let our blood in vain

There’s blood on his knuckles, red on white. There’s a vicious thrill running through his body like an electric shock —there’s a fever heat chasing over the skin beneath the ceremonial armor, and despite everything Arthur feels as good as naked, naked and washed clean. Blood cooling on his skin, and the dull throb of arousal making everything tight and uneasy — making everything awkward when it should be smooth and efficient by now, each night as familiar as the last.

Goddamn art theft. Nobody’s supposed to be out there cracking heads over a couple canvases. Why do people insist on doing all this shit at night? Why are they always so dead-set on taking hostages? Somewhere an alarm is going off.

Slit through the tape on the security guards’ arms and eyes; check for wounds and turn them loose. Stoned college kids with radios instead of guns. If he’d been faster, they’d never even have been tied up. Not too slow to beat the perpetrators into a bloody mess, truss them up for the cops. Up on the roof, the cold night air can’t reach him. Arthur Harrow communes with his god.

”My Fist of Vengeance. My favorite weapon.” Khonshu’s voice in his head, rushing over him like a breath of nicotine: approval, indulgence, relief. He’s already kneeling, but the phantom touch of his god is enough to bow his head lower — the scrape of talons or else sharp bone fingertips teasing at the back of his neck.

Arthur wears his hair short now, buzzed close on the sides and barely any longer on the top. He can’t even plead that it’s harder to grab a handful of, or that it’s easier to look presentable that way he hasn’t looked presentable in a long time. He does because that’s the way Khonshu seems to like it — who knows why the god likes anything? Maybe it strikes a chord somewhere, some pleasing reminder of a time gone by when Khonshu had a legion of shaven-headed priests, a hundred stewards in service to an image kept polished and gleaming in a smoke-filled shrine. Phantom fingers against Harrow’s scalp, the soft palm of a privileged hand cupping the back of his skull.

It would be easier if Harrow didn’t want it so much — if he didn’t need that voice inside his head telling him where to go and what to do. He doesn’t even need telling any more; the old bird has already told him plenty, every night it’s a matter of remembering what he’s not supposed to do. Always staying three steps ahead, and yet it’s never far ahead enough to save the kid, prevent the crime. Maybe one day he’ll be quick enough, hit hard enough. Maybe Khonshu doesn’t want him to.

When he gets himself off in the shower later, he shuts his eyes and lets the water roll over him. He lets the shower stream track runnels down his back and he tries to banish the memory of touch.