Bloodbath

Zane blinked open his eyes and stared up at the ceiling of the basement. He could feel the warm, sticky blood clinging to his skin, and it pooled on the altar beneath him. He groaned as he moved his arms and swallowed back the blood rising in his throat.

‘Glad to see you’re finally awake,’ Merrin said as he leant over Zane to brush a stray hair from his forehead.

Zane hummed in response and flexed his fingers. The ceiling looked like it was spinning above him, and it made Zane’s stomach lurch as he tried everything he could think of to not throw up. Merrin brushed his fingers through Zane’s hair but didn’t say anything else. 

The heart that was beating in his chest was irregular and each pulse caused more blood to leak from the narrow wounds that crossed his chest. He felt breathless as he tried to gulp back air, but each breath he took gargled with the whatever blood pooled inside his bruised lungs.

‘Careful,’ Merrin soothed him with a firm hand pressed over Zane’s heart. 

‘I can’t,’ Zane gasped and looked over at Merrin with pleading eyes. ‘Merry.’

‘Yes you can,’ Merrin assured him and rubbed a firm line up his chest. ‘It’s just like every other time.’

As he did, Zane felt the loose blood in his body seep out through every open incision that Merrin hadn’t quite finished patching up yet. His lungs still crackled as he breathed, but his heartbeat began to beat more consistently.

‘There we go.’ Merrin smiled down at him.

Zane closed his eyes again as the flickering candlelight had begun to bore into his brain. He focused on getting his breath back and took long, deep breaths to just restart his body once again. His ribs creaked and groaned with each breath he forced into his tired body, and Zane let Merrin help to press some of the blood through any available crack.

Merrin pushed down over Zane’s heart, and Zane felt a strong stream of blood squirt from what must have been the unattached carotid artery into the empty cavity on his chest.  

‘Rin,’ Zane said weakly.

‘Yeah?’ Merrin said as he wiped the trail of blood that trickled from Zane’s mouth.

‘The heart’s not in properly.’

‘I know.’

‘Why not?’ Zane asked just before he choked up a mouthful of blood.

‘It’s not compatible,” Merrin sighed.

‘But why?’

Merrin wiped the blood from Zane’s face with a damp cloth and sighed.

‘I don’t know, but I’ll fix it. I always do.’ 

Zane opened his eyes and closed his fingers over Merrin’s hand. He knew he was trembling, and he probably looked even worse than he felt, but he didn’t care as long as Merrin was with him.

‘I know you will,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Can I move?’

‘Yeah.’ Merrin shrugged. ‘Only two of the bits aren’t attached. One that goes to the body and one that goes to the heart. You should be fine, but I might need to find a way to either drain some of the blood or loop it back into the heart just in case.’

Zane was fairly sure that hearts didn’t work like that, and neither did the rest of his physical body, but he knew better than to question Merrin. He might not have known the correct terms for everything, but he definitely knew how Zane’s body worked better than Zane himself knew. 

‘Okay,’ Zane sighed. ‘Can I wash the blood off yet?’

‘Yeah. Do you need help?’

‘Yes please.’

Merrin slid an arm underneath Zane’s back and kept the other wrapped around Zane’s front and carefully sat him up. For how rough Merrin could be at times, he always treated Zane as though he was made of glass, and Zane couldn’t blame him in the slightest.

Every move made Zane’s organs jostle around inside of him and he gagged at the stomach acid rising in his throat. 

‘Stop,’ Zane stammered when Merrin tried to move him towards the edge of the altar. 

‘Why? What’s wrong?’ Merrin asked and looked at Zane in muted worry.

Zane was used to the feeling of his organs not quite being in the right place, and he was used to the way it felt to have loose blood just inside him at any given time. It was just some of the things that happened when he had to be put back together again and again, and he’d come to terms with that a long time ago. But what he wasn’t used to was the sudden rush of blood draining from his head.

He would’ve like to say that he tried to stop himself getting even more blood on the floor than was already there, but as he leant his head forwards to let the blood stream from his nose, he was flooded with the overwhelming feeling of nausea. It wasn’t even a second later before he threw up the mix of blood and bile all over the floor. 

Merrin kept an arm across Zane’s collarbone to keep him upright, and made sure to brush any stray hairs out of the way as he spat out any residual bile.

‘Ow,’ Zane whimpered and pressed his head into Merrin’s shoulder.

‘It’s gonna be okay,’ Merrin whispered softly. ‘You’re gonna be okay.’

Zane didn’t respond, but he let Merrin rub circles into his blood-stained skin and mutter reassurances into his matted hair. 

He didn’t remember the rituals ever feeling this bad before, but then again he barely remembered any of the rituals in the first place. All he knew is that he’d collapse one day, and wake up covered in blood on the altar not even a day later. 

Each time Merrin would be standing over him with blood-soaked clothes and a tired smile. His skin would be paler than even Zane’s was, and his blue eyes looked as though he was miles away from anything and everyone. But it didn’t seem to matter to him.

Merrin would always work on patching Zane up and helping him clean the blood off afterwards, even if it looked like he was seconds away from collapsing. All magic had a price, Zane supposed, and Merrin’s gaunt nature the following days was just that. There was a reason any sort of blood magic was banned, but Merrin didn’t care about such petty laws, especially when that magic was the only way he could keep Zane alive, not that some would even call him that.

But Merrin didn’t seem as bad this time, as proven by the fact that not only was he standing, but he was also willing to take Zane’s full weight. Zane didn’t know the ins and outs of blood magic, or even what happened when he was unconscious. He’d never asked Merrin about it and Merrin had never told him, so Zane was almost certain that he didn’t want to know.

‘Think you can move without puking your guts up on the floor?’ Merrin asked in a quiet whisper. 

Zane didn’t miss the slight tone of poorly hidden mockery, but he could barely even hold himself up with Merrin’s help, so it wasn’t as if he was in any position to fight the silent accusation.

‘You move me,’ Zane mumbled into Merrin’s shoulder.

‘Alright,’ Merrin said, moving the arm that was across Zane’s collarbone to the crook of Zane’s knee. 

Zane tried to make it as easy as possible for Merrin to carry him, but he wasn’t exactly in any position to actually move himself. Instead he just let his body go entirely limp, and let Merrin deal with him however he deemed fit.

Apparently that was a mistake. 

Merrin’s sense of empathy only went so far with Zane, and it seemed to run out just as Merrin brought Zane over to the stone pool they used to clean both of them up after any sort of ritual.

The pool was big enough to easily fit multiple people in, and the water was usually kept warm by a heating system Zane had put into place. The cold water would enter from the large barrel in the garden above, and would then pass through a series of metal pipes until it reached the heating pod. The pod was nothing more than a small furnace that would heat the metal pipes and consequently the water inside of them. Once heated, the water would flow from the pipes and fall into the stone pool. A simple valve turned this heated water on and off, so it was easy to make sure the water would be warm.

Usually Merrin would make sure that the water was heated and sufficiently cooled down before he even thought about putting Zane into it, but of course that was asking for too much.

The water that Zane was placed into may as well have been from the frozen sea itself, and in fact it would have been a more therapeutic experience if it had been. The chill immediately seeped through Zane’s blood-soaked skin and straight to his muscles.

Zane gasped in shock and tried to push himself out of the water, but he could barely move a muscle.

‘Sorry,’ Merrin said quickly and made sure that Zane was leaning against the side before letting go of him. He propped Zane up as though he was a doll and even went so far as to move Zane’s legs so that he couldn’t fall over. ‘I forgot it wasn’t heated.’

He quickly stood back up and rushed over to the valve on the wall. Merrin turned it until the pipes began to creak and small amounts of water dripped from the gap in the ceiling. But Merrin didn’t wait for the water to warm Zane up, instead he kneeled down on the edge of the stone and wrapped himself around Zane’s shivering body. 

Merrin wasn’t the warmest of people, but compared to Zane pretty much anyone could be considered warm. It was just another thing that came from the countless rituals and strange life he lived.

The water gradually began to heat up, and as it did the blood on Zane’s skin began to wash off on its own. The clear water began to grow redder and redder, and Zane sank further into the much welcome heat.

‘I need to grab a few things from upstairs,’ Merrin said as he pushed himself away from Zane. ‘Will you be alright on your own for a couple minutes?’

Zane didn’t really care how long Merrin took. The warm water felt like some sort of divine blessing despite the fact that nothing about this was holy.

‘Yeah,’ Zane sighed and tilted his head back against the stone.

‘Good.’ Merrin placed a soft kiss on Zane’s temple before he stood up. ‘Please don’t drown, I don’t have another set of working lungs yet.’

‘I won’t.’

Merrin gave a non-committal humm in response and walked out of the altar room. The door to the basement swung shut and rattled in the doorframe when Merrin left.

Zane could feel the water seeping into the cracks of his skin, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care that much. If he had to lie on his front later until all of the water had drained out then so be it, it wasn’t like he had any other plans for the day. Or was it night? 

That was another issue with the rituals. Zane didn’t know what time of day it was when he collapsed, and he definitely didn’t know how long he’d be unconscious for. All he knew was that whatever day it was, he definitely wasn’t going into work. Madame Rosevin could deal with the customers herself, and if she wanted to complain, then she could complain to Merrin.

Once the water was finally warm enough that Zane thought it would actually make a difference to the blood that had matted into his hair, he pushed himself up and crawled over to where the small waterfall of water was coming out of the ceiling. 

The water rained down on his head, and Zane sat cross-legged beneath the flow as he scrubbed his hair. He could feel the rest of the blood on his body begin to crack as he moved, but it was so thick in some places that all it did was smear as the water trickled over his body. 

As he scrubbed the blood from his hair, it only made the staining on his skin worse as the watered-down blood streamed from his soaked hair and down his body. It left trails through the unwashed patches of skin and Zane felt as though no amount of scrubbing was ever going to get him clean. 

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back into the water as far as he dared to go. The water ran down his face, and he took quick, shallow breaths as he tried to wash his face. He didn’t know if he’d even done anything, but pulled his head back out and let the water hit his back instead.

Zane didn’t like water, and he liked it even less on his face. But rinsing the blood off of himself was necessary, and the warmth made it bearable at least. 

The basement door opened and he heard the jostling of glass as Merrin entered the altar room. Zane looked up at him to see his arms full of various jars of shining liquids and several cloths and towels.

Merrin put them down on the side of the pool and twisted one of the jars open.

‘Come here,’ Merrin said as he rolled up his sleeves.

Zane did as he was told and moved to the edge of the pool. The water had turned a deep shade of red, and it only continued to grow darker the longer Zane sat in it.

‘What are these?’ Zane asked and pointed to the jars.

He could feel the water sloshing around near his heart, and he could feel the water begin to trickle out through the gaps in his stitches.

‘Something to help fix you up a bit more,’ Merrin explained, dipping one of the rags into a pot of shining blue liquid.

‘How?’ 

Merrin shrugged and ran a finger across the stitches on Zane’s chest. ‘But first, we need to remove these.’ 

‘Should I even be awake for that?’

‘Probably not.’ Merrin smiled and ran his fingers through Zane’s hair. ‘I’ll grab something to numb it, though.’

Merrin stood up and went to rifle through the pots on the shelves, and Zane leant himself across the stones and ran his fingers across the various bumps and grooves that had been worn into the pool over time. 

Bloodied water pooled beneath his arms and dripped out onto the floor, but Zane couldn’t find it in himself to care.

It only took Merrin a minute to find the tiny box of pearls. They were a small but powerful numbing agent that seemed to be the only things that worked on Zane without literally killing him, much to Merrin’s dismay. The pearls could be found in some of the oysters that were around Aedria, but they had a tendency to only live in the tiny caves in the cliff sides. More specifically, the caves that could only be reached via a small fishing boat or by climbing down the cliffs. Not that Merrin enjoyed either of those things anyway.

Merrin popped open the box and took out one of the pearls. He held it between his fingers and waited for Zane to open his mouth. Once he did, he placed the pearl on Zane’s tongue and watched as Zane swallowed the pearl.

‘Come on,’ Merrin said. ‘Let’s fix you up.’

Zane sighed but pushed himself up so that Merrin could get to his chest and prayed to whatever god Merrin worshipped that the strange glistening liquids actually did something.