The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 21. Chapter 21

Bazzel was awake when he should not be; Bazzelthorpe was alive when he should not be. And yet once more his body was not his own; once more his will, his life was not his own.

White light seared his eyes, making him cry out. No he didn’t cry out, because he couldn’t. He couldn’t get his mouth to work properly. They’d pumped him full of drugs to keep him from moving just as they’d done to Siel. Soon they would cut into him with sharp instruments made of steel, slicing him open like a fish to be preserved, shipped off, and dined on. After all, since the creation of time, his people had been nothing more than slave labor and a food source for the Archons.

His tongue was a limp lump of muscle in his mouth. After a moment, once his eyes adjusted to the mysterious glare, he could move his head and eyes slightly to get a look at his surroundings. There was the IV drip where the drugs were being fed into him through a thin plastic tube taped to his arm. The walls of the room were white, monotone. They'd moved him to a brighter room, away from the filth of the slave pens at least; and the room actually looked clean.

His thoughts moved sluggishly. His heart pounded against his breast bone, fighting to break through. He clenched his eyes shut, searching his memory desperately for the last thing he remembered.

His eyes flew open.

Kaufman!

They'd taken him too. They must have because no matter which way Bazzel turned his head, he couldn't see the death magician. This sent fresh spikes of panic through him. He had to move. He had to do something. He had to find his partner.

But he couldn't move.

He was paralyzed, defenseless.

The way he'd felt when he first came to the surface after years of constant darkness and grit. The first inhale of the surface's air once he'd escaped the shadows of Inferno drove him to his knees: he'd never known the smell of a tree before, or grass, or pollen, or the exhaust fumes that came out of vehicles, slowly killing everything and everyone around it. It wasn't so bad now, he was used to it; he preferred it; but back then everything had felt like a physical attack.

Time passed. Bazzel wasn't sure how much. And that was how he knew he was still in Inferno. Here time did not move, but stood completely still. On the surface time was a moving, living animal that did not know rest; humans worshiped the clock more than themselves.

Gradually he was able to move: he was unable to wiggle his toes, then with enough concentration, with enough will, his arms. He tore the IV drip from his arm, leaking several drops of blood onto the floor. It didn’t matter. He’d suffered through worse wounds. It won’t stop me from finding you Vanus, he vowed silently. I’m coming. He sat up in a bed with white sheets, swinging his legs around until his feet touched the floor and he was able to stand. They'd dressed him in a white sheet that hugged him like a gown. He tore it away from himself with a grunt. The cold chemical-smelling air made his skin prickle.

His blood boiled with a mounting, single-minded rage. With both hands he ripped the door off the hinges and tossed it effortlessly across the room so that it fell across the bed in a single movement. He heard voices scream somewhere, but he paid them no heed. He was too wide to fit through the door, so he tore at them with his bare hands until he could squeeze his bulk out into the corridor.

Figures dressed in white and blue garb ran around him in a frenzy, their eyes bright with terror. Humans cowered in the corners of the hall and beneath chairs and tables and wherever else they could find cover away from his wrath. Upon the shock of seeing them and the realization of his mistakes, he stopped, his anger dying like a bucket of water dumped over an open flame. A little girl - it was impossible for him to guess how old she was; human life spans, with the exception of magicians, were so much shorter than Astorathian - looked at him with eyes gone glassy and wide with fear. Fear of me, he thought. Fear of an Astorathian. And who wouldn't be afraid of him with the way he was behaving? An eight foot tall naked Astorathian who had just burst out of his room like a bull in a china shop.

"Vanus Kaufman," he heard himself say in a voice that was too unfamiliar to be his own; a voice that quivered with shame and confusion. "I'm just looking for Vanus Kaufman." He looked at the girl and the woman crouched beside her who could surely only be her mother. "I'm sorry…"

And then he felt thousands of volts of electricity shoot through his body before the world went black once more.

…

"Ow! Can you quit shining that in my face please?"

Vanus turned his way from the tiny light that sent barbs of agony through his head.

Dr. Emilia Metzger gave him a chastising look. "Serves you right, Kaufman! How many times have I told you about pushing yourself too far? Take a look."

She held up a small square mirror with a gloved hand. Vanus reluctantly looked at his reflection and flinched inwardly at the sight of himself. He ran a hand through hair that was tangled and stuck out in every which direction. His face was covered with dust, bruised and scratched from where he'd been nicked by debris. A ring of blood vessels had popped around his eyes, giving him a feral, starved look; the purple bruise-colored bags beneath his eyes didn't help matters.

He tried to flash the doctor a smile. "I feel fine as wine."

Metzger snorted. The sound was rather masculine coming from such a beautiful woman. With her long brown hair, warm eyes, and designer dresses she always showed off beneath her white coat, she looked like she made her living strutting along walkways at fashion shows, not as a doctor. "You can't fool me, Kaufman. You've come in here all banged up too many times…"

Vanus put up the palm of his hand, cutting her off. His eyes glittered with a hardness that presented itself rarely. "I'm an Agent of the Theocracy and a magician. Getting banged up is part of the job. Now if you want to schedule me for an MRI, you can do that. But I am not staying in this hospital overnight. You know I have an affinity for them."

"Awwwww." Metzger's lips drooped in mock sympathy as she transitioned her clipboard from the crook of her arm to her hand. Then her face softened. "Fine. But I am going to want that MRI."

The death magician rolled his eyes. "Whatever you want. Just give me the paperwork so I can get out of this room. And what about my partner, Agent Bazzelthorpe? I want to see him."

"Not tonight. He needs rest and so do you…"Before Vanus could object it was Metzger's turn to stop him with a raised hand. "You can see him when you are rested. I called your emergency contact."

Van scowled but offered no further argument on the subject of seeing Bazzelthorpe; still he did not like the idea of the Astorathian being alone; not after everything he'd been through. "Emergency contact? I don't have one."

"Yes you do." Metzger peeked quickly at the clipboard. "Just the one. It looks like Carlos is still listed as your emergency contact."

He stumbled out through the sliding hospital doors, feeling closer to death than to life. It was three o'clock in the morning. It should have been later; it certainly felt later. But then for all he knew time ran differently in Inferno. Or maybe it just felt like it did when the adrenaline was rushing through your veins and you were busy fighting for your life.

A soft late-Autumn rainy mist covered everything in a ghostly sheen: the hospital, with its glowing windows and white walls and endless, winding corridors. Not all that different from Inferno in that aspect, Vanus thought. That and hospitals were full of activity; after all they were temples that were parked in the middle of the intersection between life and death.

The cold felt good on Van's bruised and aching face. He'd always liked winter, even at its worst. It was the kind of weather that made you want to go home and cower beneath the covers. He stood out in the open air, letting the moisture clean the grime from his skin. He inhaled, breathing in air that smelled clean in comparison to the fumes in Inferno.

"What the fuck are you doing standing out in the rain?" Vanus felt the wave of euphoria coming crashing down on him like a tower of Jenga blocks. He'd been so lost in the simple joy of being alive after a terrifying ordeal, that he hadn't seen Carlos pull up to the curb in his truck. The man was already running around the front of the vehicle to wrap Vanus in his coat. He stopped when he saw the state of the Van's appearance.

Van let his arms, which had been spread out, drop to his side. Embarrassment and fatigue and the shock of all that had occurred within the last few hours returned to him. "It's a long story," he heard himself say in a slurred voice.

"You look like death." Carlos shook his head in exasperation. "Get in the truck."

On the drive back to his apartment, the sweeping motions of the windshield wipers could not distract from the tense silence that filled the truck. It wasn't until they'd parked once more that he managed to murmur, "Thanks for the ride."

He kicked the door open, feeling drunk. He cautiously put a foot out on the step.

"Are you going to be okay?" Carlos asked. His voice was tight with concern.

"I'll be alright." He couldn't bring himself to look him in the eye.

"Vanus," Carlos called as he was about to close the door.

"I'm tired, Carlos."

"I know. I'm just…I'm sorry for what I said to you on the porch the other day. I was an asshole."

The death magician gave him a smile that was part grin, part grimace. "No you weren't. You were right."

"Still, we should talk."

"Good night, Carlos." He slammed the door shut, not caring - at least for the moment - whether or not they ever talked again.

He shuffled his way up the stairs like an old man. An old man forever caught in the elusive border between life and death. He didn't have the energy to drag himself down the hallway like a feeble thing into the shower, or strip off his clothes. He crashed into his bed, twisting the cool fresh-detergent-smelling blankets around him, crashing head first into sleep like a spirit laid to rest.

He woke up sometime later to the sound of his phone rattling against the table. No rest for the dead, the wicked or the just; no rest for anyone, he thought. The inside of his head was a hollow space where thoughts slowly began to limp along and form something resembling coherence. His hand swept across the table, almost knocking the damned thing onto the floor. He felt like a deer that had been left to die in the middle of the road after a hit and run.

"Hello?" he heard himself croak into the phone.

It was Metzger, her voice strained. "Vanus, I am sorry to call you like this…but I am going to need you to come down to the hospital."

"Why?"

"It's Agent Bazzelthorpe. We've had to sedate, restrain, and put him in seclusion."

Vanus sat up so quickly he thought he felt his spine snap. "You put him in a seclusion room? What on earth for?"

Metzger made a sputtering sound, trying to make air into syllables. He'd never truly heard her sound this flustered in the years they'd worked together. "Not much of a choice to be honest. He woke up in a rage and destroyed everything in the room."

Vanus limped off the couch, wincing. He made a vain attempt to slide into the filthy remains of his shirt. "Has he hurt anyone? Hurt anyone else?" Now that he was moving, if only just, now that there was a crisis at hand that needed to be dealt with, he was himself again.

"No…but he caused quite a fright at the hospital. He's still in seclusion.

Vanus gritted his teeth impatiently. His heart clenched in his chest; his blood seethed within his veins. “Is there a reason why you’re calling me about this?”

“He keeps saying your name. Apparently he thinks we’re keeping him captive, experimenting on him I think.”

“Well I wonder why!” Vanus heard himself shout. “You put him in a cage, you madwoman! Where do you think he just came from? Where do you think he grew up? Have you seen the scars on his body…” His fingers clenched around the phone hard enough to make the cheap manufactured plastic crunch weakly. He pressed the red END button. He didn’t bother to shower or grab his coat.

                                          …

Alarms were going off in the hospital. People ran through the door in droves, screaming in terror. The blinding flash of siren lights stabbed into Van's eyes like hot needles. He stumbled through the chaos, focused only on what was in front of him.

He didn't stop to ask for directions, because he didn't need to. In his fury, Bazzelthorpe had left a roadmap of signs that led him to the basement of the hospital where the seclusion rooms were kept. Voices whispered in his head, vying for his attention. Gray clouds of smoke twisted into human shape lingered at the corner of his vision, beckoning. It was no different than walking past a crowd of onlookers at a crime scene, he told himself. Only that's not true, he thought as he stepped out of the elevator. At a crime scene if you flash your badge enough, they go away. Not the dead. They don't know how to take no for an answer. Sorry guys, but I'm not a death magician. Not today.

He caught sight of the captain by the nimbus of her pale blonde hair. It wasn't just her hair that made her stand out. It was the unnatural stillness with which she stood. The paleness of her skin, the smoothness of it. When she saw him, she nodded coldly, her eyes glittering diamonds of hardness. When she spoke Vanus could see the sharpened tips of her incisors which had lengthened to knives.

"Good," she said frostily when she saw him. "You're here. You can clean up some of the mess you helped make." She nodded at the thick steel door in front of her; the door came with a security pad that required a card for entry. She nodded at the dour-faced woman standing in front of the door. The keypad flashed green when she slid the card through it.

"You going to be okay in there?" the woman asked; she didn’t sound like she cared one way or the other. The cap over her head made her face look plain and masculine.

Vanus didn't answer. He entered the room, pulling the door shut behind him, flashing the captain a glare of defiance. They would exchange heated words later; it was preordained. He turned his head and wished he hadn't. Tears seared his eyes like hot diamonds. His throat convulsed. Bazzelthorpe was curled up in a fetal position with his back pressed to the wall, arms and legs curled in towards his chest, his tail tucked in defeat. He made sounds that were somewhere between a wheeze and a sob, but were neither. He looked no less pitiful than he had in the pens of Inferno. He escaped one nightmare only to fall into another, Vanus thought.

Vanus went to him cautiously. By now he knew how easily provoked Bazzelthorpe could be. He had to press a hand against the cushioned wall; his legs felt unsteady. He wasn’t sure how long he stared stupidly at his naked, and humiliated partner, too exhausted to form his thoughts into words. “Bazzel,” he heard himself say, sliding to the floor. Dropping more like. When Bazzel did not raise his head or move, Vanus reached out with a cautious hand. Images of the Astorathian ripping his arm off at the shoulder flashed through his mind in vivid detail: the effortless tug of strength, the violent sprays of red against the white walls; it would play out just like a scene in a movie.

“Bazzel,” he said louder. He rested a hand gently upon the front of the Astorathian’s hand. As if the touch had been the true spark needed to free him from the clutches of his terror, Bazzelthorpe raised his head. He looked at Vanus with wide eyes.

“Kaufman?” he whispered. “Is it really you?” And then more weakly, voice on the verge of breaking with tears: “I can’t tell if it’s really you or if I’m just hallucinating.”

“It’s me.”

Bazzelthorpe looked down at the death magician’s hand as if he was seeing it for the first time. His palm turned beneath Van’s; his fingers engulfed them, warm and calloused from years of toiling as a slave under the red skies of Inferno. He could have ripped off Van’s hand if he wanted to, but instead he just held it. “Your skin is so soft,” he rumbled. The inquisitive tone of his voice almost made it sound like a question.

Vanus gulped, remembering what had happened in the tunnels below the surface. That moment when he’d gazed up at Bazzelthorpe’s naked body, bared before him without shame; the feeling of warmth and safety that enveloped him when the Astorathian pressed him to his chest. Had there ever been a moment when he’d felt that safe with anyone, even Carlos? He didn’t dare to answer that question. He cleared his throat, sliding his hand out from underneath Bazzelthorpe’s finger. “I don’t know about you, but this has been the longest day of my life. Are you ready to get out of here and get some shut eye?”

“Good Mother, yes,” the Astorathian said with a groan, rising to his feet.

Vanus pulled the door open. He glared at the captain. “Can we get this man some clothes, please?”

“We will talk about this tomorrow.” She meant the both of them, but she looked only at Vanus.

“Yes,” he said coldly, brushing past her.