The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 25. Chapter 25

Casting call:
James Callis for Vanus Kaufman: change the eye color and he's spot on.
Vin Diesel or Freddie Prince Jr (he voiced Iron Bull in Dragon Age, my ultimate fantasy crush and who I model all my fantasy lovers after).
Gwendolyn Christie as Gwen (duh). You know her from Game of Thrones but she is amazing. She is one of the few females I'd worship if I was straight. She's like over six feet in real life to my five-eight so yeah. Guess I have a height fetish.

Bazzel's head felt like a revolving door. Or maybe it was more like those wheels from the game shows that humans went crazy over. The one where they leapt about and smothered each other with kisses and hugs when the lights went off. Only instead of multiple options there was only one prize to go home with: Vanus. Vanus. And Vanus.

Each and every second with the death magician brought a sense of new discovery. A sense of insight that made Bazzelthorpe breathless with a maddening anticipation. Like the fact that the death magician did not jump around when he was happy, nor had the Astorathian ever truly seen him laugh come to think of it.

This maddening obsession had kicked into overdrive during their last encounter. Bazzel couldn't shake the feeling that every time he started to get close to Vanus, he said or did something to hurt the death magician. I don't mean to, he wanted to tell Kaufman. I don't know why I keep hurting you. It's not what I want. I'd make you smile if you would only tell me how. Maybe that had been the point of the chains. The way his mouth had been stitched up. Either he was being haunted by something that kept him from talking to the Astorathian, or he simply didn't feel like he could. Either one would not do.

He tried to slow down these thoughts - if not silence them altogether - with his nightly regiment of beer and scalding hot showers, so he tried to remedy the issue with research. His phone kept slipping from his fingers onto the floor until he stepped on it out of frustration, crushing the little device to smithereens. Then the whole cycle of frustration started over.

An hour later, Bazzelthorpe found himself sitting down at his office computer, slowly plunking away at the keyboard. While the time it took to type in the query still infuriated the Astorathian, it was a far cry better from using his phone. While he waited for Google to finish loading, Bazzelthorpe found himself watching Van's empty chair forlornly, as if through will alone he could make Kaufman materialize. As such, Vanus would not be up for another three or four hours. He thought of the morning before when they had laid together: that all too brief period of time when Vanus had rested in his arms, his face completely relaxed in sleep. That time when Bazzel was able to memorize the entirety of his face without interruption. He remembered running his fingers through the death magician's smooth, silky hair and along the grace of his jawline.

"Like an angel," Bazzel whispered to the empty room.

It was time to switch tactics: searching the web was a bust. It had too much to offer and he didn't have the patience for it. He would need to talk to someone. Someone who knew Vanus. One person came to mind.

One of the perks of being a Theocracy agent was city-access. Bazzelthorpe did not know how to navigate Google, but he did know how to use the Theocracy's outdated system and he did know how to track people down. Within a few minutes he had the address pulled up for a Carlos Santino.

You're not thinking clearly. Just exactly what do you intend to do? Gael's voice echoed in his mind.

"I just want to ask the man a few questions," Bazzelthorpe muttered out loud to the empty office. "He's bound to know something about Kaufman."

No more voices spoke up to dissuade him from his decision, because there was nothing that could change his mind once it was made up. He powered up the truck at six o'clock in the morning and was parked outside the small duplex with the porch swing seven minutes later.

He waited until the ex stepped out of the front door before getting out of the car. The ex didn't know Bazzelthorpe was behind him until he said, "My name is Agent Bazzelthorpe."

Carlos whirled around, heart racing inside his chest. Bazzelthorpe did his best to hide the smile of triumph he felt after startling the man. While he was not much taller than Vanus, he was a great deal more well built. Looking at him, Bazzel felt no interest in the man standing in front of him. Only a single minded focus to get back to what truly mattered to him.

"What are you doing here?" Carlos stood with his back pressed up against the wall as if he were afraid Bazzelthorpe might attack him. He was dressed in a T-shirt, jogging shorts, and running shoes.

"I…need…your…help." Each word rattled around inside the Astorathian's mouth like gravel.

"Help with what?" Carlos took a startled step forward. "Is it Vanus? Is he in trouble?"

"He's not in trouble." Now that he was here, Bazzelthorpe wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk away. That was until he watched Carlos turn around and do the same.

"If he's not in trouble, I don't want to hear it."

"If you don't want him, then I'll have him."

'’'Have him?'" Carlos laughed sardonically. "What do you mean ‘have him?’"

"You would not take him as your mate, so I will. I will have him."

"He is not mine to have or to give, nor is he yours. Vanus is an island unto himself."

Bazzelthorpe forced himself to take a deep breath. Already he could feel himself getting angry with his hands clenched into fists. Do not shout, he reminded himself. If you shout, he'll leave, and then you won't get what you want. "I can't quit thinking about him."

Carlos shrugged. "How is that my problem?"

Bazzelthorpe growled with barely contained frustration. "He thinks I hate him. And he never smiles. How do I make him smile?"

"Your best bet is just to walk away while you still have your sanity. While you still can."

“I will not walk away from him the way you did.” Bazzelthorpe advanced forward, showing his teeth. Carlos took a step back. “I will not turn a deaf ear to him when he needs someone to listen to him the most. I will do everything in my power to make him happy, to make him smile. And I know I’ve hurt him enough as it is. I do not wish to hurt him more than I already have.”

“You’re talking to the wrong person, my horned friend.” Carlos held open the screen door for him. “But I suppose I can tell you where to start.”

…

Brad dreamed of digging a thousand graves beneath the burning skies of Inferno. Here in this place where the rape and suffering of the undying soul were synonymous with devotion and love, the soil was as smooth as silk. Untouched by industrial machines and inventions of the mortal mind, he didn't need a shovel to dig. He could simply dig his fingernails into the soil, smooth as silk, and pull it free.

Around him the song of a thousand screaming souls rose in a chaotic chorus of torment as their flesh was melted off the bone, regrown, and then scoured off again. Such had been their final moments in life and in death that life would continue for the rest of eternity. An unceasing nightmare that knew no end.

“Wake up!” Leonida hissed. He stood six feet above Brad’s head at the lip of the grave. “Wake up you fuckin’ idiot! Someone’s here!”

There was the physical sense of his body - or was it his mind? or his soul? it was impossible to know these days - and then he was sitting up on the dusty, threadbare couch of his father’s couch with a worn afghan twisted around his hips and legs. The door to the cabin swung open. Dan’s moonlit-swathed silhouette stood in the doorway. Instinctively Brad froze, but he knew it was already too late. His father held a powerful flashlight in his hand; the beam sliced through the dark like a hot blade slicing through butter, illuminating dust particles that floated lazily through the air.

Brad reached into the pocket of his slacks. Immediately he felt the loving, warm touch of Chokmah’s lighter press against his clammy flesh.

The flashlight’s beam froze upon him. Dan Anderson let out a curse of startlement, reaching for the rifle slung over his shoulder at the same time his other hand shot for the lightswitch. When he saw it was his son, he let out a whistling exhale of relief. “Damn it, son! I almost put a bullet in your skull!”

“That’s okay, Dad,” Brad heard himself say, as calm and placid as the surface of a lake. The lighter had stripped him of all fear, all humanity.

“What are you doing here, son? This place is nuthin’ but dust by now.”

"I just needed a break from the city…from the wife." He let out a chuckle for effect. "You know how it is."

Dan nodded emphatically. "I do. Yes, sir, you better believe I do. Been married to the same woman longer than you've been alive. Is it you who has been lighting the fires? I've been seeing the smoke above the trees when I come to smoke on the back porch."

"I like to light a fire every now and then when it gets dark." Brad shrugged. "That's not a crime, is it?"

"No, I suppose it isn't." Dan Anderson lowered his eyes, refusing to look his son in the face. The flashlight shuddered in his hand. Something inside Brad licked its lips hungrily. Behind him, Leonidas laughed. "He's frightened of you, Anderson. He has always been frightened of you…even if he doesn't have the balls to admit it. It's the same with your mother. Did you ever think to ask why that is?"

"Dad?" Brad said. "Why won't you look at me?'

Dan Anderson did not look up, did not speak. He just continued to stand there and shake. Brad could not remember a time when he'd seen his father look afraid - not like he did not. He'd always thought of his father as the epitome of man. One of the good ol' boys who'd worked for everything he had: the house he lived in, the land it sat on, the wife he slept in bed with every night and woke up next to every morning; one of the good ol' boys who dressed in flannel shirts and faded jeans; one of the good ol' boys who thought it was a weakness to show emotion, to show kindness, to show anything other than hard, unyielding masculinity.

"My father was the same way," Leonidas said. "A bull of a man who lived to make others suffer. Only he had the sense to get away and stay away; he found some other dumb bitch to fuck and spread her seed with. I suppose you could say my mother did the best she could, but she was no better. You could even say she was worse. She was a lying cunt who couldn't keep from spreading her legs for every man that came her way. It was how she put food on the table. Once I turned thirteen she inducted me into the family business. I, too, had to spread my legs for every man that came our way. 'Earning my keep' was what she called it…"

Brad took a step towards his father.

Dan took a step back. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Oh yeah?" Brad advanced another step. Dan took another step back, now standing at the boundary between the inside of the cabin and the outside world. "Then why do you keep backing away from me?"

"So when I found Chokmah's lighter at the age of fifteen…almost the exact same age when you found it, Anderson…I found more than just my salvation. I found my calling…My mother was my first victim. One night after she'd spread her legs for the last time to make her last dollar, I taped her to her favorite chair, doused her in my love, doused her in gasoline, and set her ablaze…"

Dan Anderson's eyes fell to the hand still tucked away in Brad's jacket. "What do you have in your pocket?"

"Oh, it's just something I found last week while on my morning jog," Brad said the same voice he would have used to talk about last week's sports game - if he had any interest in sports. "Would you like to see?"

"Yeah," Dan said with a shaky hand. "Pull it out slowly and let me see it." He freed the strap of his rifle from over his shoulder. He pointed it at Brad.

"Dad, why are you pointing a gun at me?" Brad asked with just the right amount of improvised shock.

"Pull it out, Brad. Don't make me shoot you, son. I don't want to, but I will…"

"You wouldn't shoot your own son, would you, Dad?" He pulled out the glowing, pulsing lighter and held it up for Dan to see.

"What is that?" Dan cried, his voice rising somewhere between a rasp and a shout.

"Why don't you see for yourself?" Brad tossed the lighter at his father with an underhanded motion of his arm. For a moment the lighter hung suspended in the air, turning end over end. Instinctively his dad threw out the hand with the flashlight; the flashlight bounced off the floor, shattering the lense, and plunging the cabin back into murky darkness. The moment the lighter made contact with Dan's flesh, he let out the bellow of a wounded bull. The lighter bounced once off the floor then came to a rest between father and son.

"What is that?" his father sobbed. He was actually sobbing. Brad tried to recall the last time he'd seen his father shed a tear; nothing came to mind. "What the fuck is that?"

"Take a look at it, Dad. I'm sure you'll recognize it."

Dan did just that, his jowls quivering. The wrinkles around his mouth deepened into cracks. "That's not possible. We got rid of it…we got rid of it…"

"And now it's back," Brad said carefully, as if he was explaining the concept of how babies are made to a child. "Back in my pockets. Back in my hands."

Dan shook his head in denial. "It can't be the same one. It's a replica. You had one modeled just like the one we found you with when you were a kid. Just to fuck with us."

Brad laughed bitterly; there was no humor in it, only insanity. Even now he could feel his mind breaking down but by bit, second by second. Soon there would be nothing of the Brad Anderson he used to be, only the force that existed - that lived - in the lighter, taking him over the way all parasites take over their host. "Even in this age of enlightenment, you are as stubborn and willfully as stupid as a bull without brains."

"Brad, son." His father gulped audibly. "We got you help before and we can get you help again. Your wife, Heidi, called. She's worried about you. She says she's worried about you. She says you quit your job. She told me what happened, that that man attacked you…"

"You make it sound like I'm broken."

"You are, son." His father was truly sobbing now, snot leaking from the red, beating knob of his nose. "I think you always have been, from the moment you were born."

"To become an Incarnate, an Archon's Will and Principle made flesh, we must commit the opposite of love and devotion: we, the children, must kill the swine that birthed us. If this is the life you seek, Anderson, then do as I did and slaughter this sad sack of shit!"

"You're right, Dad," Brad said from the shadows of the cabin. Dan had been so focused on the lighter he hadn't seen Brad sneak a butcher knife from the back pocket of his slacks to the sleeve of his shirt with the skill of a magician. "I'm broken. Unfortunately I don't want to be fixed, not this time."

Leonidas' figure came up behind Dan Anderson and gave the man a hard shove that sent the old man falling to his knees. Dan screamed, scrabbling to get away from a force he couldn't see. The door slammed shut, closing them in darkness.

"Braaaaaddd! Brad, what are you doing? Stop it! Let me out!"

"Oink, oink, motherfucker," Brad said before lunging forward with the knife.