The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 34. Chapter 34

Van's injuries were bad, Bazzelthorpe's were worse.

While the death magician had been getting his face pounded by Anderson and Leonidas, Dougherty, Bazzelthorpe, and his team had been left alone to deal with the nepharites. Bazzelthorpe walked away from the battle with several stab wounds to the torso, back, and shoulders. Both had been bandaged. He would live; the Astorathian people had always been more tough than the people on the surface ever gave them credit for. He would be in the makeshift clinic the Theocracy had set up for their agents for emergency situations just like this one.

Vanus should have been relieved his partner was still alive. He was - of course he was - but it didn't stop it from hurting to see Bazz in this condition.

And still Dougherty's team had it worse. Chaplain and Kahn left the hospital in body bags.

"Your face looks like a rotting tomato, Kaufman," Bazzelthorpe said not unkindly. He gave the death magician's hand a gentle squeeze to draw his attention.

"I feel like a rotting tomato." Vanus tried to put some humor in his voice but all he heard was the guilt and self-pity he felt. Guilt over letting Anderson escape. Again. This time with a resurrected Leonidas in tow (now two Incarnates are running around loose in the city, he thought, Good Mother please help us). Guilt for the death of Chaplain and Kahn (and guilt for not feeling nearly as guilty as he should).

He tried on a smile; it didn't fit, but he kept it on anyway. "I'm in better shape than you are."

Bazzelthorpe growled, shifting beneath the thin, white hospital blankets that barely covered the caps of his knees. "I don't need to be here, Kaufman. I heal quickly. I want to go to your place…"

Vanus rested a hand on the Astorathian's forearm. "You're going to rip out your stitches. You do heal quickly, which is why you need to stay here. So you can get out on your own."

Bazzelthorpe's shoulders dropped. "I don't want to leave you alone."

The death magician let out a strained laugh. "That's very sweet of you, but I can take care of myself for a day or two. This isn't my first rodeo."

"You're going to go after Anderson and Leonidas without me." Now the Astorathian glared at him with suspicion. With conviction.

Vanus climbed out of his chair, wincing. The room they were in was tiny, with the bed and life monitor taking up a majority of the space. "That would be another insecurity of yours, Bazzelthorpe," he said with a tired sigh. He pointed at his bruised and swollen face. "Do I look like I'm in the condition to go after two Incarnates on my own? And even if I was there's no way in the Void I would go without you. We started this together, we're ending it together."

Bazzelthorpe's face softened. "I've upset you."

"A little bit. I thought you trusted me. I trust you. Do you think I would have let you into my bed, into my body if I didn't?"

The Astorathian made a harrumph sound. "You're right. I am

a fool…"

Vanus let out another heavy sigh. He wanted nothing more for this conversation to end, to go home and crawl into bed. "You're not a fool, you've just been through a lot. But so have I, damn it."

"Yes you have," Bazzelthorpe said. His gaze dropped down to his hands. "I can't quit

thinking about what you told me, about what your life was like as a child…"

Vanus waved this off with a swipe of his hand through the air. "That's ancient history…"

“It isn’t.” Bazz’s nostrils flared; he was making an attempt to be patient for a change. “Chagidiel clearly wants you. Clearly there is a lot more to your past that you haven’t told me. I won’t pry. I know what it means to want to bury your past. It sounds like yours is catching up with you.”

It always does, Van thought.

“Promise you’ll keep yourself safe until I get out of here.”

Vanus forced himself to look into the Astorathian’s pleading face. “I promise.”

He found Dougherty waiting for him in the hallway, leaning up against the wall. Of everyone who’d gone into the hospital, he’d come out the most unscathed. A few scratches, a few burns, nothing too debilitating. Vanus made to move past him.

Dougherty cut him off. “Kaufman, you got a minute.”

“Can it wait another time, Dougherty?”

Dougherty’s cheeks burned red with discomfort. He cleared his throat. “I just wanted to say thank you for having my back at the hospital. You could have let that thing kill me.”

Vanus felt his face, what remained of it, split into a grin. It wasn’t a happy one. “Maybe you’ll remember that the next time you and your crony friends like to laugh at me and talk shit behind my back at the morning briefings, yes? Or the next time you want to question my abilities as an agent.”

Dougherty opened his mouth to speak. Vanus leaned in, cutting him off. “I am a hell of an agent. I go into the places no one else does. I crawl through the muck and the mire…”

“Damn it, Kaufman, you don’t have to give me the third degree. I just lost two of my team members…”

“Good!” Van’s eyes glittered with tears of anger. “Maybe it’ll humble you. The Good Mother knows you need to be knocked down a peg or two. Now if you excuse me, I need to get home and get out of these filthy clothes.”

…

Chagidiel's voice had turned from a tiny whisper to a constant drone inside Anderson's mind. Is this what it's like to be an ant? To live in a hive? To operate under a single law?

There was very little of Anderson left. His mind had been overridden by a fiery fungus that had begun to spread from host to host like an infectious spore. His invasion of the hospital had yielded many fruits. Not only had he managed to free Leonidas and restore him to health, he'd managed to free many of the patients on the psych ward level. Now they were his and soon they would be a part of the growing network.

The goal for now was to find a place to lay low. A place where they could gather numbers, gather strength. The part of the old Brad that still existed knew of plenty of nooks and crannies in the city: abandoned buildings left to gather in the dust, much like that Christian church so long ago on a seemingly innocent day. So he picked an abandoned, asbestos-ridden factory. It was tucked away from the main part of the city; it would take time for the Theocracy to start searching in this direction.

He stood on a rusty steel catwalk, looking down at the distribution wing below. They looked up at him with adoring eyes, the abandoned orphans he'd picked up from the hospital. Leonidas sat by his side in a wheelchair, watching the proceedings with a bored expression on his face. Anderson had made a speech of sorts but already could not remember the words.

Perhaps the lighter had done the talking for him. It sat in the palm of his hand, held aloft for all below to see. To anyone else it was simply a good ol' American Zippo lighter, but Anderson knew it was an artifact of great power. Judging from the reverent looks of glee pasted on their faces, they did too.

He had them line up at the foot of the stairs where he let each lost soul hold it for a minute. For a full minute they got to feel the euphoric glow of the lighter in their hand and for that full minute he could feel their growing devotion power the Zippo. This is how fires spread, he thought. This is how they consume entire cities.

When he offered the lighter to Leonidas, the frail man shook his head. "Leave me be," he said in his wheezy voice. "I'm tired."

"You've been in a coma for thirty years. For that thirty years your body has been inactive," Anderson reminded him in the tone an adult might use with a child. "This will restore you."

Leonidas' pale blue eyes fastened on the artifact in Anderson's hand. Anderson could see the man did want to hold it, he was just embarrassed. Embarrassed to be back in his body; a body that was broken and disgusted him. Slowly, almost reluctantly he unfurled his clawed hands. His nails were yellowed and cracked from decades of being left to grow unattended. The object fell into the cracked valley of his palm. Immediately he sucked in a breath. His eyes widened, growing glassy with a dreamy sheen. He was somewhere else in his head. He was in a place where Anderson did not care to follow. I have things to do.

As for Leonidas, he wasn't just in his head, he was in a living memory. He was back in his twenty-something-year-old body, in his sickly mother's apartment. The peeling wallpaper and dusty picture frames were just as he remembered them. His stomach flipped in revulsion at the pictures of him and his mother; pictures that told a lie, the lie being that Elise Leonidas had been a radiant and affectionate woman. Now this same woman was strapped down to an armchair with duct tape. The glass of orange juice he’d slipped vecuronium into still sat on the coffee table, gathering sweat. The chatter of the TV cast blue mirages on the walls.

She looked at him with pleading eyes: Please don’t do this. You’re a good boy; you’ve always been such a good boy.

As she began to burn, the walls changed. The moldering wallpaper peeled away from the walls, black ichor seeping from holes that rodents had eaten into the walls. He watched it all change until he stood in Chagidiel’s vast chamber, until he found himself staring into the death angel’s imperious eyes.

Leonidas grinned. He wasn’t back to his former self yet, but he was on the right track. Once he held onto the lighter a few more times he would be right as rain.

Chagidiel grinned down at him from atop his throne, welcoming home.

Leonidas spread his arms out in triumph, still grinning. “I’m back,” he said. “Back in the New York groove.”

“Don’t fail me again.” The death angel’s grin remained in place, but his eyes promised a just punishment.

“Never again,” Leonidas promised. For the first time in years earnestness and reverence crept into his voice. It was one of those rare moments he expressed anything like love. “What would you have me do?”

Chagidiel’s grin fell as if it had never been there at all. “You know what I want. You know who I want. Make sure Anderson fetches him for me. Make sure he doesn’t fail me.”

“You got it. Say boss, maybe you could give me my old upgrades. Two Incarnates are better than one.”

The grin was back in place, the curves spreading so wide they took up the width of the death angel’s face. “Jack, Jack,” he said in a conversational tone as if they were old friends. “Of all my disciples over the years you have always been one of my favorites. I’ve always admired your panache. But like any human being you are fallible. You failed me thirty years ago. The loss of your body was a consequence of that. If you want to make it back to the top, you’re going to have to climb the old fashioned way: by winning my favor. Bring me Kaufman and I will make you a living Incarnate again.”

Leonidas bowed his head. His lips twitched with anger. Anderson doesn’t deserve to be an Incarnate. He doesn’t have what it takes. I do! He wanted to say these things to the death angel, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to risk being punished. I’ve been punished enough.

“Your wish is my command.”