The knife came down on Dion's skull.

And then he woke up gasping. His face was flushed and all across his body was the feverish heat of his strained sleep. HIs muscles felt cramped. Looking down he could see the point where he had been cut, a small scar now on his thigh. It was still difficult to move the leg, it could barely move at all. Bending it any way left him with a numbing ache. Nothing that particularly shot pain up his nerves, but that left him slow and annoyed and tired to even move. He turned his body around from the wall, day had only lit up the sewers slightly. Above, the droplets of water were hitting him against the face. He felt the dirty water streak down to his chest.

"Well, that would do it," He stood. Four bones popped; his hip, his ankle, and both knees. He looked around himself to the light that bent around the narrow tunnels. They were sparse within the thicket of darkness.

"Where do I go now?" He asked. He tried to look into his pockets for a cell phone he only remembered he didn't have. He found something much worse, or rather, could not find something. One of his guns was missing, possibly lost in the fight the previous night.

He tried his coat. He stuck his hand into the arcana symbol but could not feel anything but ammunition in the caverns of his pocket dimension. So that was it then, with his singular gun now gunked with shit. The smell was repulsive, it was like he was barely becoming conscious to it or perhaps, it was only in security that he could finally be conscious of it.

He walked in a straight line. Hopped, really. One hand to the wall, one leg bearing most of his weight. He walked until he saw a fragment of light from a little hole above and then he climbed. He chased after the light. Up, removing the manhole and finally...breathing...

It was donuts? Hotdogs and plenty of gasoline. A truck stop.

The snacks were glistening from the window inside.

His stomach grumbled, but he had no wallet.

"Well god damn, a rabbit out his damn hole." A trucker screamed, his head outside the window. He lifted the brown hat from his head to wipe the sweat from his forehead. His hands were dirty, oil, which smudged against his tanned skin. He was a dirty man, though not as dirty as Dion. His truck hauled to a stop, and he came out smiling, and Dion noticed one of his front teeth was missing. His tongue was sticking out from between the gap.

Everything around him smelled of oil and the scent only got stronger as he dragged himself out the manhole.

“I need help.”

"Yeah you do,” He said. “You a tweaker? I ain’t go cash for tweakers,”

It was the first time in sunlight and the first time today that he could finally look at himself. His arms were brown and green and yellow. His face felt caked.

"Do you know where we are?" Dion asked?

"Edge o’ town." He said. "About fifteen miles off the casino. Which...I figure would be the center,"

"I'm too far then," Dion’s legs slithered out like the tail end of a snake. His pants were tattered and what wasn’t, reeked and had spots of brown and green and yellow and sometimes, red.

"This yer fetish or something?" The trucker asked. "Shit-divin'?"

He looked up, his eyes strained into a glare. He felt goop slide down his cheek.

"No,” Dion said. “I had an accident at work."

"Yeah, and I'm the mayor Tallahassee." He laughed. "Listen if you're going deep sea shit-diving, you shouldn't wear a business suit. Or come out spookin’ strangers,"

He drunk from a big straw from his big cup, that was much too large for his grip and whose loose hold made Dion anxious to even watch. The condensed water dripped down his hand.

"If you’d be so kind, I’d like some quarters."

"I don't give no money to no tweakers. Or perverts.”

"I'm not a tweaker and my perversions -” Dion stopped. Guilt stopped him, really. “My perversions are private.”

"If you want, I can call the cops." He suck out the straw, it made a noise so abhorrent to his ears he couldn’t help but frown. This fat trucker, with the Superman blue and red shirt too small to cover his pot belly and the jeans too long for his stocky legs. They were ripped at the bottom where they caught with his boots.

"Listen, buddy," Dion stepped up to him. He wasn't sure what made the trucker move back, the intimidation of his shit-caked glare or the smell. "I've been through a lot, and I would greatly appreciate some quarters, just three."

A truck screeched behind them. The horn and noise so massive, Dion could feel his body vibrate.;

"Just three. Three isn’t a big deal, right?" Dion said.

"Sure, sure, just get the hell away from me." The trucker said. Dion extended his hand. He threw the quarters onto the floor. "I ain't touching you either, dirty pervert."

He picked them. Bending over sent pain in his lower back like a needle stab. He fell on his knees, his breath collapsing to gasps, his lung strained into a burning sensation. He coughed twice. On the second cough, he spat out bloody mucus.

"Thanks a lot," Dion wheezed. He paused and looked up to the sun. With one breath he straightened his jacket, with another deep breath he heaved his body upwards. He yelped when he stood upright. His knees felt broken. People gave him, their eyes glaring mostly. Suspicious, worried.

Dion walked over to the payphone by the edge of the street (if you could call it a highway, it looked more like a dirt road). Cars passed him, there was no glass for privacy. The payphone was pinned onto a power line pole. Every now and then, a fool or a young man (which are the same thing) would honk at him, scream a profanity, and drive by slick and sharp with words.

Mudman. He heard the nickname twice.

He was too tired to care. Too humbled to fight back.

"Apollo," The phone rang. "Apollo."

"What?" The intercom responded. Dion sighed, relieved almost to tears.

"You have no idea. Oh my god! Lord forgive me for taking His name in vain, You have no idea-"

"Where have you been?" Apollo asked. "I’m guessing you’re desperate if you’re calling me, so much for leaving on a high note,"

"I got in some trouble."

"I knew it. You always find a way to fuck things up. You can’t even leave me correctly.

Dion sighed and let him continue.

“You left crying like an infant, you’ve come back crying like an infant.”

"Listen, I'm doing real bad, Apollo. Real bad."

"What? Why?" Apollo asked.

"I met Floyd,"

"Oh," Apollo’s voice went low as if his body had been dropped into a deep well. At one moment loud, at the other dissipating. He went quiet until all Dion could hear was the short breaths he took. Then, with even more time, it sounded like Apollo wasn’t even breathing.

"We had a scrap outside some shitty motel. Doesn’t even matter now, both of us left the area.” He tried to recount. With the memory of the event came the memory of pain, of loss. He closed his eyes and struggled to speak.

“I lost one of my pistols," Dion cracked. "He got away. So did I. But I know he’s coming back, he wants to finish me. And he doesn’t seem reasonable at all, as if he’s not even human anymore. He looks like a demon -"

"I can't help you."

"What?" Dion screamed. He looked around for people wandering the streets, he was getting more stares. He leaned into the phone, close to the wooden pole.

"What?" He whispered.

"Listen," Apollo sighed. "Aenea got sick. Well, it’s hard to call it a sickness, really,"

"So get her some chicken soup, this guy is literally chasing my rooftop from rooftop. He looks like a damn panther," Once again he looked around. An old woman in a wheelchair scorned at him.

"Sorry,"

"For what?"

"Nevermind that,," Dion said. "Floyd isn’t human anymore. He’s not even rational, he’s dangerous like you wouldn’t believe it."

"No, I believe you," Apollo said. "But what I think is that you don’t understand how sick Aenea really is. I've had to change her sheets. She keeps wetting the bed. Sweat, urine, blood. Vomit everywhere. I don’t know how she’s alive."

"What? I thought she just had a cold. Take her to the doctor then,"

"It’s not a disease," Apollo said. “It’s her curse. Mammon’s curse. Only she can help herself now, lord know how that’ll manifest.

"A curse," Dion said. "I think I get it. Oh, no,"

"Yes, Oh, no," Apollo said. "She can barely talk or function. And right now would be the best time to kill her. So I have to be here, period. That’s just the way it is. If she dies, then we go no leverage with the Hospitallers. And if we get no leverage…”

“Our heads come off,” Dion exhaled loudly. He looked at the floor and stomped on cracks. “I get it. Right,”

"I mean, I wish I could just let her die and kill these freaks-"

"Alright, I said I get it," Dion said. "What can I do then? Do you have any ideas?"

"Well, how'd he find you?"

"I don't know. It was a sneak attack."

"Where were you?"

He felt his cheeks light up.

"T-that isn't important," He said. "I was tailed. I think he was stalking me."

"Is that your guess?"

"I mean, what else could he have done? If he knew where we were exactly, he would have gone straight for Aenea. But he targeted me,"

"Maybe he does know where we're at. Maybe he wants you because you're the one that put the bullet in Jezebel's head.” Dion said. “You did say he was irrational, right? It’s common for the insane to use someone or something as the shrine of all their pain and suffering. He’s transferred and projected everything bad in his life onto you,”

"So he’s obsessed," Dion said.

“He’s obsessed with his idea of what you are, not the reality. For you are more than Jezebel’s killer. You’re also the orchestrator of all his misery throughout his life,”

“Well then, he’s had a lot of misery considering how crazy he was acting,”

“You can use that,” Apollo said. “He’s going to hunt you down. Maybe you shouldn’t worry about finding him at all, just worry about how you’re going to beat him.”

"I don’t like admitting this,” Dion said. “But he outmatched me pretty easily. He’s got like…crystals and stuff. Harder than diamond. It’s ridiculous.”

“I wish I knew what you were talking about, really do, but I don’t want to give you advice when I’m as ignorant as I am about the enemy,”

“So who can help me?”

Apollo paused.

“Thaddeus,” Apollo said.

“He can’t fight,” Dion shouted. “He’s an egg-head. All he does is numbers and stuff,”

“He also does armory and stuff,” A slew of coughs were heard in the background of Apollo’s end. They sound clogged, almost as if the person coughing was drowning or suffocating. “He might have a spare gun and some ideas.”

“Gosh darn it,” Dion tapped his forehead against the post. “Alright, tell me where he’s at,”

“Alright,” Apollo said. “And be a little sensitive with him…”

“Why?”

“He’s been scared since the whole Blackwater incident,”

“Huh?”