The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 5. Chapter 5

Brad snapped awake, smelling smoke. Smelling fire. His first thought was that he had to get Heidi up and they had to get Little Annie and get out of the house. But when he lifted his head and looked around, the house was completely dark. He didn’t smell smoke. The fire alarm in the hallway wasn’t going off. Everything was silent. His family was safe.

Before he could slip back into sleep, a thought tugged at the back of his mind: Something was supposed to happen last night. Something important. He was supposed to meet with someone.

He slipped out of bed, trying not to make a sound. He listened for a change in the rhythm of Heidi’s breathing as he slid into his slippers. A peek in Annie’s room showed his daughter was preoccupied by her own dreams. He hovered guiltily in the doorway for a moment. Here was his family, safe from harm, a safety he worked hard to provide every day. What he had done today out at his father’s cabin would upend everything should it be discovered. And he sensed this was only the beginning. If he continued to give into the power of the Zippo, the sins he committed would only get worse.

As long as the flames don’t touch my family I don’t care.

To offer Chokmah a dog from the shelter that had already been abandoned was one thing. His wife and daughter, however, were not up for grabs.

The smell of smoke was stronger now. He followed it downstairs. The soft cotton of his pajama bottoms whispered against his ankles. He wasn’t surprised to find someone sitting in the armchair over by the window, their silhouette marked by the tip of a burning cigarette.

“Hello, Mr. Anderson,” said a man’s reedy voice. Brad recognized the voice from the phone. “My name is Jack Leonidas. We spoke on the phone earlier.”

Brad nodded, hoping he didn’t appear too excited. “I remember.” And then: “How did you get into my house?”

Leonidas chuckled, the sound mocking and not at all friendly. “What is a door when you can walk through walls? You should really put wards around your house. The only thing that alarm will do is spook the living. The only reason why the forces of the Void haven’t bothered you yet is because up until now they haven’t had an interest in you. If you keep going down this dark little path you’re on that will change very shortly.” He lifted a shadowy hand in passivity. “Just letting you know upfront. That way if things end up not going the way you thought they would, you can’t say ol’ Jack didn’t warn you.”

“Are you a ghost?” Brad asked the shadow.

“I’m a passenger.” The shape of the head bobbed in the direction of the Zippo that Brad held in his hand. By now Brad Anderson had accepted the lighter’s ability to materialize in his hand whenever it chose. “One of many. As I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, that isn’t just a typical handy dandy lighter with a cool design you hold in your hands. It’s a conduit, a weapon, a storage container, and a doorway all at the same time. I just realized I didn’t have a lighter on me.” He said this with a chuckle as if this was a mistake anyone could make. “Light it for me, would you buddy?”

He leaned forward so that a slice of moonlight touched his skin.

Brad took a step back and let out an involuntary gasp.

Leonidas threw his head back and laughed. The sound reminded Brad of the bullies on the playing forward: Fat boy, fat boy, fat boy…Watch his flesh wiggle and his titties jiggle…

“What did ya think I’d look like?” Leonidas asked when his cackles died; cunning blue eyes narrowed at Brad. “A used-up piece of charcoal?”

Brad sensed the man already knew the answer, so he didn’t give one. The question, as Daniel Anderson had always been fond of saying, was purely rhetorical.

In truth the man who’d named himself Jack Leonidas looked nothing like Brad’s father. Brad’s father had been a big man: broad-faced and pig-snouted with beady brown eyes and big pudgy hands roughened my labor and an unhappy marriage. Leonidas had the thin wiry build of someone who had known only rejection and neglect and malnutrition. His bulbous head sat on a neck that seemed far too thin to support it. His legs were folded crisscross-apple-sauce style. He was so thin it was impossible to tell bone apart from flesh. The face that flashed its teeth at him in a wide, mocking grin was boney and narrow, the nose as long and thin as the blade of a knife.

The visitor looked real. Solid. Nothing like what rumor and media had shaped in Brad's mind. He imagined if he were to reach out and touch the man he would feel real flesh.

Leonidas rolled his eyes. “You’re not a very good host, y’know?”

Brad jerked into motion. “Right, sorry.”

“Too late.” Leonidas snatched the Zippo from Brad’s hand with a single swipe.

“That’s mine,” Brad thundered. He clenched his hands into fists, ready to fight for what was his.

Leonidas looked down at the lighter with wide eyes. He flicked it open, then shut, then open again in a way that told Brad that the level of intimacy the visitor shared with Chokmah’s lighter rivaled his own. He felt naked, alone. When Leonidas lifted his eyes to Brad’s, they challenged him.

“It doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t belong to anyone except for Chokmah himself. You’re just borrowing it. Just like I borrowed it…up until I lost it.”

“Lost it?”

Leonidas nodded. His eyes glowed eerily in the dark. “Agents from the Theocracy took it when they arrested me. But then you found it when you were just a teenage brat. Exactly thirty years ago. Then you lost it too…until you found it again. Chokmah must really like you.”

It doesn’t sound like you do too much, Brad thought. He decided to keep that to himself. For now.

Brad blinked. When he opened his eyes he became aware that there was another figure standing behind Leonidas. This should not have been the case: the back of the chair was pushed up against the wall, which meant there shouldn’t have been space for something to stand. And yet, somehow without his having notice, the dimensions of the room had expanded to include the additional presence.

The thing that stood behind Leonidas might have been human. Once, eons ago long before Brad’s time. Now it looked like something conjured up from a child’s twisted nightmare. The robes it wore hung off impossibly broad shoulders, covered in sigils and runes that glowed with the fire-light of Inferno.

It was impossible to say what the sex of the creature might have been, assuming entities of the endless Void were distinguishable by something as mundane as genitalia. The flaps of the robes hung open to reveal the mangled flesh underneath. The breasts, or rather the area where Brad expected breasts to be, had been completely removed so that he could see the roadwork of muscle and veins, a violent contrast to the bleached white of the visible breastbone. Brad tried to imagine what violations the creature had suffered to be transformed into this disgusting creature.

A closer inspection revealed more, each new detail somehow worse than the last.

Knives and a meat cleaver and other crude objects that had been turned into torture devices hung from the slick tendril cinched around the kilt, a macabre makeshift belt. With a growing sense of revulsion and fascination, Brad slowly realized that the filth clinging to the creature’s tools were really threads of hair and fleshy scraps of scalp. The “tendril” holding it all up was really a loop of human intestine.

Brad looked up into the pitted eyes of the creature that stood at Leonida’s shoulder and felt a mixture of pity and disgust. “What are you?” he whispered.

Leonidas laughed, the sound cold and mocking as ever. He gave no outward indication that he was aware of the creature’s presence at his back. His eyes remained fixed on Brad, gleaming with amusement. He’s enjoying this, Brad thought and felt the first pulse of dislike towards the man. The sadistic fuck.

“I could spend the rest of the night and all of this night trying to explain what they are to you,” Leonidas said. He took another long drag from his cigarette. If he had a watch on his wrist, Brad imagined Leonidas would have looked down at it to emphasize his point. “Unfortunately we don’t have that kind of time. So I’m just going to give you the fast and dirty version.”

The creature cocked its head inquisitively to the side. Though it had no eyes to see with as far as Brad could tell, he could feel its attention on him all the same.

“They have many names,” Leonidas said. “The name changes depending on who speaks them. Colloquially the Sacred Brotherhood of the Blackened Cross call them nepharite. They serve Chokmah and his constituents.”

“And you,” Brad said.

“And you as well if you don’t fuck up,” Leonidas said with a widening sneer. “Which brings us to the nitty gritty of the conversation.” He let out a long theatrical sigh as if to say, It’s about time.

When he looked at Brad again all the humor had drained from his face. His gaze was penetrating enough to make Brad feel more uncomfortable than he already was. Of the two foreign presences in the room, Brad sensed Leonidas was the most dangerous. The nepharite certainly looked ghastly enough - Brad wouldn’t be surprised if he found the creature lurking in his nightmares every night for the rest of his life - but it was just a dog on a leash. It would not harm Brad unless it was told to. Leonidas was insane. Truly insane. Leonidas gave it off in waves that only added to the Stygian darkness inside the house.

“Do you still want to join the Brotherhood, Mr. Anderson?” Leonidas asked. He cocked an eyebrow, the acne scars above his forehead lengthening into creases.

Brad thought of his art in the study, patiently waiting for him to pick up where he’d left off. Would a fat kid say no to a candy bar? he thought.

(Watch his flesh wiggle and his titties jiggle…)

“You know I do.” There was no doubt in his voice.

Leonidas nodded. The movement was stiff. Reluctant. Clearly he’d wanted Brad to walk away, spooked by what he’d seen thus far. While everything was shocking (and more than a bit frightening), the further he fell into this world completely separate from his own, the more he wanted to explore its archaic terrain. He felt a vindictive stab of triumph knowing he’d made Leonidas’s night more difficult, if only slightly so.

Leonidas grinned again but there was no joy in it, malicious or otherwise. “Fair enough. The thing about joining the Brotherhood is there’s a lengthy right of passage. You’re one-third of the way there.”

One-third. Brad thought of Sylvester the Beagle. For a moment his gut did a guilty flip. When he inhaled to quell the nausea that inflicted him, he could smell burning fur.

“The dog was a nice start,” Leonidas said with an audible click of his tongue that made Brad start, “but it’s not enough to grant you entry into the club. Don’t worry, your wife and daughter are sound asleep and dreaming deeply. They won’t hear anything of this conversation.”

Brad flinched. Either his face was easy to read or Leonidas was a mind-reader.

Leonidas waved a hand impatiently, eager to get back on topic. “The second task will require a bit more grit from you.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

Those pale blue eyes narrowed at him; it was hard to say whether the pinched expression on Leonidas’ narrow face was dislike or contemplation. “You remember the man from the church? The one that pulled a knife on you?”

How can I forget? Brad wanted to say, but couldn’t find the words.

“You started something,” Leonidas said, “but you didn’t finish it. Finish what you started. Finish him. And then when you’re done leave a message.”

Brad gulped, already nodding his head in his acceptance. “What is the message?”

Leonidas laughed and so did the creature behind him. Its mouth yawned open to reveal rows and rows and rows of razor sharp teeth that receded into the blackness beyond farther than the eye could see; Brad felt something hot and sticky drip down his leg. Human ears were not made to hear such sounds.

Leonidas waved his arms, the finale before the big exit of this strange and unforgettable conversation. “The Sacred Brotherhood has returned.”