Purge Protocols

[hkdavenport]

THURSDAY

Somewhere in Ealdwic, an awkwardly tall man lay curled into a little ball; weeping into the concrete. He had smashed his fist into the ground so many times that his skin ripped open. He had beaten against the dirty street with such unbridled ferocity that nearly every bone in his hand was shattered. If he could have spoken, while his body was wracked with such pain, then H.K. Davenport might have told you that he was having a bad day. He coiled his arms up around his stomach, resisted the urge to scream, and then promptly blacked out.

_______________________

"You know what the infection does, Mr. Davenport. It's his life or the lives of everyone in Aloft."

"I," H.K. held the gun as steady as he could. "I fuckin' know that, goddammit."

It wasn't quite like he remembered it, but it was serviceable. There was a long-haired young man, black veins pumping poisonous blood through his body. There had been a commotion downstairs and in the blur of everything, they had taken him to Wen's room. Wen. She had been sitting on the floor, ready to burst into tears at the sight of Davenport holding their new friend at gunpoint. They hadn't known one another more than several days yet. "Dav', man...Please..." The boy on the bed coughed so hard that the blackness poured down his chin. "Please just let me go outside one last time."

"Y-you know that I can't fuckin' do that, College Boy." He bit his lip hard enough to make it bleed. And then the voice on the phone barked at him again.

"He's going to infect everyone else. It might start slow, at first, but then it will creep all over New York. It can be contained now."

It was in Henry's nature to argue with authority and while he argued, the young, Asian girl near the bed would reach up and touch some of the black blood that had seeped from the man. Davenport screamed her name and pulled the trigger, wrenching his eyes shut. It was only serviceable. The gun made no noise this time, however; it didn't so much as click to signify that someone had put an emptied weapon in his hands. All sound was deadened, save for the ringing in his ears. His stomach did a back flip and eyes opened.

The room gleamed with black, roiling tendrils. The boy on the bed was a mass of angered appendages that writhed. Wen, on the other hand, was pinned against the wall by several tendrils that had been violently expelled from the boy's body. The gun fell to the floor and was swallowed by the black morass that pooled at Henry's feet, slowing his movements towards where Wen was impaled; face affixed in an expression of terror. Her head turned towards him; it drooped and blood rolled down her chin. "We are all made of stars. WE are ALL made of STARS!" Her mouth curved into a wicked, toothless grin as her lips flapped like a puppet having its strings pulled too harshly. "WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS, HENRY! WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS!" The shrieking rang in his ears and he dared to grab her now that he had fought his way through the tar just to be near her.

Davenport shook her body and her neck began to flop grotesquely, melting and carrying her head towards him. He opened his mouth to scream, but from his dry lips came only a hoarse whimper. His body fell back upon the bed and Wen's head was dropped in his lap. The slime grabbed at his throat and cut off his breathing, Wen's face grinding against him as though it were too heavy for the tentacle to lift; though it wasn't for lack of trying. Each time it attempted to hoist her head up, he'd feel it bounce and bump and turn and twist until finally her face was atop his own. His body convulsed violently as he watched the girl's face melt away to begin revealing the blackened bones of her skull. Her eye fell, rolled away, and joined with the creeping Filth.

Her lips continued to move in a horrific parody of human speech. "WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS! WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS! WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS!" It was at this point that the scream was finally loosed from his gaping mouth. And it was at that point that the blackness swallowed him and emptied itself into his throat to silence him utterly.

______________________________________

Somewhere in Ealdwic, H.K. Davenport awoke with a start and screamed in horror at some wayward trash that followed the breeze past his face. He spun about and twisted and thrashed along the ground until he could manage to push himself up so that he'd be resting his back against the wall of a building. The pain in his stomach had lessened now to a dull, faint ache. The tears were dry on his face. And his breathing had become less erratic. "Fuck." He muttered, dry heaving and doubling over again.

The alleyway was now awash in the smell of sweat and vomit. There was a green mist hanging in the air and it seemed to hover closely to Henry's trembling form. Thicker, curled tendrils of smoke nudged at his cheek and he lifted a hand to begin idly stroking it as one might a cat or a dog. "Just fuckin' relax." He said to no one, the smoke obediently creeping back under his shirt as if to oblige the request. Sitting there with his head throbbing in his hand, he'd begin to remember, however vaguely, that he had been talking to Victoria when the worst of the feelings struck him. It was his sincere hope that she would be keeping her mouth shut about the whole ordeal.

Still shaking, he'd bring himself to his feet. His knees quivered and quaked and he used the wall to brace himself. He dug his fingers into the cracks and somehow managed to support himself through another bout of violent dry heaving. Unsurprisingly, no one had risen to the occasion of checking up on him. He preferred it that way. There was, of course, no escape from the images coursing through his skull. The head, the eye, the otherworldly shriek of things that even a man like Davenport had come to fear. And it was a fresh, new, legitimate fear at that. No one else had seemed to care that a supposed Orochi agent was handing out drugs that nearly put an end to someone in Ealdwic. It wasn't the death part that shook him; it was the potential for outreach. Like black tentacles that crept from the mouths of things older than all things. He shuddered and struggled to relieve himself of his coat, the smell of the thing becoming all too apparent.

He wouldn't bother to go back for it either.

_____________________________________

I had another fucking nightmare. This time it was during the day. I remember the heat from that night; it was only last summer that it happened. In my dream though, the heat wasn't right. There's a difference between real fucking weather and a feverish sort of heat, you know what I mean? And I think that's the worst part. The temperature, time, birds chirping, and leaves falling. These things all have one thing in common. It's all mundane shit that I learned to take for granted and not pay attention to. Now? That mundane shit is all I fucking have that's normal. It's like my dreams know that, so they try to fuck up the last thing I have.

I saw her face in the nightmare. I see her face every night, every time I close my fucking eyes. And every time I see her, she's dead or dying or worse.

I broke down today; fell apart over the fucking comm. I won't let it happen again. And I nearly instigated a fucking fight at the Horned God just by showing up. I must be REALLY fucking popular. The funny thing? Somebody reamed the guy for picking a fight and I got off without so much as a token punishment. She didn't say a goddamn word to me about it and I was the idiot who brought the Chaos to a knife fight.

I figured it all out though. I'm a fucking cipher. I'm nobody. And no one ever suspects nobody to do anything important or dangerous. This is even more fucking true now with the new employer. I don't know if these AEgir people trust me. They might even hate me for all I fucking know. I went to some kind of meeting and they didn't ask where I'd been; it was business as usual. That was the part I liked. Noel abandoned me today; didn't mention me in her email. Makes sense. I abandoned her too. Wen She would have been so disappointed in me. Looking for her when I should have been keeping an eye on the one connection I had left. Either fucking way, I'll have to really pull my fucking weight if I wanna look like a part of the team.

That way they'll give me the really dangerous assignments. Hopefully an assignment that will fucking kill me. I'm not cut out for this immortal bullshit. Phantom didn't free me from jack-shit...He just put on a fresh set of chains.

-H.K.D.

__________________________________________

H.K. closed the book and meandered to the large window overlooking the river. He hadn't stayed at this apartment in a long time. It was the memories. The kind that have a tendency to suffocate you in their familiarity. After the disappearances, they threatened to smother him in his sleep and he opted for anywhere else. He had slept in the desert, at the church in Kingsmouth Town, and had even gone so far as to sleep in the relative safety of the Draculesti shanty town. None of it had been good enough; none of those places could stop him from being buried under the weight of those terrible nightmares.

There was only one thing left to try.

The bed in his apartment was barren save for piles of clothes and one last, sad, limp pillow. The bathroom, however, held Davenport's nest. It had been a small comfort after the bee incident and it had even kept him from losing his mind during the business at Aloft. The blankets and sheets were strewn all over the bathtub and he would nestle in naked among them, curled up into the same pathetic ball he was already familiar with. A fan moved the hot, stagnant air of his apartment around lazily, oscillating back and forth like a sentry looking for intruders.

Its electric buzz put him to sleep.

[hkdavenport]

FRIDAY

Everything dies. Nothing is exempt. We all have to pay eventually. Pay for what we've done...Who we've hurt...People call us immortal, but I know better. There would be more of us than normal folks if that wasn't the fucking case. And maybe Wen and the others would still be around if we really were immortal.

When I was still with the O.O., there was a guy who joined. He was new to all of the bullshit...Really new. I met him a few times, saw him at parties and out in the field. He was a nice fucking guy. One day, I came home from whatever I'd been doing out on Solomon Island. Wen looked sad and she told me that the guy's chip had been found in some Draug's stomach in Kingsmouth Town. I'd never seen her so upset. It wasn't the death, I think. I think it was the fact that it was one of us; a bee or whatever the fuck we are.

As it turns out, the guy had been held down. The bees never came for him...Just some asshole who knew what he was doing already held the new guy down and let him get eaten alive. I spared Wen the details of it. I don't know why. I do know why. I didn't want her to cry or have the nightmares like I did. I suppose it doesn't matter now.

But that's the fucking nature of it now, isn't it? Fuck or be fucked? Isn't that the fucking rallying cry?

H.K.D.

__________________________________________

The journal was a worn down, leatherbound affair that he had picked up in Egypt. Like many of his other things, it had been suggested by Wen. Pages previous to the most recent entries would contain a combination of his experiments with Chaos and a running tally of how many monsters he had killed. Among the countless tally marks, one might find the number of times Wen had worn a skirt and a listing of dates.

First kiss.

First intimate moment.

First anniversary was crossed out.

He had slept for two hours and even that was more than he could have asked for. It took him another hour to find the willpower necessary to pick himself up and out of the bathtub and cease in his staring contest with the ceiling. Henry had an unnatural sort of gait that caused him to amble and sway all the way over to his desk to write the most recent entry in what felt like a futile attempt at making himself feel better about the situation at hand. He dared to look back through several previous entries, but couldn't bring himself to turn back to the pages that held a more painful past. For a moment or two, he affixed his stare on Phantom's name.

Phantom was more than a man, he was a force of nature. In the time when Davenport could reflect on his relationship with him, he always thought back to one particular instance; one particular conversation. They had all wondered what had happened to make Phantom into the man that he was. While answers were rarely concise or complete, at least one of the higher-ups within the group was able to explain that Phantom's behavior was partially thanks to the Purge. The Purge itself had burned at the back of Henry's mind, never quite moving to the forefront prior to the rampant disappearances of his contemporaries. It had been on everyone's mind in on way or another as it represented more than just a past event. It was a potential fate.

More than just potential.

He pondered all this as he threw on some clothes; wearing the same ratty things as usual. Under his arm, he carried a folded up bundle of blue fabric; just lugging it around all the way from his apartment and down into the city streets. No one paid him much attention as he shambled over sidewalks and crosswalks. No one seemed to mind much that a man who appeared to be homeless was stalking off into the wide, bricked sewer tunnels beneath them.

They wound about well enough to mask their true nature and in one of the niches, Henry would draw the jacket around his body. He buttoned to the very top and then wandered deeper. The coat, of course, wasn't necessary, but it did symbolize his ascension through the ranks of the Illuminati. It sent a message to his peers; a message that H.K. was not to be fucked with. As if the surly attitude and rough demeanor weren't enough to ward off anyone who may have even had the slightest desire to speak to him.

The Labyrinth was a sprawling complex and always left Henry feeling a little heady after first entering it following a long absence. They rarely made requests for him; seeming to understand that he worked best when left alone to handle his business in the field. That was a fact that Phantom either never learned to wrap his head around or always abused to watch Davenport screw something up. While there was no doubt that he could have maintained better decorum, awkwardly placed steps carried him towards the Control Room and his unsuspecting target.

Every morning, a pretty thing manned one of the computers; typically the one with an eye situated in Ealdwic. During a more 'emotional' time, Henry had taken her out. The date went well up until the point that she confronted him about the picture of Wen he kept on his desk...And the one on his phone...And the ones that plastered his walls and headboard and so on and so forth. Those first weeks had been like living in a shrine to what he'd lost. H.K., however, hadn't lashed out at her. The Chaos, on the other hand, had. It stung her cheek and left a gash on her face. That gash became a scar.

"Hey, I need a favor." Davenport hovered around the desk, staring at her from behind a pair of large sunglasses. They reflected the sterile light of the Control Room.

"Go fuck yourself, 47." The woman regarded him cooly, hunching her shoulders upward and focusing more intently on her work.

"You still pissed 'bout that? Told ya I couldn't control any of it. Not my fault you went off 'bout what was CLEARLY a sensitive fuckin' subject." He brushed his fingers along his coat, knocking away some wayward dust he had acquired in the tunnels. "Anyways, this is kinda important."

"You're an asshole." She responded calmly.

"Glad you figured that out. You're only, uh, lightyears behind everyone else in your fuckin' assessment."

Her shoulders slumped and her typing ceased, one of her hands pressing against her forehead. "What the fuck do you want from me, 47? If it will you make you go the hell away, then I'll do it."

"I wanna look at the file on Adam Preston again."

"Oh, for fuck's sake! When are you gonna give it a fucking rest!?"

Henry's head picked up and he looked around. There were no more keyboards clacking in the Control Room; no more sounds of people pacing and papers rustling around. Her outburst had attracted attention and dared to lean in close to her. "For the record, I don't really fuckin' like havin' all eyes on me. So why don't you shut off the bitch for a hot fuckin' sec' and do this so that I can get outta here without you gettin' another mark on that pretty face."

That seemed to do it. Grumbling, she went back to her keyboard. She typed rapidly, then made an angry gesture to call him around to the screen so that he could see what she'd dredged up. "See? Nothing new. Nothing at all." She scrolled down through the files, then stopped at the very bottom, eyes resting on the collection of dates that detailed who had accessed the file and when:

<UNKNOWN_VARIABLE> 07/10/2013 00:00 UTC EDIT MADE

"You were sayin'?" Davenport asked smugly.

The girl sputtered. "I don't know how, but someone accessed the file not that long ago. They managed to bypass damn near everything. That's not to say that Cassini didn't get a lock on them the second that they were in though. Let me find where they made the edit."

"Let's make it quick. I'm feelin' fuckin' antsy all of a sudden."

She nodded and dragged the file about slowly, examining every corner of it for what might have been different. It was fortunate, then, that the changes stuck out like a sore thumb. It was common for a drunk or otherwise 'compromised' agent to take an interest in vandalising their files; playfully adding a 'dick' here and a 'fuck' there for fun. If they were especially crafty, they might have ended up with a promotion. If they weren't, then they usually ended up not showing up for life the next day. It wasn't that the Illuminati couldn't take a joke, they were simply picky about their sense of humor in general.

This change, however, was one that anyone would have recognized as being a little more deliberate. There was a section of Adam Preston's profile that had been wiped clean long before Davenport was ever around. At most, all he had ever seen in that part of the file was a large, glaring, and red [REDACTED]. This time, the page read:

PURGE PROTOCOLS:

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY - ALL AROUND THE COBBLER'S BENCH, THE PHANTOM CHASED THE DEMON. THE PHANTOM THOUGHT HE'D NEVER GET CAUGHT, THE REST HAS BEEN [REDACTED].

For the first time, Henry felt a sort of dizzy, giddiness welling up inside him that hadn't been caused by drugs or alcohol or some sort of nightmare combination of the two. "First off, ain't it s'posed to be 'mulberry bush?' And secondly, who the fuck would do somethin' like that?" The question, whether the girl knew it or not, was rhetorical. There was one person he knew who spoke in riddles, even when it was completely unnecessary. After a rushed minute of talking, he left rather ungratefully, leaving the girl to her work while he made his way right back towards his apartment; shedding his coat along the way as to avoid the prying eyes of any suspicious enough to closely examine him.

___________________________________________

Phantom is alive.

H.K.D.

[hkdavenport]

FRIDAY

I was so...Happy, I guess, about the whole Phantom being alive thing that I went to the Radio Shows tonight. I fucking hate them. The music just thumps on and on, giving me a nasty goddamn headache. And I keep having this feeling in my guts that makes me feel like we're attracting too much fucking attention; won't be long before we hear about a Radio party gone horribly wrong...The kind of wrong where monsters show up and ruin everyone's nice evening.

I don't want it to happen...Maybe that's why I keep fucking going. It's the dancing that really gets to me though. I don't want to sound like the fucking bad guy from Footloose or anything, but I think those assholes danced and drank for twelve straight fucking hours today. Fucking opiate of the bee masses.

Turns out that the AEgir people don't trust me. And Noel isn't here to fucking vouch for me anymore...I walked Victoria and the red-headed one back to Agartha after the show. I think her name's Wendy if my eavesdropping serves me right. We saw one of those...Fucking Filthadactyls in Agartha just flying around. It perched on one of the portals; Victoria said it goes to Tokyo.

Which...Thanks a lot, bees. Would have been nice to fucking have that portal, like, a goddamn year ago.

I tried to open up a little...Dunno if it was me or the Chaos, really. I told Wendy about part of the training I had under Phantom. Personally? I wish she had just fucking brushed me off. She was drunk; made it seem like I was gonna pull my weapon on her. I got mad...The smoke asked me to stay. Said it likes her. Said it likes them. Which is all well and good, but I can't fucking change. I can't fucking relent now; not when I'm so fucking close to a breakthrough on the thing that's been consuming me for the past few months.

Phantom WILL have answers. If he's not to blame, then at least I'll have him back. If he's to blame, then I hope he's been keeping up on his fucking lightning-slinging. I keep hoping that this wasn't a second Purge...But even if it was, I feel confident that Phantom won't be expecting me to be so goddamn strong. That was always his fucking problem; lack of fucking foresight.

H.K.D

[hkdavenport]

SATURDAY

Not every nightmare was completely unpleasant. In fact, Henry rather liked this one. The common thread that tied the nightmares together was violence. At first, he had considered it the unwelcome side-effect of a guilty conscience, but things became uglier in ways that he had no control over. His fist collided with a younger man's jaw and cracked it like glass. He felt the dull ache in his knuckles, but noted with satisfaction that the attack had made his target stumble backwards. The younger man backed away, grabbing at his face and uttering an almost indescribable groan of pain. The smoke zigged and zagged excitedly through the air around H.K.'s body, roiling in different directions. There was no pattern, not until Davenport swept his hand through the air and gathered it with his palm. It slunk through the air like a great snake, coiling up around the younger man's neck tightly.

The green chain would act as a leash for an abused animal, Davenport's lean musculature flexing as he dragged his victim carelessly up a flight of grated, steel stairs. The younger man was flung, choking and sputtering, to rest at the feet of two others. One of them was the young, Asian girl, Wen. The other was a clean-cut, handsome man with styled blonde hair. The blonde man looked pale and shook with fear. Even Wen was regarding H.K. with an expression of abject horror. That memory was translated perfectly, transposed on his mind. "You look away now, Wen, alright? I don't want you havin' to fuckin' see this." The blonde man would open his mouth to speak, but all that came out was static.

The sound was deadened by the time Henry began his work, but this time there was no comfort in a black, writhing death for the young man coughing on the walkway.

He struck him once. His nose would never quite heal right.

He struck him twice. His jaw would need to be wired shut; the bees never came for him.

He struck him a third time. His eye socket collapsed under the weight of the blow, crushing his left eye and rendering it completely useless.

The sound rushed back in. Crack. Pop. Snap. Squelch. Sob.

H.K. didn't awake with a start this time. His eyes fluttered open and he stared blankly at the ceiling.

____________________________________________

He splashed cold water from his sink onto his face and then fumbled around with his hands and closed eyes, seeking out the towel. It was pressed gingerly against his chin; picking up a little bit of blood in the process of drying him off. For a moment or two, he regarded his face in the mirror. Something green would creep and slither into focus, thin lines like colorful cracks on the glass. It split in two and Davenport would look at the pincers as they slowly moved up and down. "Yeah. S'pose I look alright." He lifted his hand and ran his fingertips along one of the scars on his cheek, then moved it higher to pull lightly at the crow's feet around the corner of his right eye. The smoke gnashed its tendrils.

"No, I didn't fuckin' do it for them. The fuck are they gonna care that I got a shave and a haircut? Barely gettin' noticed as is. And when I impose myself, they think I'm gonna kill 'em." The smoke drifted up a little. "I don't give a shit 'bout what you think. You ain't me," He tried to suck the words back into his mouth with a harsh breath, but it was too late. Drooping a little, the smoke began to withdraw towards Davenport's arm. He reached over and ran his finger across it lightly. "I didn't fuckin' mean that. You are, uh, me. But you ain't me-me. I need to figure this shit out and I can't get fuckin' attached to these people. You remember the last time; wasn't that goddamn long ago." Henry sighed, smoke dissipating in an abrupt puff.

He wandered over to his closet and pulled out something covered in an old, dusty plastic bag. He set it out on the bed and then sat down next to it, face planted in his hands.

_______________________________________________

Oculi Omniscentia was not a typical Illuminati front. They weren't a business or a club. While they operated a blogging site for the more conspiracy-minded, it was little more than a ploy dedicated to finding potential recruits in the muck. Being given free rein for the most part, Phantom had outfitted the group with the best tech that the Illuminati could buy. The servers still existed and H.K. had the strongest sense that if the message was altered anywhere, it was altered from that server room. He approached the warehouse, doing his utmost to adjust that familiar and awkward gait. It ended up turning into something of a saunter instead.

They had positioned a man at the door. He was older looking and wore ratty old clothes in multiple, filthy layers. There was a hat on the ground in front of him that implored passersby to stuff it with their extra money so that he could feed his family. Henry knew better. He reached into his pocket and pulled something from it; something that ended up dropped into the man's hat. For all intents and purposes, it was a normal dollar bill. At the corner of the bill was a small, blue, triangular pin.

Davenport swallowed hard during the long seconds in which he was scrutinized by the man. He didn't breathe until he heard the click of the door and was able to spill himself into the room. "Think they pay those guys extra to make you feel twelve different kinds'a fuckin' uncomfortable." He complained to no one in particular.

The server room was dark save for the LED glow of the towers and some wiring that hung from great, gaping holes in the ceiling. The entire place was a poorly-lit maze, made only marginally better by the smoke that trailed behind him. The A/C creaked and hummed overhead; having been kept on all this time to ensure that the servers wouldn't overheat. It was a cold, lonely kind of place and Davenport suddenly felt guilt welling up in the back of his head. He and the man who ran the computers for the group didn't always see eye-to-eye on things. In the end? They were on friendly terms, but it hurt to see that his living situation wasn't much better than the jokes that he'd been cracking.

At the far end of the room there was a brighter glow; a monitor set atop a small desk, a cot, and a leather chair. "Half-expected to see Aldridge sittin' there." Henry sighed, then moved into the chair and began to inspect the last thing that had been looked at. There were multiple windows opened and the most recent one was that of Adam Preston's profile. The previous line of text had been deleted and replaced with the usual [REDACTED]. He stared at the screen, eyes zipping about in search of anything that might provide a clue. His gaze wandered down to the timestamp and rested upon it.

"Mother-fucker!"

The last bit of green smoke was trailing after him as he came charging out of the door. His sudden reappearance made the man outside jump, cigarette dropping out of his lips and narrowly missing the hat full of money resting in front of him. "The hell do you think you're doin'?" The man hissed at Davenport, who hunkered down and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. He shot his glance around quickly, then slammed the man up against the wall roughly; delighting in the way he gritted his teeth and arched up when his back smacked right up against the bricks. "Ow! What the -fuck-?"

"Shut your fuckin' trap for a sec' and listen to me very fuckin' closely." Henry made a guttural sort of growling noise and slammed him backwards again, this time cracking the back of his head against the wall. The man was quiet, but hyperventilating at this point. "Somebody else came here. Somebody else was here not even fifteen fuckin' minutes ago. Where the fuck did they go?"

"Lots of investigators come through here, man! Tons! How the hell am I supposed to remember them -- " It was the wrong answer, of course, so Davenport punished him for it by grabbing ahold of his wrist and pulling down hard; hard enough to make the man's shoulder pop and crack. "Holy f-fuck man! Please! Stop!"

"Brought this shit on yourself, asshole. Talk! Where the fuck did the other guy go?" Henry withdrew the man from the wall and began to bend his arm backwards; in directions where a normal human arm should not have been pulled.

His mouth was contorted into a painful gape and no air was leaving or entering. Trails of spit hung from his lips as he tried his best to make any kind of noise through the pain. "L-left!" He managed in a breathless shriek. "Left!"

H.K. released the man's arm and rose up. "That's better." He tossed another two dollars into the hat and then stalked off in that direction.

____________________________________________________

NOTHING. Son of a fucking bitch! Nothing! Not so much as a scrap of fucking fabric or half of a goddamn footprint or anything! I was only fifteen minutes behind him! And now the fucking file is switched back to normal, so I'm back at square fucking one.

This has Phantom written all fucking over it now. The sneaking around, the disappearing on me like a goddamn ghost bullshit. Using Aldridge's old hardware is a real smack in the fucking face though. At first? I was excited; glad I'd get to fucking see him again and maybe even start rebuilding.

But I don't think that's what he wants. I think he wants to cash in and now he's drawn me out. So fucking be it. If he wants to finish what he fucking started, then I dare him to show his goddamn face around me.

I went to the bar after. And something weird happened. Shay and Ammie were sitting there and they actually called me over. Some other chick showed up too. Some girl named Alina. Seems nice enough, I guess. Doesn't appreciate my fucking outlook though. Suits me just fucking fine. That's actually what I really want to fucking rant about.

We've always got a choice. That's what she told me. We've always got a choice. Maybe you were fortunate enough to be recruited by someone who wasn't a total goddamn psychopath. Maybe your bee decided to let you, like so many other people like us, use whatever fucking magic you want instead of endowing you with one scary, fucking sentient one. I didn't have a fucking choice. Most of the time it was kill or be killed or maim or be killed or [insert whatever the fuck kind of torture you'd like here] or be killed. We DON'T always have a goddamn choice.

Still. Was awful nice of Shay and Ammie to invite me over.

H.K.D.

P.S. I had the fucking nightmare about Crane again. Great fucking nightmare up until the point when Wen looks at me like I'm a goddamn monster.


P.P.S. Maybe I am a fucking monster.

[hkdavenport]

TUESDAY

Two days went by without any incident. The sudden loss of the trail wasn't just frustrating to him, it was downright maddening. It wasn't for lack of trying. Davenport rarely, if ever, researched a subject to any degree, but devoured any book or website or article that he could find in relation to the solitary clue that he'd been left. He had gone so far as to push the girl in the Control Room to once again show him Adam Preston's file; it was all fruitless. He paced rapidly between his bedroom and the living room and green tendrils of smoke trailed behind him. They had an unnerving habit of hovering in complete stillness, only moving whenever he passed through. If it was only the stress of this now lost discovery, then Henry might have been okay. But there was something else.

It was them.

Davenport stopped abruptly and turned to face the smoke. "I ain't attached. There's a big fuckin' difference between bein' attached and likin' a few of 'em. I ain't gonna cry if they up and fuckin' disappear." The smoke shook and wagged at him aggressively. "Yeah, I already know how you fuckin' feel and I could really give a shit." When the smoke lashed in his direction, he tossed his arms up and looked incredulously at the tendrils. "You think she's what? Oh man, well good fuckin' luck with that. I'm sure she'll be totally fuckin' stoked to hear you say that. Oh, but wait! I'm the only mother-fucker who gets to experience the fuckin' joy of hearin' you talk!"

The emerald smoke shook, quivering on the air as the tendrils thickened and bunched up into the shape of a hand; middle finger thrust up proudly in the air and in Henry's direction. "Fuck me? Wonder how long it took you to work up the fuckin' balls to do somethin' like that." Davenport scoffed and turned away from it. Seemingly determined, the smoke defiantly swept around the room, putting the finger in Davenport's face. It burst into a vibrant haze when he dove at it, landing with a thump upon the bed. He rolled over onto his back and then sat up, observing as the smoke broke down into multiple tendrils again. He followed the trails that connected them to his body. It used to hurt when it initially exposed itself. Now he barely noticed.

"I think I really must have the worst goddamn luck in the world. Nobody else has to talk to their fuckin' swords or rifles or shit." Davenport spat. "My bee must'a been --" The words were cut off by the sound of his phone vibrating on the desk. His head turned towards it and the smoke's tendrils, bent slightly at their tops, turned in the same direction. He shambled over to the phone and swept his finger over it. A text message had come through, from an unknown number. The smoke curled up and over his shoulder as if to see what he was seeing:

Hotel. Seoul. Two hours.

The pointed tips of the opaque tendrils turned to him and he turned to them, smiling softly. When they wagged, the smile dropped and was replaced by a frown. "No, dumbass, it ain't them."
________________________________________________

There was more in Seoul than the Dragon. There were memories; powerful memories. They were so potent that the smell of the rain in Seoul caused his feet to stop carrying him forward. For a moment, his body would refuse to move and instead forced him to take in the sights and sounds. He finally found the will to press on and forced himself to amble past the places he hadn't had the heart to so much as look at in pictures for so long. These were worse than the nightmares that haunted every night's attempted sleep; these were the good ghosts. These were the kind of memories that reminded him of how human he was and confronting it made it feel as though someone was wrenching his heart out of his chest.

Henry swallowed hard and began to look down at his feet, shuffling along more quickly. His head was swimming and he began to realize something that made his blood boil.

This was deliberate.

He couldn't tell if it was his mind or the smoke that had the epiphany; he didn't care. It had always been Phantom's modus operandi to break him. Henry's entire body shook, hair matted by the rain and clothes clinging to him. By the time he had reached the hotel, he was seething with rage and not much was keeping it bottled. Some of the people assembled around the lobby would look up at him, but they were quick to re-attend whatever it was they were doing prior to his entry. His phone vibrated and he reached for it with an animal grunt.

Room 47. Tick, tock, Mr. Davenport.

It ended up stuffed angrily into his pocket and he ascended the stairs in a series of loud stomps. The people in the lobby turned to look and they watched for as long as it took for his footfalls to become a dull thud. Thunder cracked and lightning flashed overhead. Davenport would periodically catch sight of it in a window, the light from the lightning allowing him to see his reflection and the booming sound of thunder causing the glass to rattle as if it were frightened of the noise.

The lights flickered, but he was so focused on his hate now that it didn't faze him. He shoved his way past an older woman and her cleaning cart. She began cussing him out in an unfamiliar language and that didn't faze him either. He didn't break free of this singular thought process until he reached the door marked with a brass '47.' "Alright, mother-fucker. Let's get this o--"

There was a loud boom, but it wasn't the thunder. H.K. Davenport's world went black.

__________________________________________________

Of course it wouldn't be fair.

Henry's eyes began to flutter open and he immediately felt the splitting pain in the back of his head. It made his stare widen, head turning about wildly in the darkness. Attempts to move other parts of his body were hampered by thick bindings that had been tied so tightly that they dug into his skin and drew blood. There was something in his mouth, something wooden affixed to a string. The knot of it was pressing into the back of his neck.

As his eyes adjusted, he realized a few things. His clothes were gone. The room was the kind of hot that he only felt in his nightmares; the sweltering heat of bubbling blackness that gurgled out whispers from beyond dimensions that he understood. It made his breathing grow heavier and made his struggles grow more desperate. It wasn't until he saw the outline of the brass '47' on the door that he was certain that he was still in Seoul. The green smoke was absent, leaving him at a complete loss for what had happened.

For what was going to happen.

He inhaled sharply through his nostrils when he saw the outline of a man's figure in the shadows. Henry narrowed his eyes and calmed his breathing, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of watching him squirm anymore than he already had. When the man moved, Henry saw a blur of darkness before something cracked him in the face. It left a sore spot and made his teeth bite down more firmly on the rod. The pain radiated through his face and while he wanted to scream, he instead turned it into an infuriated and guttural growl against what had been placed in his mouth.

"Angry?" The voice didn't sound terribly familiar. "I would be too. Hell, I am a little bit pissed off." Henry pulled up on the straps binding his wrists. It served only to dig them in a little further, drops of blood dribbling down his arm. "Don't do that. It's not polite." The silouette moved again and H.K. braced himself for the pain, biting down and shutting his eyes tightly. It never came, but he did hear a click followed by the dull buzz of lights overhead. He still didn't want to open his eyes.

When he did, he recoiled in horror and a sickening realization. His stomach churned violently and he dry heaved against the wooden rod. An attempt to turn his face away from his captor's visage was met with a hand on his chin forcing him to look back. He hadn't been chasing Phantom. His face was disfigured; violently so. The man had a squashed, flat sort of nose. His jaw was off-center despite the best attempts that had been made to repair it. The left side of his face looked as if it had been flattened and his left eye was not an eye; it was a gnarled patch of twisted scar-tissue. Davenport stared at it. "You know who I am, right?"

Henry thrashed his body in response, rearing his head back and then slamming it forward against Crane's already ruined face. As their foreheads collided, Henry felt a sharp pain in his. Pain had become a part of his life at that point, but this time he felt an ache so acute that it left him seeing actual stars. It left his captor stumbling backwards as he had done so many months ago for an entirely different reason. The man rubbed his forehead and glowered at Henry. "Yeah, you remember me. You remember what you fucking did."

Crane shook his head and pulled over a creaking, wheeled table. Davenport saw the glint of metal and did his best to maintain some semblance of composure. "I'm pissed off, by the way, that you're the only one left. I wanted your girlfriend to watch what I do to you. I wanted you to watch what I did to her." His hand was shaking when he picked up the knife. It was small and sterile and sharp. Perhaps the most unsettling thing was the way his off-kilter jaw drooled uncontrollably. "I was so fucking disappointed when I heard that Oculi Omniscentia was gone. See, I had figured that everyone vanished. And then someone said your name. I'm still fucking disappointed though. I really wanted that bitch to watch."

There was as much steadiness in his voice as there was in his hand; the same hand brandishing the tip of the knife in Davenport's face. His free hand grabbed Henry's throat and held his head still even with all of its mad pushing and twisting. "Ah. What's wrong? You aren't the toughest asshole on the fucking block anymore, are you? Is it the new people?" The tip of the knife nicked his brow, dripping red liquid into his right eye. "I'm sure they won't miss you. Did you show any of them the same courtesy that you showed me?"

It sank in. His mouth wanted to open, but his teeth bit down as hard as they could. His face turned red and his left eye shut like a trap. It didn't hurt at first. There was just the sensation of something stiff and cold being shoved into his eye and stirring lightly. And then it began to throb. It began to radiate from the right side of his face and downward. The sound had deadened and become muffled, but this wasn't a nightmare. Everything became acute and he inhaled sharply through his mouth, rod practically stuck to his bottom row of teeth. He heard wet noises from his eye socket, but he couldn't scream. Either that or he simply couldn't hear himself.

The knife danced with his eye in a delicate and horrific waltz. Davenport's body shook. The knife was tugged upon and wouldn't release its ruined partner in the process. Davenport continued to shake and twitch, even with the wiring of his eye draped over his cheek the way that it was. "An eye for an eye, right?" Crane chuckled. "See, I really wanted her to see that part. This almost isn't satisfying. I'll do my best to feel good about it though, honest." Davenport's left eye managed to open, albeit with incredible difficulty. It could just barely make out the ragged mess on the opposite side of his face. "I dunno how much time we have, 47. See that?" He grabbed at Davenport's cheeks, squeezing them tightly and forcing his head to turn towards a corner of the room. The object in question was violet and pulsating. It was practically a heap of rusted, pointed metal that just so happened to exude a shade of purple so familiar that it made a lump form in Davenport's throat.

"Yeah, it sucked getting it out of Hell. Took me two days. You nearly had me too, back at the old server room! But it was fucking worth it." Crane rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Now, I know that you won't like this next part, because I have to chop you into pieces to make this work." His face was released, but he still felt the immense pain coming from his empty eye socket. He still felt the pain in the back of his head. And he still felt the pain in the side of his face. He would have blacked out if not for the itching that he felt at the back of his mind.

You had a choice this time. You didn't have to keep chasing after ghosts, but you did it anyways.

If it had been Phantom...And he had murdered Wen...Then it would have fuckin' been for her.

That's always your problem. You justify the things you do by fighting for other people, but even with living people to fight for, you just stay in the past. You're on your own now. You wanted rid of me? Fine. There goes any power, any worth you had.

There was a noise from near the door; his phone vibrating in the pocket of his pants. Crane had been about to pick up the next implement when he turned and began to approach his phone instead. "Must be the new gang that you run with. They'd suffice, you know. I can pretend. I can find the ones you like and I can dress them like the other bitch. It would be the same. They'd make the same faces when I cut you. When I cut them." Henry began to thrash again. "Yeah. That's a really good idea actually. I really fucking want her to watch." Crane dug around in Davenport's pants, turned away from his captive for the moment.

You know, at least one of them would probably show up for you. And then what? Are you going to let him tear them apart too?

"No." He mumbled around the rod. Crane turned to look at him, shrugged, and then returned to examining his phone.

"Don't worry, Hen'. I can take my time with you now. I just need someone to watch."

The pain burned at where his eye had been and the strands of skin and sinew hanging down were starting to feel cold and clammy. His entire body was slowly becoming colder and more numb. There was blood rolling down the right side of his face. Hearing the clicking of his phone and Crane's mad chuckling to himself, Davenport would push down with his feet as hard as he could, forcing the bindings to shift just a little higher on his ankles. His feet would press against the floor, testing the chair up against the bed it was leaning against. It was firm and the old wooden chair creaked.

There had been other applicants to Oculi Omniscentia when H.K. first arrived on the scene. Even after his induction, the others who came through typically had a connection to the occult. Henry was clumsy, often chose the most difficult way to do things, and, above all else, never ran away from a fight. Phantom had picked him for a reason: His tenacity. It had nothing to do with magic or amusement. Through all of the torture that Phantom conceived, H.K. had survived and thrived.

He braced his fingers hard against the arms of the chair and bit down on the rod just as firmly as he could.

Crane turned to see that H.K. had managed to rise to his feet. He dropped Henry's phone and stood up, scrambling to knock Davenport back down. Henry turned the chair towards him and kicked off the ground as hard as he could.

In the room below them, a couple had come to Seoul for their honeymoon. They heard a groan of pain follow the sound of a sudden crash. They heard the splintering of wood; something cracking. They ended up leaving as soon as they had arrived, choosing a different hotel in a different part of the city. Not that it mattered much to the men above them.

Henry felt his arms loosen, still bound to the arms of the chair. His legs were free and his back ached, twisted by the way that Crane had caught him. The back of the chair had bashed up against Crane's mouth, knocking a few teeth loose and making him shriek. Davenport smiled a sardonic smile to himself: It appeared that he still couldn't take a hit. The man underneath him kicked and shoved him away, causing Henry to smack his head off of the floor. Crane rolled over and began to stand, quivering. He used the dresser for leverage.

Mostly freed, Davenport managed to stand with his body quaking in similar fashion. The adrenaline rush was enough to help him propel himself to the light switch, flipping it off just as Crane grabbed his gun. "You mahafaha." Crane spat through his busted jaw. They were both dazed by the sudden loss of light. The soft glow of violet wasn't enough to pierce the darkness. "You bro ma baw aben!" The man shrieked. People within the hotel screamed when they heard the gunshots.

Henry was pressed down against the floor. He saw the flash of light from Crane's pistol and grabbed his clothes as quietly as he could. His heart was threatening to beat out of his chest and he could swear that the mad thumping could be heard. The gun fired again, this time towards the spot where his clothes had been. While the flash would brighten the room, Crane had been staring directly at it; blindly firing in different directions. One of the shots grazed Davenport's arm and took out a sizeable chunk of skin. The wooden rod proved useful; teeth digging into it again to prevent himself from crying out and giving away his position.

"Um bunna pill you, mahafaha!" Crane shouted when a silouette passed atop the bed. The stuffing was strewn about and Henry's clothes were marked with frays and holes as he emptied his bullets into them. Davenport, meanwhile, rose up from the ground and tackled the distracted Crane with what could have been mistaken for a roar. The gun flashed amidst the struggle, both of them rolling along the ground. Henry reached for the gun, groaning as he struggled to push it in the direction he wanted.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

There was a noise. A noise like a small projectile being fired into a tin can. Violet light was emitted in furious shades from the corner of the room before it burst and the infernal machine spoke its last Anima-sucking hum. H.K. looked over at the smoking machine, then turned his stare upon Crane, who dropped the gun abruptly and began to scream in absolute terror.

From the hole he'd made, Crane would bear witness to the green smoke. Henry covered his mouth with his hand, making the scream muffled. Thick smoke poured free of his eye socket and slunk around to the back of Davenport's neck. It snapped through the string that held the rod in his mouth and allowed him to spit it into Crane's face. The length of smoke sparked and rose up from his eye-socket. Its tip became sharp and pointed; poised like a scorpion's tail. "The second that I saw your worthless fuckin' face," Henry's voice was hoarse and wavering, "I wanted to fuckin' kill you, Crane. I wanted you to suffer." He kept his hand over his mouth, free hand pressing against his throat and squeezing firmly. The man's pulse quickened. "But killin' you ain't gonna solve my problems. It ain't gonna put my fuckin' eye back in my head and it ain't gonna bring Wen back. So I ain't gonna kill you."

The smoke pouring from the hole in his face would slither back into it as if it were a cave. Crane kept staring up at him, laying there on the ground, even as Davenport kicked his gun away. "'Sides, Crane. It's scarier knowin' that I don't need my fuckin' hoo-doo powers, ain't it?" Henry put his hand over the right side of his face for a moment and then wandered to the bed. "Fuckin' won naked and powerless. Bet you feel like a fuckin' asshole." He laughed, keeping his eye on Crane, who didn't move; he didn't dare. "Figure I've humiliated you enough."

H.K. pulled on his pants and shirt. He tore some of the fabric from his shirt and then wrapped it around his head to keep anyone from seeing his shredded eye-socket. There was a commotion outside that could be heard from the window. The thunder and lightning continued to boom and streak overhead, but this was a different noise entirely. This was the sound of the local police force gathering and readying to enter the hotel. "Nah. I ain't gonna fuckin' kill you, Crane." He stalked past him, picking up his phone and putting it into his pocket.

"But," Henry stopped just before the door, flicking the lights on. His voice trailed off and his body turned so that he could again stare directly at the trembling man on the floor. "But that gunshot was loud. Attracted attention. You think the police comin' to investigate are your run-of-the-mill pigs, Crane?" Davenport's face was stern as he spoke. "Tell me, what the fuck do you think the Dragon are gonna do to an Illuminati agent that can't fuckin' talk?"

He walked outside, slammed the door, and left the man screaming in terror behind it.

[hkdavenport]

WEDNESDAY

The girl at The Horned God was right. I got in her face about loss and she came right back at me; fucking tore me apart. There's nothing I could have said or done to stop what happened to O.O. or to Wen. And as much as it hurts, I survived and now I need to start moving on.

I'm never going to stop loving them. They were my family; closest thing I've ever had to people who gave a damn about what happened to me. I have a new family now though and if I keep living in the past, I'll lose them too.

Maybe I'll see her again on the other side of all this bullshit. Maybe after the world's run outta uses for me I can fuck off to the big bar in the sky and be with her. 'Til then, I'll just live. 'Til then, I'll just pray that she's happy and at peace.

I'll also pray that nobody ever reads this shit. Yikes.

I'm H.K. Mother-Fucking Davenport for Christ's sake. Got a goddamn reputation to uphold here.

H.K.D.

P.S. The thing that popped up on my phone was a spam ad for dick pills. Life is fucking weird.