The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 27. Chapter 27

The moment Vanus saw Brad and Heidi Anderson's house, his insides went cold. His reaction to the air around the house affected the air inside the truck. Bazzelthorpe, normally the one to crack the window in Mid-November, look over at him with concern.

"Please, dear sweet Mother," Vanus muttered under his breath. "Not today."

"Kaufman?"

"Do you see this?" The death magician tapped a fingernail against the window, indicating the two story house at the edge of the cul-de-sac. "The things in the Void, they don't just dwell in the forgotten corners of the world. That's where you go to find them if you're willing to look. Places like…quaint, domestic places like this are their playing ground."

Bazzelthorpe chuckled.

"What?"

The Astorathian gave the death magician a lingering look. "You sure know how to make for a fun Tuesday afternoon, Kaufman."

Van grinned, fighting a cold chill. "You should see me on Fridays. Then the party really gets wild." The smile dropped, revealing the bitter foundation beneath it. "Let's get this over with."

The door opened before they could make it fully to the porch. A young woman loomed in the doorway with a toddler, a young girl, latched to her hip. Both pairs of eyes first turned to the Astorathian, who lingered behind Vanus, and then the death magician; the woman understandably looked alarmed, the girl interested. She hooked the tip of her index finger into her mouth. Then she waved at Bazzel. To Van's surprise, Bazzel waved back, smiling and letting his tail wave from side to side.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked.

Vanus reached into the pocket of his jacket. He held up his badge so she could read his name and see his picture clearly. "My name is Agent Vanus Kaufman and this is Agent Bazzelthorpe. We work with the city department of the Theocracy. Are you Heidi Anderson?"

"I am," the woman said with a stiff nod. She set the little girl down on her feet. "Annie, I want you to go into your room and play for a few minutes while Mommy takes care of business."

"I don't wanna," Annie said, bouncing her feet in the air.

"Do as you're told," Heidi Anderson said in a tight tone. She gave the little girl a gentle nudge away from the door. The girl gave the Astorathian a wave before tottering off down the hallway.

"Cute kid," Bazzel said to Heidi with a chuckle.

Vanus let out a deep exhale, struggling to keep his cool. The shadow of the house fell over him like a rain cloud, casting him in shadow. "Heidi…Can I call you Heidi? We are looking for your husband…Mr. Anderson. Is he home?"

Heidi looked up and down the street, at the houses on either side of her. She glanced over her shoulder, most likely to make sure her daughter wasn't eavesdropping. Her distress was apparent in the tense set of her shoulders, in the way she hugged herself. She knows something is wrong, Vanus thought. She doesn't know what, but she knows it has to do with her husband.

"What is this about?" she asked finally.

"Do you know where your husband is?" Vanus pressed gently.

"I don't." She pursed her lips. "I haven't known for a few days. He quit his job apparently - I wouldn't have known if his boss hadn't called to tell me himself. The horrible business with his wife and all those people who died in that fire." She looked down at her feet.

She suspects he's involved, but she doesn't want to believe it, the death magician thought. For the Good Mother's sake he has a young child. Innocents in the line of fire; people who didn't deserve to put in the line of fire. But it was the forces of Inferno's way, and for no other reason than it brought them joy. He willed her silently to look him in the eye. "Mrs. Anderson," he said.

"Heidi," she said with a strange dreamy expression on her face; the kind of blank look someone wears when they are lost in the past.

"Heidi," he said with an encouraging smile. "I know you are scared right now and I know that you suspect your husband's involvement with the fire."

Her throat shifted. Her eyes narrowed. "Oh? And how do you know that?" she demanded, her voice tight with anger.

Bazzel cleared his throat, tugging lightly at the sleeve of his jacket. Looking at Vanus, he tilted his head in the direction of the truck. Vanus flashed him a scowl that said Not now, without actually having to say it. Vanus turned his focus back to Heidi Anderson before he lost the strand completely, his train of thought threatening to tumble off the tracks into open space. "I'm a death magician," he said. "I can sense these things. And I sense it in your house. It's settling into the foundation. As for your husband's involvement, we only have suspicions. We don't have concrete evidence yet to point to him, that's why we are here to talk to."

Heidi looked away. He watched her grief, her confusion, her terror fill her eyes. "I don't want to get him in trouble."

"If he is involved then he's already in trouble. The kind that you don't get out of."

Her voice broke. Here we go, he thought. He stepped back, nudging Bazzelthorpe lightly so he'd do the same. He'd seen it a million times: people breaking down, people screaming in anguish; sometimes they fell on their knees and pounded the floors and walls, whatever they could pound themselves bloody on. It made him feel both helpless and voyeuristic to stand around and watch as the seams of peoples' lives unraveled from the misdeeds of the Void. He would watch it again and again he knew and he would continue to feel helpless until he decided to finally walk away from his job - even as a voice in the back of his mind said, There's nothing else for me to do, nothing else I'm good at - or died in duty, or simply had all the emotion and soul wrung out of him like a useless old dishrag.

To her credit Heidi did not cry; she did not crumble to her knees as so many before her had done. She wanted to, that much he sensed. She wanted the earth to swallow her whole. Maybe her daughter too if it saved them from witnessing her father from becoming a monster or falling victim to him. Instead she held onto the doorframe, took three deep breaths, stepped away from the door, and said, “Come on in.”

Vanus didn’t have to search the house to know where to go; he only had to step over the threshold. The moment he entered the house, the cramps started. Just a tiny nudge of pressure on the abdomen and a mild sensation of discomfort, but he knew it would get worse the closer he got to the source.

He made his way through a home that was kept pristine. The kind of home you saw in a home decoration magazine. From the framed photos spread on the mantelpiece, Vanus could see that Brad hadn't always been a pyromaniac murderer. Photos of the Anderson's at the beach with a baby Annie, birthday party photos, and wedding photos. This is all wrong, he thought. This shouldn't be happening. But it was happening and it was his and Bazzel's job to stop it from continuing.

He’d made it to the stairway when the cramps ramped up from a minor irritation to a gnawing ache. He tried to keep his expression focused, but already he could feel Bazzel's eyes burning a hole in his back. Don't say a fucking word, he commanded the Astorathian said. Not in front of the missus.

The invisible thread ended in Brad's study, the room where he did his art…and where he'd been building a passage into Inferno. He could see it yet, but he could feel it…a cold draft in the air. This suspicion was concerned when Bazzelthorpe grunted, putting a hand over his face.

"You sense it, too?"

"I sense it. But I don't see it." The Astorathian's eyes scanned the walls and framed stills of Brad's photos. "It looks like a regular room to me. It sure doesn't smell like one."

"That's because he's hidden it."

"Hidden what?" a small voice said from the door. It was Heidi.

You're about to find out, Vanus thought, pulling his staff free of its straps. He ignored the twisting pain that wriggled around inside of gut, closed his eyes, and reached out with his mind.

Almost immediately he felt it: a vibration in the air. When he opened his eyes he could see a distortion in the wall that made the white tulip floral wallpaper ripple. Bingo.

He pressed the end of the staff against the wall, pushing a small pulse of his will into the staff. The current of mana touched the distortion and the entire wall rippled, showing the suggestion of a passageway. If he wanted to get it open, it was going to take more kick.

Vanus heard Heidi whisper something under her breath. She stared at the wall with a look of open-mouthed shock on her face. He nodded at Bazzelthorpe and then at Heidi and gestured for them to go back downstairs. Heidi collapsed onto the couch, her face slack. "I don't understand." She shook her head. "The man I fell in love with and married would never do this."

Vanus followed her gaze over to the photo narrative across the room. "I imagine not."

"Are you going to help him?" Heidi asked Vanus.

"We are going to do everything we can to bring him home safe and sound…Heidi." The toothy grin and swish of Bazzel's tail was supposed to be a gesture of encouragement; judging from the way all the blood drained from Heidi's face, it wasn't successful.

Heidi's head swiveled back in the death magician's direction. "Why is this happening? Why is Brad doing this?'

"I don't know," the sorcerer admitted gently. "I'm afraid we don't know much about what's going on with your husband. I can tell you that this isn't his fault. He is under the control of something else. We're trying to figure out who or what might be influencing him. Our biggest priority is finding him and stopping him…by whatever means necessary. He's already killed a lot of people. The longer this goes on the more it will spread."

"So you're saying you might have to kill him?"

It would be a far better fate than the one he's being given now, the death magician did not answer though he wondered if Brad Anderson saw it the same way. Power had a way of distorting how one saw things. He let the heavy silence in the room answer for him. Thankfully it was interrupted by the quick patter of feet slapping down the stairs.

"Ma, I don't want to play in my room anymore," Annie said in a severe tone that plainly stated she was not to be trifled with.

"Yeah, you've been in there for a while, haven't you little bug?" Heidi wiped at her face with the hem of her shirt in an attempt to erase any evidence that anything was out of the ordinary. I'll tell you what: Let's take a trip somewhere for a few days. What do you say?"

A trip alone with Mommy wasn't good enough for the little princess. "I want Daddy to come along too."

"I told you Daddy is at an important business meeting in New York." Cracks were showing in Heidi's composure. Vanus could see it in the way her lips trembled and her hands clenched into fists. She still wore a golden wedding band on one ring finger and an engagement ring on the other. "Go grab your bathing suit. We're going to a hotel. A nice one with a pool." Heidi waited until Annie dragged herself all the way back up the stairs, hanging her head. "What the fuck am I supposed to tell my daughter about her father? I can't keep lying to her. She may only be four, but don't think for a second she's stupid. She knows…senses…something is up. And now we have a magical tunnel in the house."

Vanus had no words of comfort to offer, so he told her the truth. "We all have our burdens…weights only we can carry. Being a mother and choosing what you do from this moment is yours."

Heidi and Little Annie left the house, leaving Vanus and Bazzelthorpe alone with the hole in the wall. The death magician stared into the darkness of the tunnel. Will it lead us to you Brad? he thought. It would make things a lot easier if it did.

"Kaufman," Bazzel said in a tone of voice that told him this wasn't the first time he'd called his name.

"Sorry, what did you say?" the death magician asked with a start; it came out sounding pitifully dark.

"Are you alright?" the Astorathian asked gently.

"Honestly?"

This was rewarded with a bull-like snort. "No, Kaufman, I want you to lie to me.

"I could use a hug."

Immediately Bazzel started forward, his arms outstretched.

"No." The death magician held up a hand. "Not right now. We're chasing a killer, remember?"

"Right." The Astorathian took a step back, his face flushed with embarrassment. "What do you want to do?"

"I kind of just want to run in there and see where it leads. This has already been going on for way too long."

"But?"

"Look what happened the last time we both tried to do something without following policy. You almost got turned into razide shit and I literally fried my brain."

"So?"

Vanus scoffed. "So wouldn't we be foolish to tempt fate a second time?"

"I say we go in there. If we bump into something, I say we kick its ass and then come back here and get back up. But time is fleeting, Kaufman. This could be the only opportunity we get."

"To the Void with it. Do you have your shit gun?"

The Astorathian tapped his jacket. "Never go anywhere without it."

                                            …

Brad Anderson stood in his old childhood bedroom, trying to recognize his old life: the comic books he’d collected as a child, still tucked away safely in their plastic sleeves to keep them preserved, Star Wars posters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The life he’d had before Inferno. It was becoming harder to remember. Chokmah’s lighter was corrupting him he knew, corrupting his memory. The fact that he didn’t care any more, that he was willing to let it overtake him, was only further proof of his corruption. The smell of gasolene, smoke, and burnt flesh turned the air black. Another confirmation.

“There is plenty of room in Inferno for lost orphans,” Leonidas said. Brad turned to face the smoky outline of the man-ghost-whatever-the-fuck-he-was. He was grinning from ear to ear. A grin that despite his newfound confidence, made Brad feel uneasy. There was something hiding behind it. Something dangerous not just to him but the whole world. And yet…he’d also mentored him. Without his guidance, would Brad have gotten as far as he had? It was a question he didn’t want to find the answer to.

“I think it’s time you met the boss.”

Brad snorted rudely. “It’s about time.”

The ghost shrugged. “These things do take time. We had to make sure you had what it took before we signed you on.”

Brad spread his arms out like a magician on a stage, palms and fingers upturned towards the ceiling. “Do I have what it takes or don’t I?”

“Well the boss wants to meet you, so I’d say so. Are you ready?”

Brad’s heart convulsed with excitement. “It’s about time.”

Leonidas still wore that crafty grin as he snapped his fingers. Brad glared at him as the world turned end over end, as the walls of this existence melted to reveal the one beneath it. They stood in a high ceilinged chamber with flickering torches; Inferno's red light seeped through an oculus in the window.

He felt eyes on him. They burned a hole in his back. Slowly, his mouth filled with the metal taste of fear, he turned to face Chokmah. Cold, imperious eyes watched him from atop a vast throne that towered over Brad, making him feel ant-sized. Insignificant. Eyes that could strip him down to the bone or reshape him into something else, anything they desired with a single thought. Eyes that could skullfuck Brad until he was nothing but a living husk. The being sitting in the throne grinned, a grin that split a face that could have been carved from the smoothest of stone; breathtakingly handsome and every bit as terrifying.

With the smile came a realization and with the realization a terror so great, Brad pissed himself where he stood. "You're not Chokmah."

The great head of the being, adorned with an elaborate headpiece like a crown, shook his head, still grinning. Confirmation.

"W-what do you want?"

The beings mouth moved, mimicking the motion of words, but it was Leonidas' voice who spoke. In a voice that was both smooth as silk, deep as the crashing of a waterfall, as cold and black as the waters of the Antarctic ocean. “Your perversion. Your devotion.”

Somehow Chokmah’s lighter had appeared in Brad’s hand without him having pulled it out. The moment the being said, “devotion”, the lighter burned him the same way it had the man who had attacked him in the church - though that had only happened a little over a week ago, Brad had undergone years worth of transformation. A transformation that was only now truly beginning. The lighter seared its shape into the flesh of his hand, filling his veins with black filament that would eventually spread and consume him.

And then who knew what he would become?