Present Day

Trying to not stagger too obviously as I passed the Immortal Man, I left the Rusty Duck to head home. The night’s evening air was doing its best to sober me up but I was too far gone. The guilt was burning in me now along with the booze. I had made my choice. A part of me whispered ‘you can’t keep lying to yourself.’ I hated that voice.

It must have been because I was so distracted with my own pity party that it took more than a few blocks of stumbling and holding my ribs that my pickled brain finally managed to get my attention. It had been screaming ‘we are being followed you idiot!’ since leaving the Duck.

After all my self talk about taking care I had let this happen. I had thought there was no way that me restarting the search for the Seeker would stir a response this fast. I tried to feel relief that I had an inkling now that the Seeker was still here in Arcadia and wielding power from the shadows. A meagre relief if I was not going to survive long enough to pat myself on the back for being oh so smart.

As the two White Hands joined me in the alley I tried to stealthily look at them.

They rumbled me immediately. The fish-eyed drunken stare I was giving them must have looked laughable in its attempt to be subtle. ‘You know you made the wrong choice.’ That smug voice in my head said.

I hated it all the more as it was me.

Blearily casting around the alley I realised that trying to keep off the main streets and staying hidden only worked in my favour if I was hidden. Now it meant there was no one around, nowhere to run and in a narrow alley, drunkenly trying to not puke, against two sober White Hands? I was screwed.

‘Alright lads’ I called out, my gravely voice worse for the fear ‘fair game, you copped me. What do you need?’

As they got closer I knew it was the same two that I had seen in the Rusty Duck. If they had wanted to send a message they would of approached me there. My stomach sank, which was a dangerous thing right now. They had staked out the Duck, knowing it as my old haunt and then followed me out. I desperately tried to sober up fast. This was no longer a stern warning, no longer even a little rough and tumble.

They were here to destroy my mind.

The slick cobbles beneath my feet were no firm footing for a sober man, let alone someone in my current state. I had let them get too close to try and run now. I watched as they slid apart, each taking a side of the alley to not get in the others way. They still had not responded nor even reacted to my question. So sure in their approach. Of course they were, they had seen me shown up half sauced and beaten to the Rusty Duck and then I had continued to put it away like my life depended on it.

My own voice whispered again through the booze ‘You made your choice. You can always make it again.’ I felt a flood of hatred and self loathing. It was weakness, I needed help. This city was a disease to me. It always had been.

The White Hands in front of me were ignorant of my internal conflict. The one on the left slowly removed his gloves, reverently folding and pocketing them, he reached out towards my bare skin. His murky blue eyes were holding mine without effort. His face showing utter confidence that this drunken fool in front of him could not avoid his touch.

I felt a moment of relief and knew this was my one chance. They didn’t know. So sure in their borrowed Super they had never considered it might not work on me. His confidence revealed that he had only ever dealt with Normies before. I pushed the relief away and let the naked fear show on my face.

I did not have to act very hard.

His touch was ice cold as he ordered ‘Drop the case, stop looking for the Seeker.’ Slight pause before the customary White Hand command, this man knew his theatrics, ‘Obey us.’

I concentrated as hard as I ever had, the ghost of lilacs drifting across me, praying that my pickled brain still had enough control and slumped forward as if accepting this new reality. Suddenly straightening my legs, twisting my hips and shoulders I drove my fist up into his chin with all the fear, hatred and self-loathing I had in me. I felt his neck snap back, the moist cracking sound bouncing against the uncaring stone walls. I kept rising. I felt my body shudder and flicker. I concentrated through the alcohol haze and wrestled back control.

The White Hand flew away from me. I spun as fast as my stumpy legs and yowling stomach would allow and ran. I heard the body hit the cobblestones behind me as I was already two steps into my escape and accelerating.

Adrenaline was flooding my system and burning away at the edges of the drink. I ran. I did not look behind me, I did not think about where I was running too. I just knew I had to run. I ran like I was trying to escape myself.

The alleyways and boulevards were a blur of noise and colour, of pockets of silence and stench. I danced and juked around bodies, the adrenaline allowing me to avoid any rogue touch.

After an age, perhaps a few minutes, the adrenaline started to wear off and I slowed in another unnamed alley. I could smell cooking, the rubbish left out here was all rotting food and rats. Somewhere on the edge of the Old Town near Pruder Street my mind sullenly offered up. As I stopped and wheezed, the barrier between my mouth and stomach did not exist any more and I painted the cobbles.

I don’t know how long I stood there, collapsed against the wall. My nose burning, my lungs on fire, my ribs pulsing in pain, my hand adding its own melody of hurt, my choices slowly oozing around my feet. The wind was not enough to carry away the smell of my failure, the pain was not enough to burn away my shame.

Slowly I managed to return to my own mind. The White Hands wanted me to stop looking. So they were still connected to the Seeker, I filed that away with my earlier musings. That was a part of the puzzle I needed. An edge piece maybe.

Unable to process it right now though, my eyes focused again on the mess I had made. What had I been doing? Why was I like this? My face burned. I wanted nothing more than to hide away from the world. To pull the ground up over me and disappear.

‘You made your choice’ my mind sadistically offered up.

Shuddering I felt myself collapsing further, my legs an inferno, trying to hold onto the wall to keep out of the pool of regret I had created. I had to think, there was so much I had to think about and I could not keep it all in my head any more. I felt like it was going to burst but I would not let that happen again. There was a piece of my soul missing. There had been for a long time now.

I wanted to go home. I was not sure where that was anymore.