The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 12. Chapter 12

Vanus didn’t know why he was being such a chicken all the sudden. He’d been to the morgue a thousand times, the hospital even more than that. He couldn’t think of two places he loathed to go more, but it went with the job. Everyone had to do things they didn’t want to do, didn’t they?

Perhaps it was the comment the Astorathian had made about his caseload…or rather the lack of one. He reminded himself that Bazzelthorpe hadn’t meant it as an insult (had he?). It had merely been a remark. A returning observation. Nothing to get all pissy and insecure about. Yet why do I feel so damn embarrassed? Like I’ve been caught running around with my fly down and my pecker hanging out and I didn’t know it?

It had something to do with the caseload.

Oh and here was the little shit he’d spent the past hour arguing with on the phone.

Perhaps it was the way he was demolishing a Twinkie, stuffing the processed sponge cake into his mouth like it was his own personal lot in life to destroy as many carbs as possible, or the shifty way he looked around when he saw Vanus and Bazzelthorpe approach the desk that gave it away. I’ll have to ask my supervisor first…

Vanus heard it in his sleep every night.

He put on his best smile: It was the smile he used while questioning shattered housewives on the whereabouts of their missing husband and the smile he’d used while on TV. It was so natural at this point he didn’t even have to think about it. He already had his badge in hand. “Hello. My name is Agent Vanus Kaufman, I believe we spoke earlier on the phone.”

Vanus watched the kid’s expression rearrange itself from lie to lie, flicking through the list of best responses. At last he said, “Y…Yes. I remember. Sorry, I haven’t been able to get a hold of my supervisor. He still hasn’t responded.”

Vanus looked around the place. From what he could see there was no one else around. He looked back at the desk jockey. The guy looked to be in his early twenties, fresh out of college. A guy trying to meet ends meet while starting out at the bottom of the rung. Vanus felt for him. I’ve been that guy before. Wait, no, I am that guy. “I take it this happens a lot,” he said, forcing patience.

The kid breathed a sigh of relief. “More than you know. Most of the time I am the only one here. I never know where the autopsy guy is. I’ve been having to hold dead bodies in the deep freezer because the autopsy guy is overworked…”

Vanus listened to the kid talk on and on. He’d heard it all before, many times, from overworked nurses, doctors, firefighters, and cops. Everyone was overworked. Everyone was tired. It was simply part of existence. No one was happy, least of all the Astorathian who kept pacing about impatiently, shooting scowls at the intendant’s direction. Unfortunately the intendant was too deep into this therapy session to notice.

When Bazzelthorpe cleared his throat it sounded like rocks tumbling down a brick wall. He straightened to his full height, drowning the kid in shadow. He slid a twenty dollar bill on the table. He decided to imitate a character he'd seen on TV one late beer-sodden night. "I have a twenty dollar bill if you skip the pity fuck and let us take a look at the body ourselves." He tried on a grin to see if it would increase the chance that his bribe would succeed. It had the opposite direction. His teeth were wide and very white and very large. They made Vanus think of tombstones. "Your supervisor will never know we were here."

The kid nodded and snatched the twenty dollar bill before Bazzelthorpe could change his mind and rip his arm off. The intendant moved to get out of his chair but Vanus waved a hand for him to sit back down. This scene had played out long enough. "I know where the bodies are. We really are here to take a quick look at the body. In fact I brought an extra copy of the waver my supervisor signed just in case." He presented the page he'd pulled from his briefcase.

A minute later Vanus and Bazzelthorpe passed along the corridor towards the back of the building. The desk intendent had not followed to Van's relief. He found himself glancing up at Astorathian and found himself smiling. Of course the Astorathian noticed. He stopped, scowling. "Do you find something amusing, death magician?"

“Just that I think that poor kid was about to piss his pants,” Vanus said, wishing he hadn’t said anything.

“Being an Astorathian does have its advantages,” Bazzelthorpe said. His tail flicked against the wall. He was actually smiling.

I suppose we’re making progress, Vanus thought. It was better than being seconds away from strangling each other; at least they were both making an attempt to get along. “I would imagine so. Especially in the art of intimidation.”

The deeper they ventured into the morgue the colder it got inside the building. Of course morgues were kept cold to lower the chances of infection, but this chill was different. It was the chill of the Void. The lights above their head buzzed and fizzed, casting the hallway in a flickershow that made Van’s eyes prickle with the first imminent signs of a migraine. By the time they reached the storage area where the bodies were preserved in fridges Vanus could not stop his teeth from chattering together.

He found a clipboard on the desk. Each page listed the names of the deceased in storage, along with the name of the victim and the cause of death. It didn’t take him long to find the unidentified victim who’d been found at the church.

"Your teeth are chattering so hard I can hear your bones vibrating from over here," Bazzelthorpe said. He circled around the gurney in the center of the room.

"Saves me a trip to the arctic." Vanus hoped the lightness in his voice covered the irritation he felt. Why was the Astorathian so damn chatty all the sudden? I think I liked it better when he didn't have more than ten words to say to me. He popped open one of the fridge doors; the steel handle felt ice-cold against his flesh. White vapors twisted out of the fridge. Why did he feel so clammy? So sweaty? He eased the tray open, looking down at the human shape pressed beneath the blue sheet.

How many times had he stood here, looking down at a still corpse? What would he see when he pulled off the sheet? It doesn't matter how they die, he thought. In the end they all look the same.

“I need absolute silence,” he said to Bazzelthorpe.

The Astorathian stepped back studiously, leaning against the wall furthest away from Vanus. “I won’t make a sound,” he assured the death magician.

Vanus reached for the sheet. His fingers curled around the cold fabric. He took a deep breath, felt the air freeze in his lungs. Stop stalling.

I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see what happened to this man. Because once you see a thing, you can’t unsee it. It stays with you.

He pulled the sheet off.

It dropped to the floor with a whisper.

The thing on the gurney was no longer human. Its flesh had been charred black, its face as featureless as a ball of melted wax. The Blackened Cross of Chokmah had been burned into his cheek. Darker tendrils spiraled away from the wound, like ink on paper. That’s interesting. What did that?

He was about to find out. The thought made his balls shrivel up like raisins.

Vanus glanced back at the Astorathian who had been watching intently the entire time. As he had in the church the death magician felt comforted by Bazzelthorpe’s presence. Perhaps this new and sudden partnership wasn’t such a bad thing after all. “I am about to begin the reading,” he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he sounded. “I am going to touch the corpse and when I do I am going to see how this man died.”

“What will that to do to you?” Bazzelthorpe asked. The glow of his eyes was a comfort in a the flickering gloom of the morgue.

The question caught Vanus off guard. Carlos had been the only person who had ever asked him. Multiple times. Vanus had tried but words failed to explain the experience. In the end his silence had pushed Carlos away, leading to the end of their relationship. Things die in the dark when you refuse to shed light on them. This last thought sounded like something Gwendolyn would say. And here he was stalling again.

“Okay, so I need you to do me a favor,” Vanus said. “Are you listening?”

Bazzelthorpe gave a simple nod.

“Whatever happens, whatever I might do you cannot interrupt the reading. Not even if I scream.”

The muscle above the Astorathian’s brow rose into a skeptical curve. “Are you going to scream?”

Vanus scoffed bitterly. “Probably,” he said, and then he touched the charred skin of the dead body.

The Void slammed into him, tearing his mind to shreds on impact. He was stripped raw, exposed to the experiences of the very corpse he was touching. The weight of hopelessness and a hunger that when fed still remained empty pressed him into the crust of the earth; he was an insect being crushed under the heel of existence. And existence was a cruel bastard.

He was beginning to rot from the inside out. He’d been rotting from the inside out for a while now but whatever the man had done to him had sped up the process. What should have taken years was happening in days. The wound on his cheek burned, a maddening itch that set his teeth on edge and made his eyes water for that whole first day; a day he’d spent hunched over, rocking back and forth with his hands screwed into the remaining snaggles of his hair. For almost a whole day he resisted.

Then he started to scratch and dig. Relief came in flashes that lasted seconds. It didn’t take him long to dig until it was raw. Until it bled. Even with his fingernails bitten down to the quick. When he realized what he was doing to himself, he took a ride on the dragon. (Ride the dragon, the fragment of Vanus in the Void that remained intact thought, that’s a new one.)

For a time that was all too short he was awash in a warm soothing darkness that poured over his head like water. For an everlasting experience there was no price he wouldn’t pay, Good Mother help him.

Sometime late in the evening his mind clawed its way to surfaceness of consciousness. He looked around, searching the darkness of the abandoned church - a darkness that he at times thought of as his home. A home that was being disturbed by something that should not be here. Another intruder.

He froze, feeling feverish and achy. Helpless. Within minutes of waking, agonizing cramps that caused his spine to curl racked his body. In these moments there was no relief to be had; they were the Good Mother’s punishment for all his sins.

In the world outside the Void Vanus had fallen to his knees. A strange keening sound came out of his lips. Bazzelthorpe could hear the creaking of his teeth pressed together from across the room. It was the sound of immense discomfort. Of terror. Of pain. Such sounds were not unfamiliar to him; they had been his lullaby in the sinking moments before sleep.

Van’s plea for noninterference could only keep him at bay for so long. When the death magician started clawing at himself instinct took over. He remembered that Giel had used to do the same thing, thinking that horrible parasites were crawling all over him, or that they had been captured by nepharites once more. Before the death magician could do himself further harm, Bazzelthorpe took his wrists. His new partner’s bones were every bit as delicate at they looked, so he made sure to be gentle.

Van convulsed, his graceful expression twisted in a leer of agony. His lips peeled back from healthy white teeth as clear as porcelain. The sound that emitted from his throat was high-pitched and tortured and inhuman. What Bazzelthorpe in that moment thought as human. The howls of feral cats in the alleys of the Slums was the closest thing he could think of to it. At some point the tremors became so bad, Van’s body could simply not support its upright position. Before he could fall over, Bazzelthorpe pulled him into his lap. He thought he’d read in the training manual that it was best to keep the head elevated until help arrived?

The idiot who’d taken Bazzelthorpe’s beer money for the day ran down the hallway, sneakers squeaking across the linoleum. “Holy Sweet Mother is he okay? Should I call somebody?”

Bazzelthorpe struggled to find an answer. Vanus had said not to interrupt the reading under any circumstances. He’d been unusually firm in this matter, when he’d tiptoed around the edge of everything else in their past interactions. He said he might scream. He didn’t say he would have a seizure. “Maker hafh ya,” was all he could think of to say. In the human tongue this meant, “Maker help me.”

Deep within the Void, Van was puppet to the will of the helpless spirit who had possessed him. Right now it’s sole purpose was to unleash its burden onto him. Normally he didn’t mind lending a listening ear but in this case it felt as if someone was pouring a barrel of corrosive acid straight into his mind.

He emerged from the haze of pain, his body soaked with sweat. When he inhaled he breathed in the smell of his own shit. He rolled onto his back, suddenly aware that he was no longer alone. There were blemishes in the darkness that slowly took shape, looming out of a pale mist that made the shadows glow.

Skeletal faces grinned down at him, hollow eyes pinning him in place. He felt something cold and slippery slide over his body, numbing him to the bone. He tried to scream only to gag on his own tongue. This is it, he thought. The Good Mother is punishing me for all my sins. And there were many. He'd stolen from loved ones and strangers alike for drug money; at least twice his hands had strayed while his young niece sat on his lap, unbeknownst to her parents. He'd sold his soul to the dragon and the dragon's name was Heroin.

Oh yes, he knew what he had coming to him.

“This brings back so many memories,” a reedy voice said from the darkness. The barest impression of a person pressed itself against the shadows.

A taller shape drew up beside him. In the morgue, Van gasped in recognition. It was the same somber faced man who had come here earlier. The same man who had ruined his face. Now his expression was hollowed out by darkness, the eyes cold and empty of compassion.

The things standing on either side of them began to chatter in excitement, gnashing their teeth together. He could smell the rot of their bodies as they bent over to examine him with evident curiosity. One of them drew a meat cleaver from its belt. He pissed himself when he saw the bits of human anatomy that clung to the blade; his own filth felt hot against his bare flesh. He was too terrified to move. In too much pain from the cramps. Oh Good Mother, the cramps were awful.

"Give me a blade," the broad-faced man said.

One of the creatures made a curious clucking sound before handing over the sickle in its hand. What kind of power did the man have to command such a creature?

Vanus opened his mouth to beg but he couldn't unscrew his tongue from the roof of his mouth. His limbs were locked in place; he couldn't even wiggle his fingers. All he could do was blink and this was no mercy. The broad-shouldered stranger lifted a glowing object in the air: it was the ember the stranger had used to burn Vanus; he recognized the demonic skull grinning, not so different from the face of the creatures that tore Van’s clothes away from his body, their claws scouring his flesh. He tried to scream but the only sound that escaped his lips was a helpless moan. The stranger watched all this, his face as unmoving and impassive as stone.

Around them a thousand voices began to chant the name of Chokmah. Slowly the damned souls of Inferno began to close in around the scene, disciples tasked with the burden of bearing witness to this religious act of defilement.

When the stranger pressed the white-hot blade of the sickle against Van’s flesh, the death magician flopped around in Bazzelthorpe’s arms like a fish. His eyes stared up sightlessly up at the ceiling; his mouth popped open and closed like a fish straining for ear. When he heard the sizzle of his own flesh cooking he began to scream. The sound filled the silent halls of the morgue.

Then the death magician went limp in Bazzelthorpe’s arms. His head flopped bonelessly down against the floor, bouncing off the tile with a dull thud. The Astorathian cupped the back of his head before it could make contact with the floor a second time. The death magician’s head was small and very light, easily fitting in the palm of his hand. With his head angled up to the fluorescent lights, his skin was deathly white. Under the illusion of sleep his jaw was relaxed, not clenched with a mysterious tension that etched lines into skin as smooth as butter. The first signs of a dark stubble had begun to grow along the graceful line of his jaw.

Released from the Void, Vanus felt his body surge upward into a sitting position. One second he was shooting towards the surface of consciousness and the next he was hugging a cliff wall, clinging to it for dear life. It took him a floundering moment to realize that cliff was alive and breathing and hugging him with arms that wrapped around him like steel bands. The solid chest supporting the death magician’s feeble hands vibrated steadily. The voice that spoke in his ear was warm and gentle. He didn’t recognize what it was saying because it spoke in a different language, but the easy flow of consonants and syllables guided him back to where he was. Who he was.

Then he remembered the presence of the other. Van scrambled out of Bazzelthorpe’s embrace as if the Astorathian’s touch had burned his flesh. “Thank you, thank you,” he said hastily. “I’m fine.”

He wasn’t fine. A throbbing pain worked its way from the base of his skull to the center of his brain. The taste of copper pennies filled his mouth from where he had ground his teeth together hard enough to make them bleed. I don’t even smoke and already I have bleeding gums, he thought. Oh the irony.

“Oh man that was fucked up. Like what was that?” said another voice. It was the desk jockey. He looked down at Vanus with wide eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing against his throat in distress.

Van’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. He felt as if he’d been caught running around out in public in the nude. He gripped the gurney with shaking hands and tried to climb to his feet. He felt a large shadow drop behind him, sensed the Astorathian closing in on him, most likely to help. Vanus felt his body recoil from Bazzelthorpe. “I said I’m fine!” he snapped before he was aware the words had left his mouth. Every nerve in his body was coiled tight as a spring. Why did he feel like he was suffocating in his own skin?

Bazzelthorpe hung back. His tail swept the floor in uncertain arcs. Of course he was confused. Few had seen Vanus in the middle of an ‘attack’. That was what this had been: not just an attack but an assault.

He’d dedicated a decade of his life to the Theocracy. In that time he’d closed a hundred cases. He’d been a practicing death magician long before then. The brutality humans were capable of no longer shocked him. The architects of the Void exploited that brutality to move them around like pawns as they saw fit. But occasionally he saw something that didn’t just stick with him, but chipped at his soul. He felt it spiral into the darkness, never to be retrieved again.

He took a deep breath and willed his nerves to still themselves. He slipped back into his skin, skin that felt as tight and restricting as a straight jacket, and reminded himself the feeling would pass soon. He forced a smile he didn’t feel and said to the intendant, “We have everything we need. Thank you for giving us your time. You have done a great service for the Theocracy.”

He turned to his partner and nodded at him; he noted that the Astorathian’s was tucked into a ball. He watched Vanus wearily. “Shall we go?” the death magician asked.

Bazzelthorpe nodded after a moment but said nothing.

Great, Vanus thought. Now he’s scared of me too.

The thought hurt more than it should have.