The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 23. Chapter 23

What's happening? Vanus thought. This isn't happening. This shouldn't be happening. But it was happening and he didn't want it to stop. Or at least his body didn't.

Bazzelthorpe's vibrated and purred around him like the engine of the sweetest ride. His lips covered Van's completely, warm and soft and very full. One hand could wrap completely around Van's skull if that's what he wanted to do, but instead the callused, scar-bitten tips of his fingers slid through the death magician's shoulder-length locks, making Van's scalp tingle. His tongue, more long and pointed than any human tongue could be, probed at Van's smaller mouth, seeking entry.

Do I want to let him in? a part of Van's mind wondered. Do I?

He found that he did, so he granted Bazzelthorpe entry. His tongue entered Van's mouth like a snake sliding in on its belly. He could have choked Vanus with it, but he didn't. Somehow, in the space of seconds it seemed to Vanus that he'd changed from the vengeful, angry giant that kept the universe at arm's length to a gentle giant; two different giants in the body of one. His grip, his lips were gentle, but the imprint of his fingers left no question as to what their intent was. There was a hunger there, a lust that could not be denied and Vanus for all his efforts could not resist.

The death magician wrapped his arms around the Astorathian's shoulders. He felt like a Chihuahua trying to one-up a Great Dane, but his body could not tell the difference. The world shifted. For the third time in one night - or was it four? - Agent Bazzelthorpe lifted Vanus into the air, one arm looped beneath his legs, the other around the upper half of his body. He pressed Vanus to him as if afraid of breaking him. Somehow they ended up in the armchair with the death magician perched on the Astorathian's lap like a bird.

At last Vanus came up for air, gasping, his lungs filled to bursting. Beneath him the solid foundation of Bazzelthorpe's belly heaved up and down with the same breathless exertion. The pool of Bazzel's eyes pulled Vanus into them effortlessly. They were beautiful. Everything about the Astorathian was beautiful in a hard and unyielding way. Looking into them, soft and vulnerable and empty of resistance, left the death magician speechless. He could see the silver glow of his own eyes - ignited by the abandonment of reason and set ablaze by a physical hunger startling in its need for consumption - was reflected back at him in the glow of Bazzel's irises.

Bazzel was the first to break the silence; his voice, a low rumble, sounded like lightning striking the underbelly of the earth; his fingers continued to twist their way gently through Van's hair. "Stay with me. Here. Tonight."

"I can't," Vanus said.

Bazzel's arms tightened around him slightly - still gentle - as if he was afraid a strong gust of wind would blow Vanus away from him. "Why not?"

"You and I don't exactly get along," the death magician said not unkindly, tracing his fingers along the lines and ridges of the Astorathian's brow. He's just as nervous as I am, Vanus thought. With Bazzel it was hard to tell; hard to remember he was capable of wearing more than one expression, even though those times were few and far between.

Regret and shame cast a shadow over the Astorathian's broad face. "I know. I am a fool. I…I'm sorry…"

"Why did you kiss me?"

"I've always wanted to. From the moment I saw your face on the TV."

Vanus shook his head in frustration, wiggling out of Bazzel's embrace. He let out a bitter chuckle that held no humor. "You're a complete mindfuck, you know that? Just a few days ago you told me what a disappointment… what a shit agent I was."

Bazzel followed him to the center of the living room, crushing beer cans to a pull beneath his feet. "When I saw you on the TV, working on the Astorathian Butcher case, you were a character on the screen that I fell in love with…the way people sometimes do, I suppose. When Hellen's body was found and you disappeared from the screen I realized you weren't just a character in a show. You were a human being with flaws. You were not infallible. I resented you for that." He reached for Vanus, a finger tucking a curl behind Van's ear. "Then I started working with you and I realized something else: You may not be infallible, but you are good. You're the greatest."

Van negated this with a shake of his head. He was shaking again, his blood pressure cresting. "I think I liked it better when you were reminding me what a fuck up I am. At least it didn't make my head spin. I've done shit I'm not proud of, you know? Things that would make you hate me anew. Repulsive, despicable, evil things that no good deed can erase…"

Bazzelthorpe cupped his face, pressing his mouth to Van's before he could finish. The kiss lingered for only a moment and ended all too soon. Still holding his face, still so close Bazzel was all Vanus could see, the Astorathian said,"I don't care what awful things you did in the past. I know who you are now. When I fell into Inferno you descended into the depths of hell for me. Because of you three other Astorathians will live when they would have suffered greatly had you not interceded…You could have left me, forgotten about me, moved on with your life, but you brought me back."

Van looked away, blinking back tears. He felt feverish with exhaustion and the constant shifting assault of emotions. Then he kissed both of Bazzel's wrists and the palms of his hands. "Of course I'd never leave you, you horned idiot."

Bazzel threw his head back and bellowed out a laugh. His eyes twinkled. "I know you wouldn't. That's what I mean. You are smart and good and just. You may be tiny, but you are fierce. I will never doubt you again. Ever." His expression softened, turning to concern. "Your eyes are bloodshot." He looked out the window. "The sun's started to rise. I have a bed in the spare bedroom. I rarely sleep on it. Come."

Vanus was too tired to resist so he let Bazzel guide him down the hallway, into the bedroom. Like the living room, the bedroom was bare except for a plain Alaskan-King sized mattress on the hardwood floor and a tarp over the window that kept all but a single stray ray of morning light from seeping through. “I love what you’ve done with the place,” he muttered sleepily. “Very cozy.”

“I’ve never had much of an eye for decoration…as you can see,” the Astorathian said with a rare glint of humor. He offered Vanus his hand. When the death magician did not take it, he smiled and said, “I promise I don’t bite.” Together they eased themselves down onto the mattress.

Even with an Alaskan King sized mattress, Bazzel took up most of it. His feet dangled six inches over the mattress. “I don’t think there’s enough room for the both of us,” Vanus said, almost on the floor.

“Then we’ll have to make more room,” the Astorathian said in that same playful voice. He pulled Van’s back to his chest, They were still clothed; still covered in dust, filth, and bruises.

“You kissed me back. Why did you kiss me back?”

Vanus had just enough presence of mind to answer. “It’s been so long since another man has touched me. Truly touched me. Truly seen me. I’m lonely. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Then he fell asleep.

…

He dreamed of his old life when he’d been named Lionel Perry, a name he’d long since rejected; the life he’d put on the shelf to gather dust. He dreamed that he stood on the stage of a great amphitheater, naked as the day he was born. A girl with blonde hair stood next to him, also naked, her cheeks glowing under the milky glow of the stage lights, her nipples hardened to buds in the open air. He knew her as Julia. Sometimes they were friends, sometimes they were enemies; sometimes they loved each other, other times he wanted to strangle her in her sleep; sometimes they were brother and sister, and other times - like now - they were lovers. The sight of her repulsed him. And yet he would do what was required of him. He would fulfill his duty. All I have to do is close my eyes and pretend she’s someone else, he thought. Sometimes it worked.

They both had matching tattoos of the Blackened Rose on their back: a rose with nails jutting out of the stem and blood seeping from the hole.

They were not alone. The man he knew as Stamper stood behind them, his eyes gazing out at the audience of two-thousand people. Men and women who had gone through the induction ceremony just as he was now. He could feel their hungry eyes on his flesh, their rapt attention. Their corruption. Their lust for him made his skin crawl.

“Lionel,” they whispered in unison, their voices as delicate and thin as spider webbing. “Lionel, Lionel, Lionel…”

It was not just the living who called his name but the dead as well. Dark specters watched him from the shadowed corners where not even the lights of the stage could reach; they watched him, but they did nothing to set him free. When have they done anything for me? he thought. Just like Julia and Stamper and the members of the Blackened Cross, they only take. They only demand.

Beside him Julia giggled. She was radiant with anticipation. Already she could feel her voice worming its way inside his ear: “I love you, Lionel.”

“Turn and face me,” Stamper said.

And they did as they were told. Stamper was not to be disobeyed.

Stamper was also naked with the Blackened Cross imprinted on his bony chest. His angular cheekbones, pale skin, and deep set eyes gave him a skeletal look. His arms were outstretched, palms facing open towards his audience. Chains unraveled around him like tendrils ending at the single shackle looped around the initiates ankles: a symbol of ownership. Behind them stood the statue of the Bloodstained Patriarch, the perverted father who devours his children, the death angel Chagidiel. Made from the stone harvested from the mines of Inferno by Astorathian slave hands, the statue was older than any human, older than the earth itself. The depiction of a newborn babe hung upside down from his hand, gripped by the ankles. Lionel (that’s not my name anymore, he told himself; he repeated it like a prayer, as if believing it would make it true) could not shake the feeling that the statue was watching him. Coveting him.

“Loyal audience members, you may disrobe!” Stamper directed, his face as cold and impassive as the surface of a mirror.

Two thousand people rose to their feet as one without murmuring a single word. The only sound that could be heard was the rustling of clothes as the men and women sitting in the seats before the stage and on the balcony up above began to pull off their garments: shirts, pants; skirts and bras; shoes and socks; earrings and bracelets. All of it was dropped on the floor, abandoned in the name of the death angel Chagidiel. Stamper waved his hand and an organ began to play a chaotic tone that made Lionel’s (not my name, not my name) skin want to crawl off the bone..Under the spell cast by the music, the bodies before the stage began to mingle in a frenzy of activity: Hands wandered over navels and breasts and engorged erections of all colors, shapes, and size.. Men mingled with men, men mingled with men, women with women. The thrumming vibrations of the organ, like music in a inGothic movie, unraveled the crowd’s composure until all Lionel could see was a mass of bodies writhing and moving together as one, all composure and reason thrown down the garbage disposal.

“Face one another,” Stamper commanded.

He faced the girl - or was she a woman at this point? - he hated the most. She smiled, her eyes glimmering. He wanted to strangle her until the light drained from her eyes and her body went stiff as a board.

“And now the ritual begins,” Stamper said.

Julia’s lips clamped upon his own before he could open his mouth to object. Everything about her was wrong. The thinness of her lips, her wandering, questing hands that knew no restraint. She twisted and prodded at him with her fingers. Her tongue slid its way unbidden into his mouth. He wanted to sink his teeth into the muscle of her and rip it free from her cage. Maybe then she’ll get the message, he thought savagely. Maybe then she’ll learn how to take no for an answer.

“In this act of defilement, of debasement, of perversion, do you give yourselves unwaveringly to the death angel Chagidiel, twin of Astaroth?” Stamper chanted.

“Yes,” the crowd said between moans and shouts of exaltation. The theater smelled of sex, of one human body exchanging bodily fluids with another: a raunchy, meaty smell that made his gorge rise. He wished he could run away from it all, but he was stuck where he was at, chained to a man and a girl who thought devotion and perversion were synonymous with love.

Stamper stepped towards him, eyes sliding over his flesh like insects. Lionel shivered, suddenly cold beneath the blazing lights. Stamper and Julia circled him like hungry wolves, chains clinking across the floor, binding him with steel. Stamper probed an oil-slickened finger inside him while Julia smashed her lips to Lionel's, sliding her tongue inside him.

Lionel wanted to pull away from the both of him, but he couldn't. He was held in place by a force far stronger than he.

Julia's tongue was a dead thing in his mouth, black and slick with rot while Stamper's finger dug into him deeper and deeper. When the flies and maggots - thousands of them, a plague of them - began to slither from Julia's mouth into his was when Vanus Kaufman woke up with a scream.