Halfblood Heritage

by Rheaume, Laura

  I don’t like this place, a voice growled at him. He agreed fully.

  The gel started to seep into him, and he knew, without knowing how that he didn’t belong there. The warm liquid made his mind droop, and he felt like the body that he wore in that place was starting to break up, to disintegrate.

  He felt his breath coming faster and, when his vision wavered, a shaft of panic shot through his chest. For a moment, he considered pulling away, obeying a deep desire to escape immediately. He was having growing concerns about how he was going to find his way out. However, the thought of Lena in the chair, eyes vacant like his mother’s, held him steady.

  Leave her, the voice insisted.

  No, he answered, but in the same instant, he couldn't help but think, I can be such an idiot.

  He called, Lena, and almost immediately felt a tremendous pressure build behind him. He turned, his mind shying away from the immensity of the bubble that had been waiting right behind him. It filled his vision, a gigantic mass that cut off the sight of everything else around him. He felt like he was falling forward, and he instinctively tried to raise his hands to protect himself, but they wouldn’t budge. He was frozen, plummeting face first into a huge wall in which memories swirled like storms.

  He called out again as his concentration began to fray, “Lena! Help me!”

  The planet sized bubble expanded in front of him, bulging out to where he floated/fell a million miles or a few inches away. It engulfed him, carrying him away.

  Scythe was standing in Lena’s apartment. Although it was clearly day out, and the thin curtains were pulled open, the room was cast in shadow. There were at least three times the number of fast food boxes and paper plates with half eaten meals scattered around the room than he remembered. Clothes, some he knew that Lena would never wear, ripped and stained as they were, were thrown around the room. There was a big pile of them at the foot of the bed. Trash was spewed everywhere, and the smell of mold and rotting food hung in the air.

  Next to him, the ghost of Smoke appeared, squeezing a yellow silk scarf in his fist and looking around in concern.

  “Wait,” Scythe said, pulling his eyes away from a suspiciously large bulge of blankets on the bed, “this is one of my memories...”

  “There is nothing here to help us,” Smoke said.

  Before Scythe could reply, his brother added, “It’s your fault this happened.” He stepped up to Scythe, his face hard as stone, and grabbed his shirt. “You are the reason people are suffering.”

  Scythe stepped back, his head suddenly pounding, “What?” Wait, he told himself, This didn’t happen...

  Smoke clenched his jaw, speaking through his teeth, “You attract trouble like no one I’ve ever met, Mismatch. Every time I turn around, you’re killing someone...”

  “Because that’s what you do,” his Aunt Dren said, letting go of his shirt, pushing him back and wiping her hand on her shirt. “You are an abomination; my brother sinned against us all when he fathered a child on a Human...”

  The blankets on the bed started to slide away, tumbling down to cover the discarded clothes on the floor and revealing Lena, her eyes heavy with sleep. She was wearing soft yellow pajamas with pictures of little green frogs sitting on lily pads. She watched Scythe and his aunt, blinking away her drowsiness, her arm wrapped around the pillow under her head.

  “Lena!” Scythe pleaded, “What is happening?”

  “Did you enjoy your fine home in the city, my brother’s son?”

  Scythe swallowed and started to shake his head, his eyes fixed on Dren.

  “Were you comfortable, with your servants and your studies, or were you bored? Poor thing. I wasn’t bored with the Humans...I was never bored. Serena wasn’t bored either...”

  “Stop!” Scythe cried, backing away.

  “...when they raped her...”

  “Just like you raped me,” Harmony said, following him and punching him on the jaw.

  Scythe’s head hit the wall behind him, and the room tilted; his hands flew out as he tried to brace himself against something solid, but they missed the wall that was no longer behind him. His arms spread wide, he could only watch as she followed through with a second punch to his face. Pain exploded from his nose, a brilliant, white pain that blinded him and took his mind for a little trip.

  Laying in the darkness, Harmony seethed, her breath warming his cheek, “You fucking bastard.”

  He smelled salt and felt his own tears pool in his eyes. Then, another hot, salty liquid dropped down on his face. When he opened his eyes, Derril was staring down at him through one good eye, the other was dripping red.

  “You think you are bringing justice? Who are you to judge?” he asked, looking around him.

  Suddenly, the smell of blood washed over Scythe, and the ground beneath him was no longer solid, but soft and bumpy. Under him, a small mound stretched from his shoulder across and down his back, getting smaller and bonier; fingers clenched under his hip. Turning his head, he saw them: the bodies of the people, the Humans and the Kin, that he had killed. They lay piled one upon the other on the floor, discarded like everything else in the room.

  Scythe began to shake, his mouth opening to gasp for air; he had to use his mouth for breathing, because the smell...the smell was rancid. He arched his back, trying to get away from the arm beneath him. However, the movement caused the bodies around him to shift, and he sank lower, the corpses around him beginning to lean against him from all sides. A quiet moan took form in his chest and began to run up his throat.

  “There you are, King of the Castle,” said Lakia, sitting next to him, absently patting his chest, her little foot turning away the gruesome stare on the face of his first kill: the hospital guard, stripped of his clothes. Her voice took on a reproving tone, “I tried to tell you, princes don’t look like you...but you wouldn’t listen...and now look at what you’ve done.”

  “Lena, what is happening?” Scythe begged, his voice breaking. He lifted his heavy head and craned his neck in an attempt to see the bed.

  Far, far away, voices called to him urgently. Someone’s hands touched him, and then gripped his shoulders, but it was all wind blowing outside. In the apartment, the windows were shut tight.

  His head jerked back when Lena’s voice reprimanded him from where the young girl had sat a second before. Lena hovered over him, her voice cold. “You’re not who I thought you were, Simon. Remember? In the hospital? When you were losing it, and you looked in my eyes and saw yourself? Well, I was wrong...about you.”

  “Lena...” her name was a prayer for mercy.

  “I thought...I thought you were lovable, honorable, kind...but, I can see you now for what you really are.”

  He froze, “What? What am I?” The voice in his head, his voice, snickered, Finally...

  Her gaze slid down his arms and settled on his hands. Her brows pinched together and her eyes darkened.

  Scythe lifted up his shaking hands, sucking in a breath at the crusted, dry blood which was flaking off to reveal not his gray skin, but another type of flesh. No Kin or Human ever had skin that shade of crimson, slick and pulsing with the beat of his heart. The tips of his fingers were like gnarled bark and boasted pointy claws. His heart jabbed him excruciatingly with each beat.

  I am...a...

  “I think this has gone on long enough,” Lena’s words rung out from the bed, shattering the image of herself, but not before Scythe saw the honest look of disgust the shade threw at him.

  The room, with it’s bodies and trash and other remains of Lena’s life, faded away, and Scythe looked around to see Lena digging through the refrigerator in Ian’s kitchen. He quickly checked his body, which seemed to be back to normal, his hands clean and gray. His energy bleeding away quickly, he stumbled to the kitchen table, collapsed into a chair and buried his head in his arms. He lifted his head when a plate of fruit was laid down in front of him.

  “Eat,” she ordered, sitting back in her own chair and drinking an ic
ed tea.

  “I don’t want to eat, I want to...puke,” he said, although his mind had chosen another word.

  “Save it, Scythe, I know what you’re thinking. You’re in my mind, remember?” When he didn’t respond, beyond laying his head down again, she sighed, “I didn’t do it on purpose, it’s just that you came in while I was out of it, and my gift took over.”

  “So you wanted to torture me for everything I’ve done?”

  “No, of course not. I just told you that I didn’t do any of that, but, I am furious with you, so that may have started this whole thing.”

  “Furious? Why?”

  “Because you are a liar, that’s why, and,” she continued, holding her hand up to stop his protest, “you manipulated me and my brother, and kept us from finding the truth.”

  “The truth about what? When did I lie to you, Lena?” Scythe reviewed the things he had said to her, trying to find out what it was that made her so mad. “Is it about Smoke?”

  “It is if he knows,” Lena said, her face smoothing over with a forced apathy.

  “Knows what?” he asked, forcing himself to stay awake. Lena’s face blurred a little and then came back into focus.

  “You’ve got to go now; you’re falling apart,” she said, reaching across the table to pick up his head by pulling on his hair. A weakness washed over him, and the hair slipped through her fingers, turning into filmy wisps of smoke and leaving her holding air.

  “When did I lie to you?” he persisted, reaching up to grab her, but his hand passed through hers.

  “I’m going to push you back; then you should be able to find your way. Oh, and don’t come here again. That was seriously stupid.”

  “Lena, I don’t remember any lie...”

  She tilted her head, speaking harshly but showing a hint of doubt, “The children, the bordertown children who were kidnapped. You said they were dead.”

  Scythe felt himself thrust from not only the kitchen, but from the deeper regions of Lena’s mind.

  “They are,” he said to the mist.

  Instantly, the mind around him became lighter, easier for him to manage in. The clouds had formed into the spheres that he recognized from the other minds he had visited, whispering of Lena’s life as he passed them by. He knew instinctively which way to go and with a quick push, jumped to the doorstep of her thoughts.

  “Wait,” he heard Lena’s voice, now with his ears. “Look here,” she said firmly, and a sphere sprung forward, brushing him.

  “I’m so tired, Lena,” he protested. His entire body was filled with lead and a painful ache throbbed in his head.

  “Look!” she barked.

  Scythe steeled himself and entered the memory. He stood in a large room that was carved out of rock. The walls were lined with small cells. Two or three Humans were huddled on the floor of each one, some sleeping, or laying silently, others talking quietly. In the center of the room were various examination tables, surrounded with modern medical equipment, as well as some extremely advanced machines. One device, the largest in the room, was powered by large cables and, although he couldn’t hear it with his normal senses in Lena’s memory, it looked like it might be incredibly noisy and therefore difficult for Kin to operate. It was like a huge box with a hole in the middle with just enough room for the person who lay down inside it. A Human woman had her back to Scythe and was reviewing data on one screen while inputting information onto another screen. She shook her head, scoffed, and beat on the keyboard with obvious frustration.

  Scythe examined the cell Lena was contained in, a glass cylinder surrounded by and capped at the top with a mesh netting that hummed with electricity. She sat in the center on the floor, her legs drawn up and arms resting lightly on her knees.

  “What? You coming up short again? What is this, the hundredth time? Seriously, no one is that incompetent.”

  The woman raised up her hand without looking and sent Lena a clear message.

  “Same to you, bitch,” Lena retorted, turning her head when one of the room’s doors opened and Mercy ran in, followed by a Kin woman.

  “Auntie Lena! I’m here!” Mercy said, running up to the cell, but stopping a good six feet away from the sizzling walls.

  “Honey, stay back, okay?” Lena warned, her heart thumping in her chest.

  Mercy rolled her eyes, “I know. You tell me every time...Hey!” she said, coming forward despite herself. Her face glowed when she exclaimed, “It’s Uncle Scythe! Hi! You look tired, Uncle Scythe! You should rest.”

  Lena looked around herself and then glanced over at the Kin woman who had taken a seat at one of the break tables as far away from the cells as possible.

  “Where is he, Mercy?” she asked uncomfortably.

  “Right there,” Mercy pointed at Lena’s face. “He’s in your eyes, Auntie Lena.”

  Lena sighed, “Oh, okay.” She was beginning to get worried about Mercy’s imagination. On the other hand, maybe it was helping her cope with the traumatic experiences of the last few days...

  “Uncle Scythe,” Mercy continued, “you are taking a long time. I think you should come for us now. Auntie Lena is getting impatient.”

  Lena chuckled, shaking her head, “You’re right about that.”

  The woman at the machine made a comment, and Lena barked, “What’s that, sadibitch?”

  “I said,” the woman replied forcefully, “she is either clinically mentally retarded, or psychotic; she’s probably both. She should be medicated.”

  “How about you keep your half-assed, vending machine diagnoses to yourself? If you were any good as a physician or a researcher, you wouldn’t be here.”

  The woman turned back to her panels, saying, “It’s only a matter of time before we’ve got all we want from you, which isn’t much. What, exactly, do you think will happen to her when she is not needed as a hostage?” When Lena didn’t answer, the woman laughed, “What? Nothing to say? Well, I’d tell you, if I gave a damn, but I don’t.” She returned to her typing.

  “Auntie Lena, don’t worry,” Mercy said, stepping up to the cell without touching it.

  “Mercy, stand back!” Lena shouted, moving to just the other side of the glass.

  “I just want to see better,” she complained, stepping back only one half step. “I think there is something wrong with Uncle Scythe, Auntie. He looks really hurt.”

  “He does? Maybe that’s because he knows I’m going to kick him in the butt for lying to me about this place.” He’d be lucky if she only gave him a kick. Her mind was overflowing with the furious words she had ready for him and she’d definitely give him a beating if she got a chance. No amount of Blade training was going to keep him from feeling some real pain.

  “Don’t say that, Auntie Lena!” Mercy showed her fear for the first time, her hands clasping in front of her chest. She looked around, her eyes darting to the cells and the people staring out of them.

  “Mercy, look at me,” Lena said, taking a deep breath. “I was joking, okay? You know your auntie gets a little riled sometimes and you can’t always take what she says seriously. You said that Uncle Scythe is coming for us, right?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded, still very nervous.

  “Well, I think that he will, too. So, there’s nothing to worry about, okay, honey?”

  Mercy nodded tearfully.

  “Now, why don’t you tell me what you did today?”

  “Well, I played with a girl named Hy’anath and she brought her big brother. His name is Plen-ger. We did puzzles and had lunch. It was fun.”

  “That is very exciting, since you never get to play.”

  “Yeah, but it was weird because I couldn’t understand them very well.”

  A Kin man entered the room, striding immediately to the column and standing right next to Mercy; casually, he put his hand on her shoulder. Lena narrowed her eyes at him.

  “It appears you will be leaving us after all, belligerent one.”

  “Yeah?” Lena asked suspiciously.<
br />
  “Apparently, you’ve been negotiated for. This is something I would not have foreseen, but, then, where our friend is concerned, things can be unpredictable.”

  “So, now what?”

  “You’ll be leaving within the hour. Since you are being returned to your people, I am recommending you refrain from any hasty actions which might get you or your niece killed.” He ruffled Mercy’s hair...smiling indulgently when she swiped at him with her hand...before turning and heading toward the door.

  “My Lord,” the doctor called as he neared the exit. “There are a few tests I’d like to perform before she is released. I’ve been putting them off until I had more data, but, since she will not be available after today, I think it is imperative that we conduct them now.”

  “Time is short, Human,” Keyrin said, his voice dripping with disdain.

  “All the more reason to do it immediately,” she insisted.

  “Fine, as long as she is ready to go within the hour,” he waved dismissively and left the room.

  “What tests?” Lena asked suspiciously. “You haven’t got shit from what I can see.”

  “Well, they are a little experimental. A few of the previous subjects experienced some...unfortunate side effects, but you are so strong. I’m sure you’ll hardly feel a thing.” She signaled to the two Kin guards standing across the room. “Trade this one out for our prize.”

  Lena, her hands closing into fists, said, “Mercy, you better go with your nannyjailor...”

  “No, I wanna stay with you and Uncle Scythe,” Mercy argued, shaking her head.

  “I’ll see you in an hour. We’re going home, so you need to go get ready.”

  “I’m ready now,” she stamped her foot.