The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 28. Chapter 28

No monsters dwelled in the tunnel, only fetid darkness, and cobwebs, and the feeling that everything was closing in on them. Vanus would have taken the monsters over the fear of being trapped in a place where he would never see the light of day again.

Bazzel had insisted on taking point and now led the way with his weapon out. He walked stolidly, his shoulders set in determination, but Vanus had worked with him long enough to recognize the airs he was trying to put on: his tail remained curled up as tight as a ball of yarn. He had to stoop to keep his horns from scraping the ceiling.

Doubt plagued Vanus like black spider webbing. Who knew where this tunnel led, what awaited them on the other side? Would it be a deranged Brad or would it be something else…something worse, infinitely more terrifying? No, he reminded himself firmly. This is what you do. This is what you’ve always done. Isn’t that what being an agent of the Theocracy is all about? Leaping into the darkness to bring in the light?

Bazzelthorpe quickly muttered something under his breath in his native tongue. He sounded relieved, a suspicion soon proven when his tail unraveled and began to sway back and forth - as much as it could in the cramped confines of the tunnel.

“What is it?” Vanus mopped the sweat from his forehead with a swipe of his arm. His voice came out sounding tight. Impatient.

“We’re getting close to the end?”

“Can you elaborate?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“I can smell it in the air. It leads to the surface.”

Surely enough after another few years, Vanus sensed the rippling field of the tunnel’s exit. “Move, Move.” He prodded impatiently at Bazzelthorpe with his staff, which was like a toddler trying to break through a brick wall with a stick. When the Astorathian did not move, Van’s heart surged in his check. He wanted to scream with panic. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs burned from the lack of air. He tried wiggle his way past, but there was simply no fucking room.

“Kaufman, stop!” Bazzel’s hand swallowed his shoulder, restricting his movement.

The death magician shook it off with a violent shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t want to stop. I want to get out of this fucking place and catch this guy!”

The Astorathian was not to be denied. Bazzelthorpe was not to be denied. In a single fluid motion, he lifted Vanus up by his underarms; he spun, turning his back towards the tunne’s exit before setting the smaller agent down on his feet.

“I can’t,” the death magician wanted to say, because he was choking on them. It wasn’t until he felt the scalding wetness on his face that he realized he was sobbing. What’s happening? his mind jibbered. Why can’t I stop? Why can't I breathe?

The next thing he knew, Agent Bazzelthorpe’s arms enfolded him, pulling the death magician to his chest in a bear hug. Slowly he pressed his forehead to Van’s, running his fingers through hair that had become greasy and matted with fear-sweat. “Kaufman,” he said, his voice a pur, “you need to breathe. Your heart is beating so hard in your chest I’m afraid it’s going to burst out.”

“Feels like it.”

“Just focus on me, Kaufman.” The Astorathian’s whole body vibrated, his arms holding Vanus just tight enough to make him feel secure.

“What is with you always touching my hair? Not that I mind,” the medium added hastily, “I guess it’s just…unexpected.”

“I love your hair. So soft and glossy. It shines when the sunlight hits it. And it always smells amazing. But…” The Astorathian’s hands slid lower and lower until they cupped Van’s ass through his slacks, his breath tickling his flesh. “I love your rump even more.”

Van swatted him on the shoulder but without vehemence. “I don’t need to chase down a crazed, super-powered serial killer with blue balls. Let’s continue this conversation another time, shall we?”

Bazzelthorpe’s arm tightened him as if afraid to let him go. As if afraid the darkness might take him. “Do you mean it?”

Vanus raised his hand. Raised it up, up, up until his hand touched Bazzelthorpe’s cheek. He stood on the tips of his shoes and kissed the Astorathian on the lips. It was not the frantic face-sucking kiss they had shared at Bazzelthorpe’s apartment, but under the circumstances it would have to do.

The tunnel let them out into the living of a cabin that had seen better days. Cold daylight seeped through dusty, moth-eaten drapes. Several cans had been left forgotten on the small counter in the kitchen alcove.

Bazzelthorpe sniffed the air. "Someone's been here. Recently from the smell of it."

"Is it strong?"

The Astorathian wrinkled his nose. "Very. He smells of Inferno. Vanus…I think we may already be too late to do anything for Anderson."

To this the death magician did not have a reply. Instead he went to the door and pulled it open. Stepping out onto the porch, he closed his eyes long enough to breathe in the fragrance of the woods, of the countryside. Cold November wind knocked aside bone-brittle branches and sifted through the husks of dead leaves. "I think we're in Tootulu," he said when his partner joined him.

"I think so too."

A sound split the air. A high-pitched sound like a cat's yowl. Van's head snapped towards the sound, a shiver tracing its way down his spine like a lustful wandering hand.

"Kaufman?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I don't know. It sounded like a cat or something. Trust me, you would have heard it. It wasn't a very pleasant sound."

"I didn't hear a thing."

Vanus froze, listening. A few breathless seconds passed. When the sound cracked through the trees, Vanus put a bead on the sound. He jumped down from the porch, ankle-deep in leaves.

"Kaufman?" Bazzelthorpe sounded uneasy.

Once more the death magician did not answer. He'd found a thread only he could see and he was determined to follow it to the end of the trail. He brushed aside branches, hardly daring to breathe. He walked with the wandering confusion of a man lost in a dream.

The beast called to him a third time. A fourth.

Half a mile later the two agents came to a clearing with a spot where the dirt had been freshly stirred. Something moved beneath the dirt. Something that was trapped and wanted to get out. Something that had suffered great pain.

"Kaufman." Bazzelthorpe's voice sounded more urgent than ever. "We don't have time for this."

Under a spell he couldn't shake, Vanus hunkered slowly down on the ground. I can't stand that sound. I have to let it out. Methodically he pulled at the dirt. It was cold in his hands, already starting to harden. When the winter's first snow fell no one would know what horrible sins had been committed in this clearing. He gulped, forcing his fingers to stab deeper into the earth where the trapped thing continued to writhe. Before he knew it he was elbows deep into the earth. Determined. Frantic.

Once the grave had been dug up the thing was no longer moving of course. He stared down at the corpse of a dead cat, its body charred and half rotten. Maggots and other small things that feasted on dead flesh writhed in the singed remains of its fur.

The dead cat wasn't the only one trying to get out of its grave. All throughout the clearing, dead things were trying to push their way out of the ground, begging for Van to release them from their tomb. Cats, dogs, birds, even the squeal rabbits all raised into a single chorus of agony. Van wanted to clap his hands over his ears and scream at the sky if only to block out the insanity-inducing cacophony. Instead he grabbed the Astorathian’s hand and begged him to take him away from the clearing in a quavering voice.

“This way.” Bazzelthorpe’s fingers wrapped around his. “I can still smell him. Enough I think we can follow his trail.”

Bazzel's nose led them to a farmhouse that sat atop of a hill just outside the woods. The house looked desolate sitting by itself with nothing but open air to keep it company. Vanus didn't like the way the blackened windows seemed to watch them like eyes. I think I prefer the cabin, he thought.

"He's in there," Bazzelthorpe said with grave certainty.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Let's go get the son of a bitch." Vanus started up the hill, staff at the ready.

Before they entered the house the signs that something was wrong were all too apparent. The front door was open. Fingers of smoke poked out into the wind. Vanus smelt gasoline. What's the bet Mr. Anderson has left us another terrible tableau to find? he thought. He hung back, happy to let the Astorathian take the lead. Bazzelthorpe nudged the door open with the muzzle of a shotgun.

Before they entered the house, Vanus already had an idea of what they would find inside; and still the sight made his gorge rise. He watched flabbergasted as Bazzelthorpe lunged back out onto the porch, his red face white. The sound of his vomiting faded into the background.

Brad Anderson had sold his soul to Inferno not by burning down a church or a building, but by immolating his own parents. First he'd beaten them and taped them down so they couldn't move, forced to watch each other suffer.

Something moved on the floor up above his head.

Someone was here.

Finally.

He offered a silent apology to Heidi and Annie Anderson. I will do what has to be done. This has gone on long enough, he thought. But he wasn’t doing anything without his partner with him. Bazzelthorpe slid back into the house, still looking white. Vanus mouthed, “Be quiet”, and pointed at the ceiling above his head. The Astorathian nodded determinedly.

Unlike the dimensional stairway leading down into Inferno, these stairs were all too short. Apart from the constant rattle-tap of his heart, the house - the world - was enveloped in silence. He did not glance at the pictures hanging on the walls. He did not want to see more of the man’s life he was about to kill. As far as he was concerned Brad Anderson was already dead.

They found Brad Anderson kneeling on the floor of his childhood bedroom, back turned to them, naked as the day he was born. When he sensed their approach he rose to his feet and turned to face them. He greeted them with a shit-eating grin, holding his hand up so he could see the burn engraved in his hand; the same burn they’d found on the corpse at the church. Black veins spread from the wound, already starting to branch past his wrist. The transformation was irreversible.

“I’m the new me,” Brad Anderson sang in a soft, melodic tone. His eyes glowed with wonder. He smiled at Vanus. A charming smile. Not the smile of a murderer but the smile of a businessman who hosted cookouts during the summer. “I recognize you from TV. You’re the guy who caught the Astorathian Butcher. It’s not every day you get to meet a celebrity - ”

Vanus didn’t get to hear the rest because the roar of Bazzelthorpe’s shotgun cut him off. He dropped to his knees…more out of an instinctual need to self persevere than fear. A thousand alarms blared off in his head; the hardwood floor felt unforgiving beneath his knees. He watched the silent movie taking place before him with wide-eyed fascination, unable to tear his eyes away.

Anderson was thrown back, his arms flopping wildly through the air. The force of the shot would have thrown any normal person off their feet, but Brad Anderson was no normal person. Not anymore. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet. Bazzelthorpe swung about to get a bead on him, but Anderson was already on the move, sliding out of the way. As he moved he threw his outstretched palm in the Astorathian’s direction. Fire shot from the hand riddled with black veins. Vanus only had enough time to utter a scream before Bazzelthorpe disappeared in an explosion of smoke and flame. The death magician felt the floor shutter beneath his feet when Bazzelthorpe crashed through the wall, rolling to a stop in the hallway like a log.

Vanus staggered to his feet, putting everything he had inside him into a single pulse of mana that made his staff hum. . The air around him crackled and sizzled. With a shout of defiance he unleashed the charge in a single bolt of red light that sent Anderson flying out the window in a shower of glass.

He didn’t stick around to watch if Anderson hit the ground, if the fall killed him. In that moment he didn’t care. There was only one thing on his mind. One concern. He needn’t have worried. If Bazzelthorpe could survive a fall down into Inferno, he could survive having his ass kicked through a wall. Already he was picking himself up, brushing bits of plaster off him, tendrils of smoke rising off his shoulders. He leaned against the wall. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I just need a second.”

A cold rage flooded Vanus. The kind of rage that didn’t make the world explode but draw in on itself, until it became a single, focused point. It was an old rage. A familiar rage left over from his old life, left to rot on a shelf in a dark place. Now he could feel himself taking it down, dusting it off. Bazzelthorpe must have seen it - must have sensed it in some fashion because he shook his head. “Kaufman don’t. We should call for backup.”

“Stay here,” Lionel Perry said in a voice as frigid as the wind during a blizzard. “Call for backup. I’m going after him.”

“No! Stay with me where you belong.”

Perhaps it was the pleading voice of the man in front of him that pulled Vanus Kaufman to himself. His true self. He knelt down on the ground in the suit in the rubble. He pressed his forehead to Bazzel’s as the Astorathian had done to him back in the tunnel and in his smelly apartment full of discarded beer cans. It was becoming a habit between them. Maybe more than just a habit; a way of communication; their own special way of communication. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry…” He gave Bazzelthorpe a quick kiss then got to his feet. He went to the window.

The shot to the chest nor the fall to the ground two stories below was enough to stop Anderson. Whatever he was now could not be killed by mortal means. Vanus watched him disappear into the woods, scuttling back to the cabin where he would make his escape.

Sighing, the death magician pulled out his cell phone to call the Theocracy.