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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX MIKEY

Mikey awoke with a shriek, panting madly, fur on end, eyes bulging.

Gasping for breath, he gripped the sheets so tightly he thought he'd rip holes in them, sitting up straight in bed so he could stare into the darkness, reassuring himself he was alone in the bedroom. A drop of spittle fell from his tongue to the bedspread, which was, along with the blankets and sheets, torn partway from the bed in evidence that his rest had been troubled and restless.

Thankfully Joey had to work tonight, otherwise....well; it wasn't like he hadn't seen Mikey like this before. He'd told the dog it was just a condition, never repeating what he'd seen, or mentioning how frequent these nightmares seemed to be anymore.

He couldn't forget their faces.

It was always the same dream. All the people he loved - Mom, Dad, Bradly and Francesca, Amy, and Brett, all together, all dripping blood from gaping wounds and open muzzles. The red flood ran from between their teeth and poured out of the holes in their bodies, everywhere, because in the dream they were always naked. Brett was even worse than the others, because he had a gaping hole where his manhood should have been, and because his beautiful husky tail was gone.

The dream always began the same. Mikey would come into a room and find all of them there together, smiling at him, and then, their smiles would melt as one by one, each opened their muzzle in a silent scream as blood began to spurt from holes that appeared in their bodies, as Brett bemoaned his lost maleness and Mikey's parents choked on their own blood. Mikey would run to them, horrified. The person he'd try to help varied by the dream, but it was always the same, he would try to stop the bleeding, but it was too late, too late, and his family would claw at him with outstretched paws, imploring him to end their misery. Brett never actually spoke, but his blue eyes would be glaring at Mikey reproachfully, as if Mikey were somehow responsible for his lack of masculinity.

Still panting, Mikey slid out of bed and padded into the bathroom. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. His fur looked messy and unkempt, eyes bloodshot. I'm going to seed, he thought, but maybe that wasn't true. He'd shined up pretty nice for the Mayor's gala that evening. He'd enjoyed the event, or the first half anyway. Everyone who was anyone in San Fernando was there, so he had to go, and there had been plenty of people to talk to, friends from work and others, a chance for him to attempt to remind himself he could still carry conversation like an normal person, and he'd even done a little dancing, and enjoyed some wine. Of course, that stupid terrorist, Medea, had to spoil everything. Mikey did not know much about Medea, beyond what the common knowledge was, but he felt resentment towards the women; she was trying to steal his place in the limelight. He could still hear her smug voice telling the gala guests that he, the Prophet, was nothing compared to her.

If I could find Medea, he thought, I'd show her differently. But he had no more idea who the bitch was than anyone else, so he would have to hope that in that area, at least, the police would be more successful.

He usually slept naked, and this night was no exception, although he generally kept his father's ring on overnight. The ring had been a wedding anniversary gift from his mother to his father, a shiny silver affair with a piece of turquoise and his father's initials engraved in it. Mikey wasn't certain when Dad had given it to him - like so many other things, that had happened Before - but since then he had worn it on a small chain round his neck, the only piece of his former life he still wore physically. It looked out of place on him now, though, with his look of a deranged person, someone out of control.

He tore his glance away from the pathetic figure in the mirror and sat on the toilet, unsteadily. What am I becoming? Reflectively, he took his favourite fur brush from the drawer next to the sink and began running it through the stump of his tail, even though he had finished shedding some time earlier. The brush was clogged with a lot of Joey's stringy black and white fur, but the feeling of dragging it through his fur was relaxing nonetheless. That was another thing he never could quite remember - how had he lost his tail? The false one he wore attached to the stump was so real that very few people had ever discovered the truth - Joey had not, nor had any of Mikey's other sexual partners. But it bothered him nonetheless that he could not remember losing it. You'd think that was the sort of thing one wouldn't forget easily.

Am I losing my mind? he wondered. That might be possible. He had heard of men who killed too often losing their minds in the end, although in his case he preferred to imagine a happier future for himself. Maybe when this was all over, he'd marry Joey and they'd move someplace far away, where memories, or lack of them, could no longer affect him. If, that was, he could not find Brett.

He needed to get back to the Cause. The Cause gave him purpose, cleared the chaos in his head, if only for a short while. Are all people like this, composed so finely on the outside, but a wreck on the inside? That was doubtful; he was pretty sure that both of his parents had always been as intact inward as outward, and Brett certainly had been. Which left only one explanation. I'm cursed, he thought. I'm a psychopath, who cannot find the people he loves, who finds solace only in death. In truth, he reflected, I am more of a grim reaper than a prophet.