Cat's out of the bag

Sorry for the radio silence... been very busy and, well, I haven't much time to post even now, but I figured I could update you with at least this little bit.

Liger is in a lot of trouble.

He came down to the cellar while I was resting and tried to kill Dodgy.

Dodgy is hardly any worse for it, but Liger refuses to talk, even to me. I don't know why he did it, except he must know Dodgy from another life. That's no excuse though. Someone as "high profile" as Dodgy, only Father should be permitted to end his life.

The fact that Liger found out Dodgy was here while he was out and came home directly to kill him means that news of his capture has officially made the rounds. No one is coming to take him to a better Interrogator than me because anyone could try to kill him now, in transit or upon arrival... all the people who he's hurt, who've lost loved ones because of him or his master... Apparently everyone's decided keeping here is just the most expedient thing.

Now I have to sleep in the cellar, in the cage next to him, just to make sure no one uses the Path to skate in and off him while no one's watching.

Until Father comes for him (soon I hope!), I'm a glorified babysitter! :(

I hope he's not too angry with Liger.

Soon

So they brought me a trolley. You know, one of those tall hand carts like you'd strap a fridge into. And we tied Dodgy into it with crisscrossing ropes (so he can't get any leverage). He's down to his underwear and bra, which for some reason made me blush though I'm not gay and I've seen men and women both more nekkid than that. Glad my mask hid my blushing, or I'm sure he would have harassed me about it.

Man, does he like to talk, but I think some of it's nerves. (Did not appreciate the comments about my hair :P ) I haven't spoken to him at all. Not one syllable. I've told everyone else to be entirely silent around him too, which is fine. Given Delphi's burgeoning (lol big word! Thank you spellcheck) talents, all we have to do is think, and she can relay dropped thoughts. Jet's got the weakest mental voice, so she mostly relays my thoughts to him and vice versa.

We're still hand feeding Dodgy, but now that he's recovered some, I don't have to be sharing my energy with him too, and I can sleep! Like any of Father's children, I can go days without sleeping, but it helps if I'm not also on a 36-hour healing kick. Had Delphi feeding him at first, but then Jet stepped in when Dodgy made her cry with comments about her scars and blank mask. She hasn't been with us long enough to see them as a badge of honor. Now she's in our room, drawing pictures of masks until she decides on a design she likes.

Guess if we won't talk to him, he's going to pick at us. When Jet took over feeding him, he started digging at him about his mask, which is completely black. I think it's meant to be a play on his name, but I've never asked him.

Heri, as I've been calling the revived Egyptian priest, and Seraphina have both been watching from their cages as we take care of the new prisoner. I guess there's not much entertainment for them otherwise. Heri has taken to calling me Sekhmet-netjeri. I think he's pretty close to a second breakthrough, but we'll see. Least he's not calling me a demon or an evil magician any more.

I told Seraphina if she tries to get away again, she's going to be strapped to a handcart too. She hasn't in a while though. I broke her first two fingers days ago. She can still use utensils to feed herself with her thumb and remaining fingers. I just figured Dodgy was probably more practiced, so I broke all his fingers. Hopefully he can't use his toes or something.

Torture sessions start tomorrow on what is technically day three, since Candle brought Dodgy to us Sunday night. I doubt I'll get anything out of him, but it's not like I'm asking any questions. The torture is just a distraction so I can get into his head. Hopefully he won't notice, at least not at first. I don't care if he notices later since once I'm in, there's not much he'll be able to do to keep me out. Though obviously the longer I can rummage around without him noticing, the better.

Candle

Thank you so much for your efforts, brother! If you'd said what a fuss Dodgy put up when you caught him, er her, I would have healed you before you left. Well, feel free to come back with Kobold if you like, and I will heal you both of your injuries and take that boy off your hands if need be.

Dodgy is... I've told no one, but I feel... We must have known each other once. I don't know under what circumstances, but I don't feel any instinctive dislike for him. I feel the same as I do for any Anunnaki or sympathetic Igigi or innocent human -pity. Though obviously Dodgy is an enemy, and I have to treat him as such.

S/he was in really bad shape when Candle dropped him off. I hardly needed Jet's help to get him into a cage, though we did break all the bones in his hands so he couldn't pick the locks or anything once we untied him. Still, s/he's almost starved to death. Gotta nurse him... her back to health before we can begin any physical work.

Look, this gender thing is confusing. Just understand when I say him, he's currently in a woman's body, or well a girl. I don't think she was older than fifteen or sixteen.... and he ate her soul. That's sick. That's what Igigi do, not Anunnaki. So black mark against him so far as I'm concerned. >:[

Though there's this niggling little current of pity whenever I look at him.

And he's so obnoxious! o__O I've been feeding him broth and my own energy to help him recover from his near death by starvation. I mean, some of the siblings have suggested I should make him crawl across the floor and slurp from the bowl like a dog, but he's not even strong enough for that, so they can STFU. Still, if he keeps flirting with me, he's going to have to learn to feed himself with his feet because I will heal his fingers all wrong.

Opportunity

I've gotten news that... I'm to expect a very dangerous and unusual "guest." I'm excited and terrified at the same time. I am merely the nearest to his captor's location, but I'm honored that I get first crack at him. At least until he is put in the care of other, more experienced interrogators.

Mercury has told me all this in confidence. No one else will know who he is aside from that he is very dangerous and will be under guard at all time. And because he's well aware of how over protective Liger is, my big unbrotherly shadow is to be sent away on a new mission.

I probably won't get anywhere with the prisoner, but it's nice to be given the chance!

So busy!

Sorry I haven't posted the last few days, but I've had a lot of work to do. I had three Chosen at once, and no one to help me. At least when we'd get so many before, there were two of us to handle the workload. I do sort of have help, but neither Jet nor Delphi have much (any) experience. Delphi, you'd know her as Melissa... she's made such progress! Her mental voice is a bit clumsy and unpredictable, but she'll be a great interrogator some day.

She's completely healed now. Her and Jet have fallen in together like old friends, else I probably wouldn't have included him in our sessions. Who knows but that Jet and Delphi won't end up as hunters instead of interrogators. With her mental abilities, she'll have no trouble identifying Chosen, and Jet's a teleporter and very good at snatch and grab. I'm still working with her to uncover memories of other lives. She has impressions of many wars... the civil war, I think Vietnam, and so many others.

Well, her ultimate job is for Father to decide when he comes back to check on Delphi's progress. There's no telling when that will be, but she has to face his approval eventually and be given his blessing. What that is, is hard to describe, but not everyone walks away from it. We die a little and are reborn, part of our soul taken by Father, mixed with his own energy, and returned to us. A "reaffirmation of our familial ties" as Mercury calls it.

One of the three Chosen, ugh, he turned out to be Igigi, a bad one. I had to hollow him, and unfortunately I'm not very good at filling up the space left behind. So I hollowed him and gave him a few compulsions and normal urges (you know... eat food, go to the bathroom, obey anyone in a mask) before some of my siblings transported him elsewhere. Someone else will decide who he should be and what purpose he will serve. Hollowing always makes me feel... sluggish. Like I just ate a big meal.

Of the other two Chosen, one snapped by the second day and started babbling in ancient Egyptian. That was interesting. That life must have been very close to the surface. He was a Heri-sesheta in that life, a "priest of the secrets" aka a wizard. (hahaha He threatened me when his other life emerged, thinking I was a demon sent by his enemies to torment his sleep.) His talents will be invaluable to the family; magic is just a round about way for humans to manipulate energy. It's something the Anunnaki once did as easily as breathing, but so much of our power was stripped from us when we were imprisoned.

The third, she might end up hollowed too. She's definitely Anunnaki but so stubborn. If she is hollowed, I'll be very disappointed in myself because she's very resourceful. She's escaped three times, and she's only been with us five days. I mean, that's a useful skill. You can't teach that kind of resourcefulness, least not in the space of a few months, which is all the time I'm usually allowed. She hurt someone the last time though, and that can't be allowed. I'm afraid if she gets out again, my siblings just be too irritable to capture her a fourth time.

Early morning visitation

Liger's home... and a little put out by our guest. I can't tell how he feels about my "promotion." I don't think he cares much that Inquisitor is gone, but having Melissa in our apartment is making him irritable. Oh well, I'm not putting her back downstairs. She's not trying to remove her mask, and mostly she's just sleeping while her body heals. Besides, having her there means if he planned to approach me about his *feelings,* she's cramping his style.

Good. I've decided I'm a little angry with him over the whole thing. Pedo much, big brother? I mean, he's never done anything inappropriate, but he pretty much took me out of the cage so he could make a pass at me four years later? No, that's creepy. I don't care if he knew me in another life. I don't have those feelings for him. He should have given me over to Whistler and kept his distance. Then I wouldn't feel like he's been watching and waiting and creeping on me all this time. Eeeew

Liger came on the heels of Father, who paid us a visit early this morning. News of Inquisitor's poor career choice traveled fast, I guess. Father wasn't exactly gentle in getting everyone's understanding of events. Lots of headaches... I've been offering to fix them, but only about half of my siblings have taken me up on it. They're so stubborn. What more do I have to do to convince them that I'm loyal? Father could have killed me if he held me accountable for Inquisitor at all, or taken me to another Interrogator to be broken properly, as I should have been when I first arrived. He did neither. He left everyone in the roles Mercury had given out and left. To find Inquisitor or assign someone else the task, I don't know. But if Father doesn't have a problem with me, why should any one else?

Melissa was in bad shape after Father's visit. She's new enough that his presence is still... very stressful, and having to relive the darkling attack only made things worse. I had to slip in and turn off her fine motor skills as he reviewed the attack so she wouldn't start clawing at herself and reopen her wounds. I think that surprised him. :3 I think he was pleased. o///O

Jet's been hanging around too, which I think is making Liger jealous. I think Jet just wants to be my apprentice even though he's a hunter now. (He chose the name Jet because he's a fast runner.) Liger has stared him down on the few occasions he's come by. I think I'll talk to Mercury about it. Maybe he can send Liger back out where he can work off some of this nervous energy before he hurts someone.

He... ran?

In a million, billion years, I never would have expected Inquisitor to run. He never struck me as sentimental. Either Mr Creepy had his hooks in his brain all along, or Inquisitor was up to more than just feeding us to his former brother.

Inquisitor was the leader of our little group. He relayed orders to us from his own superiors, sent people on missions, and generally just kept us operating smoothly. A real micromanager.

After our little confrontation, I wasn't too surprised when I didn't see him early yesterday, but I wasn't exactly going out of my way to look for him. In fact, I hadn't planned on leaving the apartment at all, except...

Jet came knocking at my door around noon, giggling like a maniac. When he finally calmed down, he said, "Inquisitor did a runnner."

For a few seconds, I thought he meant that Inquisitor killed one and was baffled by his amusement. I mean, it happens. Inquisitor's not the sort to do it in a particularly amusing way, not like some who see death as the ultimate joke and go out of their way to make it ironic.

But then he explained how one of Inquisitor's toadies (Cassia) worked up the courage to knock on his door to get her daily to-do list at sunup. Usually he's already slipped it under her door by the time the sun rises, but he hadn't that morning. Inquisitor didn't answer, but the door popped open. He must not have closed it right when he left. She was curious I guess and poked her head in since he never let anyone in his apartments. There was no sign of him, but the place was trashed like he had a tantrum (which I can believe.) I guess she was a little alarmed because she went in and looked around. There was no sign of him, just the mess.

Well, since no one is ever allowed into his rooms, Cassia had no way of knowing if that's how they normally were. So she went downstairs and saw the darkling was gone too. The real clincher though was when she went down to his workshop and all his tools were gone.

So she went haring up the stairs to tell everyone Inquisitor had gone rogue. Inquisitor's former lackeys all got together to figure out who should be in charge in his absence, and from there, things fell apart pretty quickly because they ALL wanted to be in charge. At which point, everyone but a few of the less politically minded Anunnaki knew Inquisitor was gone. So Jet came looking for me, since he figured I didn't know and wanted to share a good joke.

If Jet expected me to laugh, he was REALLY disappointed, because whatever anyone else might think, Inquisitor running off is not good. It makes us all look bad because he was in charge of us, and the in-fighting among his former suck-ups made us look even worse. So the sooner we got ourselves back onto track, the better. Well, I'd planned on talking to Mercury about Melissa anyway. It seemed like the best time to go look for him.

Mercury is.... difficult. He's old and irritable at the best of times, looking a bit like Franklin Douglas but with piercing eyes so pale brown they're practically orange. His mask has black smears on either side of the mouth that make it look as if he's always scowling, and the smears under his eyes and across the forehead only enhance that. He doesn't speak, least not with his mouth. We didn't always communicate with sound, he says, so he refuses to use our "slave language." Considering he WAS a slave prior to the Civil War, he's got more reason to be outraged than most.

He's got a really strong mental voice, which is why I had planned to talk to him about Melissa. She's going to need him to teach her how to speak so others will hear her. Least that's why her sister and her were brought in, telepathy; so she had that in her favor.

I figured no one told Mercury what was going on either, since everyone tends to avoid him because they're not comfortable with his voice in their heads. Which means they resist hearing him so he has to shout. Meh, I can see where he's coming from, and it's not like Father makes noises like an animal either. So I went looking for him, hoping Inquisitor hadn't sent him away on a mission like Liger. If Liger had been home, all the squabbling would have been over in a second. He would have smacked some heads together, assigned someone to be in charge, and that would have been the end of it.

Turns out I didn't have to tell him what was going on, and I should have realized he would just know. Unless it's shielded, he hears every stray thought within a couple blocks of the building. His gut reaction was to let the "children" fight, but he conceded my point about how it would make us look if Father came or he had to send someone to restore order. So he shouted for everyone to "shut the hell up" and told them he was in charge until further notice. Then he assigned everyone duties, more or less what they had been before Inquisitor bailed on us except he told Inquisitor's old lackeys to clean up his apartment. Then he told everyone I was the new Interrogator, second to him in terms of leadership, and that was that.

I am not comfortable with this change. I don't feel qualified, and there's lots of siblings who are going to resent me because I'm not an elder and haven't remembered any of my past lives. I hope when Mercury gets in touch with his superiors, they send someone better qualified than me.

Pride

I spoke, and Inquisitor listened. I never spoke to him like that before, in anger... in command. I told him I was keeping Melissa with me in no uncertain terms. I made Jet give testimony as to how she was when he helped me carry her to my room.

And I told him to get rid of the darkling, or I would call Father and tell him of the two Chosen it killed and the third Initiate we almost lost because of Inquisitor's pride.

When I was done, he turned and walked away without a word. Maybe if almost everyone hadn't been gathered in the hall, morbidly curious or as witnesses, he might have attacked me or taken the girl. But I knew I was right and he knew it, and even if something happens to me, all of our siblings knew it too. Word will reach Father about what happened here. Rumors spread.

Inquisitor will be punished for his pride, even if I do not speak against him. Hopefully he will do something about his former brother and his punishment will be reduced. Inquisitor has his faults, but he has done good work as well.

Father will hear...

I am so mad... soso furious.

Inquisitor needs to get rid of that darkling NOW. That thing needs to die. I- I'll tell father if he doesn't.

Melissa is hurt. She may never speak again. I'm keeping her in our apartment. She is NOT going back to her cage.

Mr Creepy doesn't seem to want to escape, since he had every opportunity to do so when he got Melissa to let him out. Instead, he made her get a piece of broken metal from somewhere and cut open her own throat, completely destroying her larynx. Her clothes were neatly folded and placed a few feet away, spotless.

When he was sure she couldn't scream, he made her mutilate herself. She was very nearly dead when I came down with her breakfast, and he.... He was standing over her, hands on his knees, grinning as he watched her gut herself.

When he heard the tray drop, he sauntered back to his cage and pulled it shut behind him. He cackled as I rushed to where Melissa lay and threw himself into his chair to watch as I tried to keep her alive. The damage was extensive, not like when we torture. His intent had been to cause as much damage as possible in addition to pain.

I felt him then, psychically leaning over us, feeding on her pain and terror, my frustration and fury. No wonder Inquisitor never had me bring any food for his "pet." The thing is an energy vampire. It feeds on emotion with a preference for the negative. Anytime we had a torture session, he was probably glutting himself. Lisa had probably been an all you can eat buffet for him. Even my rage as I dragged Melissa to the door and pulled her into the stairwell was a treat for him.

I called for help, and Jet helped me carry her up after I swore I'd take any punishment Inquisitor decided to dish out. Well, I don't care. I'm right, and he's wrong, and Father will not be happy about him keeping a darkling and letting it feed on his children.

I've only just managed to stabilize Melissa, but there's not much left of her larynx. And the edges of the wound are seared. He burned her, like he did the others, but kept her alive to dine at his leisure. Maybe he developed a taste for her over the last few weeks. I don't think I'll be able to reconstruct her voice box. Her other injuries require more attention and by the time I get to it... It may already have begun to heal.

I'm just resting and... and purging some of this rage by writing this. I don't want to feed that Thing anything else. I have no idea how far it can reach, but if some of the more recent petty quarrels are any indication, it's been feeding on all of...

Pounding on the door. I think Inquisitor is back. I'll be back later.

Watching

Melissa gave up her name today. She wears a blank mask now. We'll keep her in the cage for a while longer, until she's used to wearing it. Inquisitor still has to punish her once in a while for taking it off, but mostly he's been making inroads into her mind, turning over her memories like rocks to see if any memories scurry to older places.

I'm not allowed to go into her mind alone... I'm not skilled enough. I might erase something important or not see clue to what she was. So I stand and watch and learn from Inquisitor.

It's very boring.