It took all of Kiyoshi’s willpower to attend his sister’s execution. It took him a full hour to transverse the five stories of stairs each way. Back at the tenement, he curled up in a fetal position and couldn’t stop crying. The hole in his soul once filled by his sister’s love was ever so vacant, and her absolute loss left Kiyoshi desperate and miserable.

They had run out of money days before payday, and he had been without morphia for over thirty hours now. It was the worst nausea he’d ever felt, but he couldn’t vomit. He stuck his finger down his throat and gagged, but nothing came up. When he closed his eyes, he saw only violence, images of himself being tortured, of his sister swinging by her neck, of his fingers gouging out Tristan Rue’s eyes. When he opened his eyes, his head was spinning like a rolling marble, and he could see shadowy figures darting back and forth in his peripheral vision.

Dorch had pushed Maemi’s bed up against Kiyoshi’s. He was lying beside his lover, writing, with his finger, “I love you” over and over again on Kiyoshi’s back.

Michie was busy at the coroners, reclaiming Maemi’s body, and the flat was quiet except for the scratching doves overhead.

The knock on the door startled Dorch. He was surprised to find his father standing on the other side of the wood. He said, “Father. Unless you’ve come to apologize, it’s not a good time.”

Lux Smith said, “I have come to apologize. I’m sorry. I’d like to speak with Kiyoshi.”

“No way.”

“I’ve got something for him.” Lux Smith held out a bottle of morphia. “May I come in?”

“Okay.”

Dorch gently shook Kiyoshi. “Wake up,” he said, as if Kiyoshi was sleeping rather than fighting with his mind. “You’ve company.”

Kiyoshi opened his eyes. All he could see was the bottle being held out in front of him. He whispered, “Thank you. Really, so much.” He wept tears of joy for the drug, stealing them away from his fallen sister.

Lux Smith said, “Fix him, but not too well. I need to speak with him.”

Dorch took care of Kiyoshi just like Michie had taught him. Due to repeated injections, the veins in Kiyoshi’s arms had collapsed, and Dorch was forced to shoot him up his feet.

Kiyoshi fell into the drugs sweet embrace. Relief washed over him, numbing his mind as surely as his limbs. He had yearned so desperately for this. Now, once he’d had his fix, all he could do was dread the moment it would start to wear off again.

Lux Smith said, “I pulled a few strings with the PPL, and I’ve gotten you and Dorch in as Neophytes at the Highlands Brotherhood. It’s a very nice monastery. I think you two will be happy there.”

Kiyoshi growled, “No thank you. I hate God.”

“How long do you intend on sustaining yourself on soup and junk? Already, you are malnourished. Your veins are collapsing. Soon, you will die.”

Kiyoshi said in a resigned whisper, “I can’t live like this.”

“There is another way. The PPL can teach you to subdue the pain without drugs, to subsist off the very either without any other sustenance.”

“Why me? I’m nothing. Just a piece of trash that somehow became a junky.”

“To obtain the supreme ritual grade of the PPL, the adept must survive several trials. In one such trial, the adept must endure a ritual of genital mutilation, a struggle for domination between will and ego. In another, he must undergo a ritual of death, where-in his flesh dies and is resurrected by his own will. You have already survived these two trials. If you join the PPL, you will rise quickly through the ranks and become an Avatar, a god in the flesh, Kiyoshi.”

“I don’t know –“

“You’ve been lying here, day after day, so sick and helpless, wanting nothing more than revenge on Tristan Rue, but powerless to obtain it. The PPL can teach you that power. The PPL thinks you have great potential. Will you join us?”