The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 13. Chapter 13

“I can’t imagine what you must be thinking,” Vanus said when Bazzelthorpe and he were in the truck.

The Astorathian didn’t answer for a long time and Vanus didn’t think he ever would. Vanus wished he could say he was surprised. Few had ever truly withstood the truth of what it meant to be a death magician and all that it entailed. The romanticized depictions on TV and the reality could not be more different.

Bazzelthorpe waited until they’d stopped behind a red light to answer. “You looked like you were suffering.” His voice had slowed down to a heavy, crawling drone. When he looked at Vanus his expression was strangely soft.

Vanus laughed bitterly. “I definitely wasn’t having a good time.”

“Where did you go?” Bazzelthorpe asked, turning left at the light.

By now the unsteady wave crashing into the bone of Van’s skull slowed down to a dull thud. It still sucked but at least he could form words. It was then he realized that the truck had pulled to a stop. He looked out the window and then at the Astorathian, an eyebrow arched in suspicion. “The Dairy Fountain? Ice cream in November?”

“I love ice cream,” Bazzelthorpe said with a smile. “And I need food after what happened in the morgue.” The broad plains of his cheeks brightened. “We do not have to get ice cream if it is too cold…”

“I could eat something sweet,” Vanus said and found he meant it, which meant he was in the aftershock stage of…he never knew what to call it?...his fit?...his episode? What did you call it when another soul took over your body and experienced their moment of death as if it were your own? And when you emerged you felt violated, as if you’d been stripped down to the bone?

These thoughts followed him through the parking lot into the ice cream shop. He let the Astorathian take the lead, a decision he was only half conscious of making. For a strange paranoid reason he could not name he did not like the idea of Bazzelthorpe being able to watch him unaware. Judging him, trying to figure him out, whatever went on behind the Astorathian’s calculating visage.

Once they sat down in the booth Vanus began to feel more relaxed. Perhaps it was the sugar and the calories from the food. He had a habit of skipping breakfast in the morning.

He could still feel the phantom pangs from the cramps. Not his cramps, but the cramps of the burn victim from the morgue. He pushed his brownie sundae away half finished while Bazzelthorpe dug into his second large banana split with gusto. When he saw the death magician’s unfinished sundae he cleared his throat. “Are you going to finish that?” he asked sheepishly.

“Pig out,” Vanus muttered with a lazy wave of his hand.

Vanus watched with amusement as the rest of his sundae disappeared down the maw of a great and hungry beast. The table was covered in a number of empty styrofoam containers. Vanus took the opportunity to stack the trash on top of the tray and toss it away. It gave him an extra few seconds to think, to breathe. He knew the time when he would have to explain himself was coming and he dreaded it. How did you put a thing that could not be fit into a box into words?

When he sat back down in front of his colleague, Vanus had to bite his tongue to keep from barking out a laugh. Apparently Bazzelthorpe was just as keen to wear his food as eat it. Bazzelthorpe noticed all the same. His eyes narrowed with heated suspicion. “Is something funny, death magician?”

Vanus opened his mouth with a start. “Um…you have a bit of ice cream on your face,” he sputtered after a moment. When Bazzelthorpe lifted his palm to wipe the mess away, Vanus found himself leaning across the table with napkins in hand. Without thinking, he gently wiped the streaks of dairy away. It was until he sat back down and saw the surprised look on Bazzelthorpe’s broad features that he realized what he’d done. “Got it,” he said. He considered his partner. “So, earlier you lied about not eating human food? Why?”

Bazzelthorpe began licking at the edge of the spoon. The plastic utensil looked ridiculous in his meaty fingers. “I suppose I was being petty.”

“Petty?” Vanus said. “Boy, you must really not like me.”

Bazzelthorpe’s shoulders slumped. He looked away as if looking at Vanus took too much effort. “I should have not said what I did. I was a fool. I have a habit of letting my temper get the best of me.”

“You’re going to have to work on that,” Vanus said before he could stop himself. “I know you don’t mean to do it. I’m sure things here in Roc City are still very much new to you. But in this business we have to follow protocol and conduct ourselves professionally. When we are investigating a crime scene and with each other. We don’t have to be friends, but we do have to get along. Do you understand?”

The Astorathian nodded his head slowly. He still refused to look at Vanus. The death magician was glad for the stall in conversation. His mind still raced with all that he’d experienced back at the morgue. I’m not ready for a case this big, he thought. His stomach did a somersault; all at once he regretted the impromptu brownie sundae.

“Are you hurt?” Bazzelthorpe asked.

“What?” Vanus hadn’t expected this sudden change in subject.

Bazzelthorpe reached across the table. Before the death magician could guess his intentions, the Astorathian’s fingers wrapped around his own, enveloping it down to the wrist with his glowing paw. With a warm touch that pressed gently into the clammy flesh of Van’s palm, he examined the death magician’s long fingers. “Back at the morgue. What did you see?”

There it was, the truth he’d been trying to distract himself from the moment he touched the corpse. No, earlier than that. Since Gwendolyn had showed them the photos of the crime scene. This whole time he’d distracted himself from the truth: Chagidiel’s found me.

“I saw how the victim died,” he said. A curious feeling of disappointment passed through him when Bazzelthorpe’s calloused grip released his. “And I felt it as if it was happening to me.”

“Is it always like that for death magicians?” Bazzelthorpe asked. He didn’t blink. He hadn’t blinked once for the past two minutes.

“Only when the soul in question has suffered terribly.” Vanus couldn’t stop his voice from trembling. He tucked his fists out of sight so the Astoriathian couldn’t see them quake. “This man suffered terribly. He was tortured and he was frightened and whatever his sins were he did not deserve to suffer in the way he did. No one does.”

“Did you see the killer?”

Vanus closed his eyes, pinching at the bridge of his nose. The headache was back in full force. Mushrooms of pain sprouted along the insides of his skull. “Yes, but he wasn’t alone. There were others with him.” He saw the faces of the nepharites and felt another cramp shoot through his belly. Their presence confirmed his fear. What had started out as a simple arson case was about to get a whole lot bigger. No, he told himself with a determination he didn’t fear. Not if you find a way to stop it before it spreads. So far we’re just looking for one man.

If Chagidiel’s hand was involved in this case at all he would be walking a dangerous line, a line he wasn’t sure he was ready to walk for fear of crossing it. I have to be sure before I make any drastic decisions. It’s too soon to duck out of the case.

He grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and a pen. Carefully he traced the Blackened Cross of Chokmah down to the eye of the archon in the middle.

“Why are you so frightened of this case?” Bazzelthorpe asked.

Vanus looked up, distracted. The Astorathian seemed to have the very frustrating habit of asking questions when his mind was elsewhere. Or maybe you simply have no distress tolerance skills. He forced himself to take a deep breath. “Come again?”

“Your heart.” The Astorathian looped a long index finger in illustration. “It skips a beat or two whenever someone mentions anything associated with Chokmah.”

Vanus made a sputtering sound. “You can hear my heart?”

Bazzelthorpe smiled with what was very clearly pride. “Astorathians have superior hearing. You did not know this?”

“I know your hearing was superior, I just didn’t know how superior,” Vanus said. He hated the way his voice immediately rose with a note of indignance. To cover it up, he said, “I’m not the only one who gets all aflutter when Chokmah is mentioned. If it wasn’t frozen in ice you’d probably hear Gwendolyn’s pulse speed up as well. Anything to do with Chokmah usually spells bad news.”

“Explain,” Bazzelthorpe said.

The death magician frowned. “Do you not remember covering it in your training modules?”

Snow touched the mahogany planes of Bazzelthorpe’s cheeks. He cleared his throat with a sound that made Vanus think of churning rock. “I may have skimmed it only briefly. The training modules were very long and there were so many of them. I have a hard time sitting still for so long…and with computers.” He lifted his dinner-plate sized hands and wiggled his fingers in demonstration.

The death magician found himself nodding in commiseration. “Yes, especially since you have to take them every year.”

The snow on the Astorathian’s face turned to ice. “Every year?”

Vanus flashed him a bitter little smile. “Oh yes. Recertification purposes. Even I have to go through it. Even Gwendolyn and she has been with the Theocracy far longer than I have.” He felt a chill crawl up his spine. The ice cream, while a nice distraction from the scene at the morgue, had been a mistake. “Let’s switch gears. Chokmah is the archon of submission. Usually of the pious variety but don’t quote me on that. What information the Theocracy possesses on the archons is still very…vague. What I mean by submission is more like religious institutions. Sects, cults: the vagrant muttering to himself about looking into the eyes of a great god, the pastor speaking passionately on the radio. Does that make sense?”

Bazzelthorpe nodded. Not once had he looked away or appeared distracted. Vanus noted that this time he did not feel discomforted by the Astorathian’s constant inspection. Perhaps it was simply part of his nature, a habit from a lifetime of roaming the shadowed streets of Inferno. How easy it is to forget that other paradigms exist outside of your own, the death magician thought, feeling humbled.

He continued.

"The last time Chokmah was active here in the mortal plane was during World War II when Hitler was at the height of his power." Recalling what he'd learned from his trainings and investigations over the years, Vanus began to feel giddy. His knees bounced with excitement at the chance to share some of the knowledge he'd acquired within his ten years at the Theocracy; if only to staunch the flow of inadequacy he'd been floundering in for the past few days. Time to get your sea legs about you, old sport.

"Hitler was this close from pulling Astaroth out of the depths of Inferno," Vanus said. "Imagine the power and influence he had to possess for a man to accomplish such a task." If the idea didn't make me want to barf up my ice cream, I would even say it's fascinating, he added silently. "Back then the Theocracy was just a bunch of men and women in overcoats. Sherlock Holme types working under the radar. A secret society among secret societies."

He stopped, realizing that he'd been rambling in his excitement. His heart thumped away like a metronome. Luckily Bazzelthorpe saved him from having to flounder around for a change in subject by asking, "How did the Theocracy defeat Chokmah?"

Vanus grinned in spite of himself. "Here's the plot twist: It was never really Chokmah."

Bazzelthorpe arched an eyebrow in confusion. "What?"

"Every Archon has a reflection: they are a coin and like a coin they have two halves. This is separate from their various incarnations which is a whole discussion for another time. The point that I am trying to drive at and doing a very bad job of is the Void is vast."

The Astorathian leaned forward with great interest. “The Void is vast,” he said.

“And a hell of a lot smarter than we are,” Vanus said. “They have plans that have been set in motion since long before you and I were born and whose consequences we won’t see until all this is dust. Chokmah is really a corporation. He’s rarely the one putting in the time for the crime because he’s too busy doing his own thing. It's the middleman you’ve got to watch out for, the man pulling the strings." He couldn't bring himself to say the name that perched heavily on the tip of his tongue like the black taste of cigarette smoke. To say a name is to give it power. “It could be someone who just wants us to think it’s Chokmah…That is my hope anyway.”

“You know a lot more than you’re saying.” The Astorathian’s gaze bore into Vanus with a weight that made him feel pinned in place.

“Perhaps,” Vanus said. He folded his coat over his arm and made to stand up. “Are we finished here? I want to brief Gwendolyn more thoroughly on what we found at the morgue and…”

“You’ve had a run with them or…”

“So what if I have?” Vanus snapped with enough venom to bring the Astorathian to a halt. “It was a long time ago, far away from here, in my youth. It has no connections with this case. If there were, I would be forthright and share them with you first as my partner in this case and with the Theocracy at large. Until then my past that you keep asking so many questions about is off limits to you.”

Bazzelthorpe let out a growl but there was little threat in it. “You are a man with many secrets, Vanus Kaufman.”

“I am an exemplary agent who does his job by the book,” Vanus retorted. “You are more than welcome to access my records - all agents have access to them; as a matter of fact I have access to them as well; I could read all about you if I wanted to. When will you see that everything is in order and that you have nothing to be concerned about?”

To the death magician’s surprise, the Astorathian covered his mouth with a large hand. His shoulders shook. Vanus felt his eyes begin to burn with a mounting heat. Was the Astorathian laughing at him?

“What’s so funny?” he demanded. Had his staff been in hand, sparks would have shot from the end.

“Tiny, tiny magician with a mighty, mighty temper,” Bazzelthorpe said with a final chuckle. His face softened and something unreadable passed through his strange eyes. “You look adorable when you’re upset.”

This time sparks really did shoot from Van’s eyes. He glared up at the Astorathian. “Adorable? Agent Bazzelthorpe if I were you, I suggest you not say another word lest you see just how adorable I can really be.”

…

The elevator doors opened with a labored squeal. Vanus stepped out into the hallway, a chip on his shoulders. The day had stripped him raw so that he felt cranky and imbalanced.

Something was waiting for him in the hallway. He could not yet see it, but he could sense it, a foreign presence lurking just outside the field of his vision. He stood his ground, gripping the doors with both hands, ready to let the doors shut at a moment's notice. Not that the elevator doors would have done him any good against the forces of the Void who were not restricted by the normal constraints of the physical world, but it was nice to know simple fight-or-flight instinct wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

When the entity did not present itself, the death magician sighed impatiently. I'm really not in the mood today, he thought. He stepped out of the elevator, caution be damned. With a push of will he began to channel his mana. The air crackled around him.

"Whoever you are, I'm really not in the mood today," he said aloud through gritted teeth. "Whatever you got to say, you might as well as come out and get it over with now."

The doors to the elevator trundled shut behind him. If he hurried, could he make it safely inside his apartment? No, it was best to deal with it head on. Get it over with.

He took a cautious step forward. Above his head the lights began to flicker. Vanus could feel eyes watching him and he knew it had nothing to do with his imagination, was more than just simple paranoia. His eyes searched the ceiling, the walls, the cheap scuffed carpet beneath his feet.

A puddle of shadow formed along the ceiling, frothing as if something might drop out of it. Vanus took a cautious step back, ready to unleash destruction should the situation call for it. A thousand ideas of what it could be passed through his mind and a majority of them were very unpleasant.

Slowly human-shaped limbs emerged from the shadow. First a head, then a torso, then arms, until a fully formed man plopped down onto the carpet at Van’s feet. By the time the entity stood, the shadows had formed into a half-solid man. A spirit. It was not the spirit of the man who’s charred corpse he had touched at the morgue, but the spirit of a different man. Perhaps a new victim or someone who would die in the future and whose future had not yet come to pass. In the world of spirits and the afterlife things were often never clear until it was too late to do anything about it.

The man - or rather the spirit - was dressed in a security uniform. He was older (had been when he died) his face lined with wrinkles and liver spots. He watched Vanus with the sad eyes of a basset hound. “Help me,” he croaked and when he spoke his voice was full of pain.

The tag on his jacket read KOJAC.

He stepped towards Vanus.

Vanus took an instinctive step back.

“Help me,” the dead man said. He reached for the death magician as if to touch him.

“Don’t touch me,” Vanus said before he could stop himself. All at once he was a little boy afraid of the dark again. The thought I’ve never been a little boy passed through his mind like an echo drifting out of the drafty tunnels of a cave.

“Help me,” the security guard rasped again. “I’m burning. We’re all burning.”

He began to stalk towards Vanus, leaving footprints of black filament that stained the carpet behind him. The lights continued to flicker and pop like something out of a cheap horror film. Vanus was not frightened but had no desire to let the dead man touch him; one reading was enough for the day.

Slowly he lifted his arms like a man begging to be crucified. “We’re all burning,” he said once more. Flames licked along the length of his arms from wrists to shoulder. Tendrils of smoke filled the hallway.

Vanus backed away choking. He could feel the heat of the flames against his flesh. Now at the door of his apartment, he scrabbled for the doorknob with sweaty palms. Why isn’t the fire alarm going off? Or the water sprinkler system? he wondered.

Duh. The answer was obvious of course. The fire alarm system wasn’t going off because there wasn’t really a fire burning in the physical sense. Shoving open the door and stumbling over the line of red brick dust he wondered how he would have explained that to Bazzelthorpe.

He didn’t wait to see if the dead security guard followed him or not. He slammed the door shut and pressed his back to the door. A buzz of energy passed over him like feathers brushing against his skin when the wards went back up. “Don’t you get it?” he said to the empty air, panting. “If there’s a matter you wish to discuss, feel free to make an appointment during office hours. If it’s an emergency, please call 911…”

He laughed shakily at his own joke. He sank to the floor, cradled his head in his hands, and continued to shake with the force of his hysterics.