The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 22. Chapter 22

"Are you okay?"

They were back in the truck but Vanus was the one driving.

Bazzel didn't answer - why have I started thinking of him as Bazzel all the sudden? he wondered. He kept his head facing the window, the lost hopeless look on his face reflected in the rain-speckled glass. Vanus felt his own nerves tighten, the words "Hello? Can you at least say something?" heavy and acidic on his tongue. You need to stay calm, he reminded himself. You're behind the wheel for the Good Mother's sake. Bazzel could say what he wanted about Van's mustang and its lack of space, but the SUV was so monstrous he could barely touch the wheel. Or he was just too damned short. He almost had to stand on the gas pedal to reach it.

"I'm fine," Bazzelthorpe said, his voice somewhere between a purr and a growl. He did not elaborate, which was fine with Vanus. He was having a hard enough time keeping his head up and his eyes open. They stung like hot razor blades; he'd rubbed them red with the heels of his hands.

"Where do you live?" When Bazzel did not answer, Van's fingers tightened around the wheel until they turned white, "Where am I taking you, Agent Bazzelthorpe?" He supposed it was petty, calling him by his official name, but he was exhausted and all he wanted to do was go home and go to bed.

"Turn left at the light," the Astorathian said in a voice so calm Vanus thought he might still be sedated.

From there Bazzelthorpe spoon fed him directions with the same remote voice, the growl-purr that had begun to soothe the tension in Van's hands and shoulders.

They passed the bridge over the Northern Atlantic Ocean that would take them into the Slums. At five in the morning, the streets were deserted except for the lost souls who wandered them: junkies and the homeless - who could tell the difference between the two from this vantage point? - crouched in the mouths of alleyways and squatting in abandoned tenements too ate up with rot to live in. Prostitutes flashed their jewels at men in business suits beneath dancing neon signs, making cat calls after them. Vanus had always known the truth about Roc City: the filth that clung to the underbelly of the city like shit-moss. Only now did he see its glaring resemblance to the cities of Inferno, reinforced by the number of Astorathians seen walking the street.

Bazzelthorpe lived in a crumbling tenement much like the ones that surrounded it.

"Here we are," Vanus said, easing the truck to a stop. "Get some sleep. You're going to need it. We haven't heard the end of Gwendolyn."

"I want you to come upstairs to my place," Bazzelthorpe purred as if he hadn't heard the death magician.

"Bazzel…" Vanus forced hair out through his nose. "I'm really…really tired. I haven't slept in over twenty-four hours, and I'm not an expert in Astorathian physiology, but I can't stay up days at a time like you can…"

Warm fingers wrapped around his wrists and arms. Bazzel's eyes looked at him with such smoldering intensity, it scared Van into silence. "Just for a minute. Please. There's something I want to show you. I have a spare mattress in the bedroom you can sleep on if you need it."

Vanus stalled, conflicted. The paw on his arm felt heavy and real and warm. So warm. When he stopped to think about it the Astorathian could be really quite handsome, even with the grey skin and the scars. He wanted to let his hand stay there, to entwine Bazzel's fingers if such a thing was possible. Then the typical feelings of shame and regret he felt corkscrewed through him like a nail shot into his gut. Even as he became aware of it, he couldn't stop himself from retracting from the Astorathian's touch.

"Alright," he heard himself say. "Just for a minute."

The hallways smelled of cigarette smoke and cat litter. Voices could be heard shouting behind peeling doors, hands thumping against walls. An Astorathian woman watched him wide-eyed as they walked past her. They came to a stairway.

"We're not going to take the elevator?" Vanus said, squinting at the steps.

"The elevator doesn't work," Bazzelthorpe said matter-of-factly.

"You're kidding?"

Bazzelthorpe grinned, showing his teeth. It was the first time Vanus had ever seen him wear a full smile. "Do I strike you as a man with a sense of humor?"

"Not really, no."

Bazzelthorpe stepped forward so that he casted Vanus in an Astorathian-shaped pool of shadow. His golden eyes pierced the death magician's with the same single-minded focus as always, but there was a softness about his face that had yet to present itself, a gentleness that was not typical. "I can carry you up the stairs," he said in a voice that edged on cockiness. The low-bass of his voice caused Van's flesh to break out in gooseflesh. Bazzelthorpe was close enough he could feel the warmth coming off his skin, an eight foot tall space heater.

What's going on here? Vanus thought. What's happening to me?

He could feel the warmth and the promise of Bazzelthorpe's touch pull at him. Why would he want such a thing? From the beginning they'd never gotten along. Bazzelthorpe was gruff, stoic, and temperamental. A teeter-totter of uncertainties and contradictions. It'd be a match made in hell, he thought.

"I don't…" Vanus started.

He didn't get to finish. One second he was standing with one foot on the step and the other braced on the ground, his hand braced against the wall, and the next he was rising, being lifted, being carried up the stairs. Bazzelthorpe gripped him firmly but gently, as if afraid to drop or break him, one hand pressed against the ridge between Van's shoulder blades, the other supporting his legs so that they dangled in the air. The world turned into a tilt-o'-whirl of color and motion. Vanus instinctively held on for dear life, his arms wrapping around the broad expanse of Bazzel's shoulders.

"What are you doing?" the death magician demanded in a tight voice. "I'm…I'm afraid of heights!"

Bazzelthorpe slowed his steps but did not stop. His eyes smoldered with a gentle intensity. His whole body vibrated around Vanus, purring like an engine. "I'm not going to drop you." Then he set Vanus on his feet, pulling out the ruffled tail of his shirt. "We're here."

"What floor?"

"The sixth."

Vanus stepped back, shaking. He didn't know why. It was as if he hadn't enjoyed the ride, the feeling of being touched, his skin aglow with the pleasure of it. It was the pleasure that bothered him, that made his skin crawl with a feeling of unease that bordered into the territory of shame. Of self-loathing. You never open up, a phantom voice whispered in his head. You never let anyone touch you. You always clam up. "Don't do that again," he said in a quivering voice. He could feel himself growing angry. His blood raced. He could feel his blood pressure rise like a thermometer shooting to the top, even as he tried to tell himself he was overreacting.

"Why not? Did I scare you?" Bazzelthorpe growled, looking at Vanus with hunger. "You didn't mind in Inferno…"

"That was different, that was a life or death situation. And this isn't a joking matter."

The Astorathian studied him for a long time, gauging Van's reaction; he cocked his head, listening to something Vanus couldn't hear. His smile dropped. "Your heart is racing," he said. "It sounds like it's about to burst out of your chest. Are you afraid of me?"

"I'm not afraid of you!" Vanus snapped. He felt his hands curl into claws. His skin buzzed with electricity. "I just don't like unexpected surprises. And you can't just pick people up like that! It's a violation of boundaries…Surely you picked that up in training at the Theocracy! It's a universal fucking thing!"

"I didn't mean to…"

"But you didn't ask me! You just fucking did what you did! What you wanted to!" He was screaming now. He wanted to stop, but it was too late. The damage had been done, blood oozing out from a thousand places. Anger and fear and self-loathing raging inside him like the perfect storm. He could still hear his voice ringing in the hallway, bouncing off the walls.

He expected the Astorathian to throw a nasty remark back at him - it's how their interactions had played out so far - to berate him, tear him further down than he already was. Instead Bazzelthorpe lowered his head in apology, looking deeply ashamed. "You're right. I'm not very easy to communicate with, am I?"

"No, you're not," the death magician said, flashing Bazzel a scathing look. Why do you just stand there? he wanted to demand. Why can't you just leave me alone? What do you want from me? One minute you like me and then you hate me…

The hallway was shifting around them, the walls seeming to fold in towards them. No, he told himself. You only feel that way because you're still tense as a drum.

He inhaled. It was like cold water hitting a pan left on the stove to heat up: steam dissipated on contact with the air. "I'm sorry." He wiped at his eyes once more with the heels of his hands; they squeaked audibly like pieces of wood. "I don't know what got into me."

Bazzel nodded in acceptance. He reached into the great folds of his oversized overcoat and pulled out his keys. He blocked the door, hiding the knob from view. For the next two minutes Vanus watched the Astorathian struggle to get the door open. He bit back an impatient sigh before offering to help.

Bazzelthorpe immediately straightened. Vanus tensed, ready for the Astorathian to reward him with a scathing remark. Again…he didn't. He turned to look at the death magician, his red cheeks touched with snow. "My hands are too big." He held out his hand in demonstration. The key was cradled by the valley of lines and calluses and scars of his hand.

Despite the fit he'd thrown just mere seconds ago, Vanus thawed. "Let me." He took the key. Unlocking the door was easy but he could see how an Astorathian might struggle. A panel of living darkness waited for them beyond the rectangular frame of the door.

"The apartment is a mess," Bazzel said apologetically. "Let me turn on a light."

Still blushing, the Astorathian faded out of view. The sound of tin cans crunched and scattered in his wake. Vanus thought he heard a couple curses muttered under his breath. A light came on. Bazzel beckoned for him to come in. In one hand he held what looked like a canister made of clay and stone. He stood surrounded by a sea of beer cans, coloring the air with a brown yeasty smell. The walls were stained yellow brown with nicotine; Vanus doubted the nicotine stings were the responsibility of the Astorathian as he’d never seen him smoke, but the beer cans were obvious. There was no furniture except for a single armchair that was bowed out, reshaped into Bazzel’s body, the arms angled out as if about to explode outwards, and a single boxy TV that had been outdated for twenty years with an antenna.

Vanus stepped cautiously into the room. The walls whispered to him. Well they didn’t whisper to him. Not in the way the dead did. But they did have something to say and they revealed much about Barghast. A sense of despair, of loneliness hung around the place that hung around the place like a crusty old T-shirt. He imagined Bazzelthorpe coming to this new city, with this new world, with only a small box TV to keep him company. His only window into the world. His only way to gain impressions about human beings. “I see you now,” he wanted to say. “I see you now in a way I’ve never seen you before.” He didn’t say it. He felt it would have been an insult. He was just tired and the claustrophobia of the room had begun to overwhelm him. In fact everything about the room overwhelmed him.

He focused on Bazzelthorpe. On his scarred face. Only it wasn’t the scars he saw, the red skin, or the horns. He saw a man from another place far different from this one. A man who had known only hardship and suffering; repudiation and racism. It didn’t help that his views of the world were formed by what he saw on the flickering screen, where humanity’s worst parts were depicted in an endless cycle of advertisements, news reels, and TV shows that reveled in the glamor of lies. These things made the Astorathian as human as any human being could be.

"This is Giel," Bazzelthorpe said, holding out the canister.

Vanus stepped forward to get a closer look. He waited for Bazzel to speak.

"He was my mate. My best friend, my brother, my lover." Bazzel's upper body - his shoulders, chest, and arms - folded in around the canister as if to shield it from the fires of Inferno. "We met in the slave pens. He saved me. He kept me fed, kept me warm, kept me safe. He gave me a chance when so many others turned away from me. Even amongst my own people, Kaufman, I am an outsider." He chuckled sadly. "I think you can imagine why."

"Your affability and abundance of charm no doubt," the death magician could stop himself.

"Yes." Bazzel's face sagged once more. Vanus thought he might start crying. "When Astorathian's mate, they mate for life. I wanted to spend the rest of my days with him. Nepharites snatched us up while we were scavenging the tunnels for lichen. Back then that's what we ate mostly. Whatever we could find that could be digested. Insects, sometimes other Astorathians."

"Cannibalism," Vanus said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes. I'm not proud of it. But it's what we had to do to survive."

"I understand."

Bazzel cocked his head to the side. "Do you?" There was no anger in his voice, only genuine curiosity.

Vanus chose his words carefully. He felt the blood rise up to his cheeks, turning his skin scarlet. "I know what it means to do horrible things in the name of survival. Because you have to, not because you want to. Those things are not who you are, though they do not have to define us. They don't have to define who we are now. Do you understand?"

Bazzel took a step forward. The tips of his horns fell just an inch or so short of scraping the ceiling paint. He made the living room look tiny, like a closet. The haphazard stack of dishes and Styrofoam takeout containers covering the top of the counters and stove didn't help. "I didn't before I met you."

Vanus scoffed. He let out a shaky laugh that verged on the edge of hysteria. Bazzelthorpe, who had been in the middle of taking another step, stopped, looking unsure. “You’ve been through a traumatizing ordeal,” the death magician said. “Understandably you’re a little off your A-game. Just give it a few days of rest and recuperation and you’ll be back to your chipper self. You can go back to hating me?” He didn’t realize until he said it how much like a sniveling little victim he sounded.

“Hating you?” The Astorathian’s eyes widened as if the death magician had slapped him. “Why would you think I hate you?”

Vanus turned, heading for the door. “Never mind. This conversation is entirely fucked. I’m going home and going to bed.”

He didn’t make it to the door. At the same time a thunderous voice shouted, “No!”, two hands larger than Van’s head crashed into the door on either side of his skull, slamming it shut.

Vanus whirled around, a snarl on his lips. “You fucking horned bastard!” he screamed. He unleashed his fury on the Astorathian, not with mana, but with his hands, clawing at him as best he could. How did you claw at someone who was over two feet taller than you? He had no way of knowing. He was more furious than he could ever remember being. Bazzelthorpe pinned his arms effortlessly above his head. His eyes were twin points of fire, his teeth bared in a snarl of his own that made Vanus kick out in a blind panic.

“You…are like…an insect!” Bazzelthorpe roared. "Don't you ever stop moving? Can't you just listen?"

"What do you want from me?" Vanus cried.

"What do I want?" the Astorathian said, bending down so close that all Vanus could see was the predatory hunger in those golden eyes. Eyes that bulged out of their sockets. Eyes that wanted to devour him whole. "I'll show you."

Then he leaned down and pressed his lips to Van's.