Original Sin

Appeasement (Chapter 5)

Anger boils. Inside the confines of Alex's mind, it rolls like thunder, twisting and turning and writhing. Occasionally, it forms claws to dig into his head, trying to pull itself to the fore and take control again, but it couldn't. Hadn't been able to for several months. Not like it used to.
Something is changing. It knows that much, but not what. Or why.
Or who.
But there was a who; someone or something it needed to remember, but doesn't. A feeling.
A voice.
Once, Anger and it's brethren had held sway over the Spirit Realm. But what is it that it has forgotten? What is it that could be a threat?
Not this other spirit. This weak and flimsy guise. Anger could find it. It would find it. And when it did...
Bloodshed.

Alex listens in on Anger's silence. It's thoughts - or the closest thing Anger had to thoughts - had been visible to him for a while now. He isn't sure why.
They've returned to the street where they first felt the other spirit's presence. It isn't here now, but a little residue of it lingers in the air. They want to track it from there.
"Why didn't we use some of these powers back when the Seven Sins were still around?" Alex asks his passenger.
I didn't know I could.
Alex keeps searching, but doesn't let that statement slide. "Are there other powers you don't know about?"
Maybe. We should unlock them together, and then kill everything.
Alex sighs, and maintains his work.
"Do you think the other spirits had powers that they too didn't know about?"
I doubt it.
"But if you do, doesn't that mean they could have as well?"
Anger snarls, pauses, and snarls again.
Possibly.
Sirens suddenly rend the air; Alex whirls, as a police car speeds past. Good. They aren't looking for him.
Follow it.
"Why?"
Anger pulls for control again, and Alex knows he has to do it.
The car pulls up not too far away, in front of the same alleyway they killed in on Halloween. Something makes Alex shiver, although it isn't that cold out.
Be on guard.
"Excuse me," an officer states, approaching Alex. He peers around the man in uniform, to observe the sight behind him - yellow police tape, being stretched out by two other policemen.
"You can't be here," the officer says, trying to push Alex away from the area, "this is a crime scene-"
Alex draws Anger's power through his eyes, and stares into the officer's blue irises. He pulls the right strings in the man's mind, and the uniformed official collapses, unconscious.
The other two policemen notice their comrade fall, and advance towards Alex, wary.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
One of them asks.
Alex turns the same power on them, making then unconscious before they even hit the ground. No-one else is around to notice. He thinks back to the dog in the forest one year ago. Some things never change.
You should kill them.
Alex ignores the thought, and pushes under the yellow tape, into the alley.
The same woman from two nights ago lies there, her lips open in a silent scream. She lies on her back with her guts spilling out.
The gore and the violence aren't what makes Alex shiver this time. He's seen and caused scenes like this before, many times now. It's the fact he has seen this before.
The same woman.
The same messy arrangements of limbs.
The same injury.
It's like Tom, one year ago, before he became Pride's holder. Exactly like that.
Anger snarls. We have a copycat.
Despite himself, Alex smiles. "No. We have an admirer."
The spirit.
Alex sighs. Yes, the other spirit probably is involved.
"We'll find it. Don't worry. It just seems like a lot of hassle to get our attention. The other spirits attacked the second we laid eyes on each other. Why isn't this one?"
Anger hisses again.
Alex ignores it, and check the body more closely. There is the faintest, final warmth in the cold flesh.
"How old is this?" Alex asks.
Not very.
"Can we trace the other spirit?"
Perhaps-
Anger is cut off by a sudden increase is power. The air pressure seems to rocket up, thumping in his ears like a heartbeat, and Alex stumbles, barely keeping on his feet.
It's just like Sloth, he realises.
Anger screeches, and unleashes responding pulses, louder and more threatening than the ones bombarding them. In response, the assaulting spirit signals wane, and then drop into nothingness.
Alex shakes his head once to clear the black spots in his vision. "What was that?"
An old method we used to communicate with, Anger explains.
A spirit does not speak English. Your brain translates our language into one you can understand. To communicate directly, however, we use those pulses. Increasing their strength can repurpose them as weapons, but they can be negated by counter pulses.
"Why would they attack us like that, then?"
That wasn't an attack.
Alex frowns. "It wasn't?"
The spirit was telling us where we need to go. I know where it is.