordered as she wrenched the heavy wooden door open, the iron hinges creaking terribly.

Little Wolf? That sounded familiar though he knew not why. He didn't have the words or the time to ask her about it though as they pushed through and into a corridor of stone walls and a dirt floor, illuminated by the light stemming from her.

They ran until he couldn't anymore, his legs buckling and his chest hurting so badly that he almost wrenched himself out of her hold. He clutched at the slippery cleft in his sternum as he sucked in air, as he tried to force his heart to stop hammering and it was such a loud erratic thing that he couldn't remember beating so hard before.

She turned him, looked him over, and pushed him against the wall of the corridor.

"They'll find us, no doubt about that, if we don't stop you dripping," she groaned as she pulled off her cloak and thrust it against his chest.

He took it from her, clumsily, and was unsure as to what he was meant to do with it. Looking down he could see the split in his sternum, a terrible cut with a dagger that was mostly straight but went down to the bone.

"Does it hurt?"

He nodded.

"It will get better," she promised, "It's got to."

He opened his mouth and this faint buzzing sound came from him, this urge, this almost word.

She was dressed quite simply beneath the cloak, which she took back from him and unraveled so that she could wrap him up in it, pinning it closed over his bleeding chest with the crest of Lilith. She wore a tank top and thick shadowskin leggings, tight to the skin and shifting in the light from the lantern that she'd just set to the side. She had a round pale face marked with light craters, most around the sides, which he recognized as the cosmetic scaring of the elite.

"You know where the Houndstooth is?" she asked.

Her eyes widened as she looked down the corridor, back to where they had come from. A door slammed open and shut and someone was coming for them.

He shook his head. He didn't even know what city he was in, what his name was. He didn't know where anything was.

"It's close. You just keep going forward it will be on the left, there will be a neon sign that has a dog snarling on it. That's where you need to go," she instructed, grabbing a hold of him and moving him again, pulling him off the wall and into her grasp again so that they could run while pressed together. "Do you remember anything?"

He tried to speak but ended up sputtering, choking on the air he was trying to force down. Breathing was hard and running didn't make it any easier.

"Can you speak?"

He shook his head. Better to be honest with it.

"Shit! Okay, okay, your name is Lilith," as she spoke her words grew together, merging, a bit of panic climbing into them. "We broke kind of the biggest law in the country to get you here. You're just a normal guy now, okay? Please don't be mad. Oh shit, please, you can't be mad at us. Gremenallther was going to kill you we didn't have a choice!"

He was rushed past them, the shrieking metal picking up as the others followed in their night pursuit. There was a lot of flickering neon in their path, some of the signs having multiple frames made of tubing to give the element of movement, and there was a dog ahead of them, barking between the two frames, blue teardrops spraying from its teeth. A snarling dog.

The hand on his head let go and she shoved against his back, forcing him to go forward, past her, and stumble. He was half turning, half collapsing, as he tried to keep his footing on the cobblestone.

"Go ahead! Get in there! I'm right behind you!"

He could hardly move on his own though, just had the momentum that threatened to dash him against the stones to keep him moving. And she was standing there was that creatures made from stretched human bone and metal rushed towards her. They were like the birds that the all father had been so fond of once upon a time, but shoved into more human form and then put through a taffy machine of insanity.

He wanted to scream. He didn't know what to do. This woman held his power in her chest and she was the only one he knew that wasn't yet trying to kill him. She could help him. She was all that he had.

The air took on that crisp smell of fall that it didn't have before, the wind growing from nothingness, bringing a chill. She dragged her arms down and then up in a curve, like conducting the waves of the ocean and the earth rumbled, massive oaks shoving up through the cobblestone, spraying pieces of the road everywhere as the crooked and wrong trees slammed up and through their stalkers, making them shriek further as their broken bodies were made even further.

He was up though, moving, reaching for the door to the Houndstooth. He could see more of the guards coming, turning around the sides of buildings, coming for him, for both of them, most likely, and there was only so many times she could fight them off before one of them took her down. She wasn't made for the power of a god, anyway, not even a third of one, and he could already see the power affecting her. It was small for now, just her hair growing wild and long, escaping her tight braids to curl. A vessel was meant to hold, not to use.

He fell, one last time, this time with his shoulder slamming against the door to the bar. He could hear someone on the other side, some urgency though it was nothing compared to what was out here. The door opened and Lilith slid just an inch further, the door locked with a deadbolt.

"You him then?" came a voice and he forced himself to look, to turn his eyes from the woman drawing a third tree up, fully grown, to keep another guard away from her, the branches slamming through the windows of a closed business and shattering the neon, making the shadows scurry away from the brightness that landed. The speaker was a portly middle aged woman with almost black eyes and thick hair, all but the temples black. She looked kind and worried, monolidded eyes open wide and searching both him and his surroundings.

Lilith nodded.

"Where's Initia?"

He didn't know who that was but he had to assume Initia was the woman who'd brought him here. He tried to bring up his arm, to point, but there was a loud groan from one of the trees that she'd brought up, it's heavy trunk not made for such a diagonal. It was going to fall.

The door closed, not quite slamming and Lilith could hear the latch coming undone before it was opened more fully and there was another pair of strong hands grabbing him, leading him into the building. It was warm inside, both from the gas fireplace and from the smell of cinnamon, pork, pie, and beer. The lights were on but they were low, giving everything an amber glow.

There were screams coming from behind them now, the guards voices twisting, agony making them loud before they transformed, growing mechanical and grating and terrible.

"He found us!" she called out and released him, letting him stumble and fall forward as she turned, spread her arms and thick black fur sprouted like a shiver, traveling down her arms and into her hands which grew curved claws before splitting, the skin separating to reveal some other plane, the plane that he knew, that he called home. Out from her palms came rats of various sizes, all of them at her command, all of them quick and wild and violent. They raced back the way the two had come, towards the guards, squealing as they went.

"Why aren't you running?" she called out as she turned back towards him and he pushed off the wall, trying to keep his feet in the correct order, underneath him, as he tried to keep the pace she had set, that she was setting again as she caught up to him and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him along with her, her skin back to normal.

"Don't be mad, okay? When they summoned you, made you human, they had to put your power into vessels. I'm one of them, no way I could contain all of it. If they just let it loose it would go out into the world, be a mess."

He wasn't mad. He wished that he could tell her that she didn't have to worry about that.

There was a door ahead of them though and a smile cracked through the exhaustion in her face. They were almost there, almost out of the corridor. He didn't know what was going to be on the other side. He didn't know if this meant freedom.

She seemed to know though or, she had a very good idea. She gave them another big push towards the door and then through it, though the change in momentum knocked Lilith's feet out from beneath him and he went sprawling out of the side door, under the deep purple sky with golden clouds. The rain was meant to be falling, it was sitting there, just at the tips of the buildings, the drops building up to a torrent. But through them he could see the moon, split and angry, the crack breaking through the glass. The marble eye of his father that he cast into the seas of time, to see what was always hidden. And it was staring down, staring at him.

"Shit! We have no time for this!" she cried out, bending and wrapping her arms around him, hoisting him back up to his feet and pushing him to run again.

There were more mechanical shrieks, and there were flashes, the neon signs of buildings reflecting off the armor the guards wore, as they drew closer. Just because they were out from the church, for, looking back it was a church, one for Linehoands, but the cult that had dragged him down had been corrupted. He could see the black cracks through it, spiders hatching and spreading out from within. The bricks were turned almost white with ash and corruption.

They ran forward but the guards moved forward, moved fast, faster than they should have been, because they were no longer human. They stepped out from alleys and turns, catching sight of them and approaching. The metal of their helmets had been pinched and pulled turning their visors into long beaks. Their bodies had been twisted and stretched, bits of flesh sticking out between the once fitted metal pieces. Hands were fused around weapons. They wobbled and bobbed, moving awkwardly, their taffy legs too thin to support their weight and, if there was anything left of their minds in there they no longer knew how to control the rest.

"What is he thinking?" she spun, using her grip on Lilith to adjust their aim without losing too much speed, "I thought the gods were supposed to be mysterious!"

The rag was pulled away from his chest and the motion drew his attention to the long curved needle, beautifully sharp tip of it like a fishermen's hook with thick black suturing thread instead of clear line. He shuddered, though he could not feel it, and the closer it came to his chest the more he shook. It would not be a good press, the stitches would go wrong or tear, and it would be his own fault.

He was on a table, a black glass table, and his shadow had been stolen, twisted and caged. He couldn't move, he couldn't escape, his wrists and ankles bound. There was a needle, so large and thick, there was no way it would enter his body without causing terrible injury. And they pressed it against him, against his chest. They'd already taken away everything he was not and now they were going to take away what he was.

There was a loud and sudden flash of light, returning him to the moment, his attention to the window. Like lightning it was followed by a loud and terrible roar, though it wasn't thunder that made the windows shake. It was as strong as an earthquake or the attack of a trebuchet.

Mossi shrieked and fled the window, running with her short steps towards the door. Tilly paused, the needle breathing against Lilith's skin, watching her go.

"Don't!" she shouted but Mossi was already throwing the door open and tossing herself out onto the street.

The light had faded but Lilith could see leaves, dry and desiccated, fluttering down. They did not have the beautiful hues of autumn, but were pasty white and crumbling like they were made of ash. And there was more sound, a cacophony, not just the rumbling, but now the roar of packs upon packs of wolves, the squeaking orchestra of rodent climbing on top of one another, stacking up into an incomprehensible mass. The screams of the people, woken up by the initial blast, were almost drowned out by the rest.

Tilly tossed the needle onto the bloodied rag and dashed for the door, leaving Lilith alone to bleed in his chair. "She's going to get herself killed!"

She got the door open and Lilith could see them, like herds upon herds of sheep being chased through the streets by a great fire, rats and wolves, and death. He could smell rotting apples and the hot blood of a hunt. It was power. It was so much terrible power, and it was once his, now it was loose, soaking into the cobblestones of the streets.

Mossi was shoved against Tilly's chest and the pair of them stumbled backwards into the bar, Tilly barely holding Mossi upright. There were a few tears in Mossi's homely dress and a bit of blood on her legs, but she had not taken too much damage, even though her cheeks were stained with tears.

In much worse shape, following them through the door and slamming it closed behind her, was the girl that had gotten Lilith here. She had long deep cuts in her, one in her shoulder and another dragged up through her opposite arm, from the back of her palm to her elbow. She may have been more damaged but it was impossible to tell with the amount of blood soaked into her shirt and leggings, dripping onto the floor. There was blood coming from her too many, too sharp teeth, and she shook her head, trying to shake away the droplets from her fur, trying to shake away the wolf shape of her skull and all of the fur that had grown from it, decorating her chest and shoulders in the thick gray coat.