The Theocracy - The Blackened Cross - 8. Chapter 8

“Arriving at Grant Avenue and Fifth Street,” said the chirpy automated voice on the tram. “In the name of the Mother, have a nice day.” Sometimes it surprised Vanus that he didn't hear it in his sleep.

The train slowed to a graceful stop. The door slid open with a mechanical whooshing sound. Van’s long fingers tapped anxiously against the side of his briefcase. He felt his brain send the impulse down his spine to his legs: Get moving. This is your stop. His body apparently had its own plan in mind, because he didn’t move.

He watched people sidle off the train. People who were going to work just like him. People who had bills and rent to pay; vacations to save up for. Except for me, he thought. I never get to take a vacation. Guilt mixed with a combination of resentment and entitlement was never a good concoction.

The death magician’s shoulders groaned beneath the weight of his obligations. As the department’s only death magician, Gwendolyn counted on him…more than she was willing to admit. Someone had tortured and killed a man and left behind Chokmah’s calling card. It could have been a nasty one-time occurrence, all they needed to do was arrest the person who did it. This was the best-case scenario. The heavy weight in his gut guessed otherwise. Killers need to be caught. The world’s a mess. What’s new?

The last passenger for this stop climbed off the train; two more filed back on.

Remembering where he was, Vanus shot to his feet. “Hold the door please!”

Too late. The doors cycled shut. Already the train was on the move, picking up speed. He’d missed his train. Deliberately if he was being honest with himself.

Murderous cults. A well-meaning but codependent boss. Simple burnout. All were good reasons for wanting to cash in a day’s PTO. The good Mother knew he’d earned it. Wasn’t Gwendolyn always telling him so? She didn’t really mean it. In retrospect, when stacked up next to one another, the reason was really quite small. It was only an issue because he chose to let it be an issue. But then you’ve always been good at running from your problems, haven’t you? a slick oily voice teased in the back of his mind.

You’re a disappointment…

The broad face of an Astorathian loomed up before the death magician’s eyes. He let it come to him without resistance this time. He could still feel the full weight of Bazzelthorpe’s lantern eyes, judging him as so many other had done before. Sure Vanus had caught the Astorathian Butcher, but he had also let a little girl die in the process. And he was a death magician. Couldn’t forget about that.

Being a death magician was bad enough. Even in this new era where sinning was more popular than not, the idea of anyone being able to communicate with the dead was still considered taboo in the public eye.

You’re a disappointment…

“Get tossed,” Vanus murmured to himself. He pulled out his cell phone, his mind made up. The Theocracy could live without him for one day.

By the time he made it home with a bag of groceries twined around his fingers, Vanus was positively ravenous. He had enough presence of mind to step over the red brick dust along the threshold of the security-reinforced door. He didn’t need spirits from the great Void ruining his self-appointed day off.

He set everything on the kitchen counter: chicken thighs, garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes. Everything he needed to make General Tso’s chicken from scratch. He turned on the television so that the chatter would keep him company. With Carlos, it had always been something he wanted to do that he never got the chance to: Make him dinner. Now I’m cooking for myself, the death magician thought. There was something ironic about that but he couldn’t place his finger on what it was at the moment. His mind had slowed down to a lethargic crawl.

While the chicken sizzled on medium-heat, Vanus looked around his place trying to feel the pride he’d first felt when buying the place. He remembered seeing the exposed support beams and ductwork and falling in love with the place’s rustic charm. It was the nicest thing he’d ever owned. On paper it was called a loft or a luxury apartment. In truth it was a bachelor pad, an empty space all the books and fancy art he’d collected over the years could not fill.

He was lonely. He’d been lonely for a long time now, even long before this moment. The silence and the meal that was really meant to be for two only reminded him of the fact.

“It was a mistake to call into work today,” he said out loud, only there was no one to hear him. Not even the dead.

When the death magician could no longer stand the racket of his own thoughts or believe in the futility of what he was doing, Vanus cleaned up after himself. He’d lost his appetite.

He leaned against the sink. He felt as if someone had huffed and puffed and blown his house of straw down. “I have to get out of this house,” he said aloud. “I have to do something with my life. I’ll go insane if I don’t.” With that he grabbed his coat.

…

He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when he found himself standing outside the tiny brick house with green shingles around the window, and yet somehow he was; as if this was a random coincidence, as if he hadn’t let his body lead him in this direction. Now that he was here he was too lazy, too tired to walk all the way back home. “Why did you walk ten city blocks, you bloody fool?” he hissed to himself, turning this way and that to make sure no one was around to watch him chastise himself like a madman.

So I can’t walk back.

Vanus snickered at himself. Walking to Carlos’s had been just as deliberate as watching his stop go by on the train. Now he had no choice but to knock on the door and face what he’d been avoiding ever since he’d returned home. To say I’m sorry? To say I’ll do better next time? Or maybe not to say anything at all. Maybe he would just stand there and take whatever it was he had coming to him.

The lights inside the house were out. No car in the driveway. Carlos wasn’t home. That was fine. He would sit and wait. Or you could just text him like a normal person.

For the third time today Van’s body decided for him. He sat on the porch swing and listened to the sound of rain washing down the gutters. Cars eased down the street, tires sloshing through greasy rain puddles. His hair was damp because he hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella. A few houses over a screen door whispered open. A girl of eleven or so skipped out into the rain, a jump rope held in both hands. Van thought of another girl he’d known once. A girl who had wasted away in a dark and cold place while the man who’d taken her stepped into the gas chamber to meet his end in this world.

Suddenly he felt tired.

Very tired.

The next thing he knew a familiar voice said his name. He sat up, realizing that he’d curled up on the porch swing, his legs curled up into his chest like a babe. It was not the position he’d intended to be found in.

He looked up into Carlos’ warm, brown eyes and found they were not so warm. Not like they used to be. They looked down at him with surprise. Confusion. Dread.

“Vanus,” he said in a terse voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Uhhhh.” The death magician’s mouth hung open stupidly. “Taking a nap on your porch swing I guess.”

Carlos rolled his eyes; air whistled audibly through his teeth. He held a brown paper sack in his hand. There was a large bottle inside. Cheap vodka from the looks of it. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said at last. He shouldered the screen door open, liquor bag cradled in the other elbow. The house keys jangled in his hand.

Vanus rose to his feet. His back and neck felt stiff. Porch swings looked great but they were not made for spontaneous napping. “I know I shouldn’t. I don’t know why I came here.”

The cold sting of rejection. Now he would have the whole walk back to let the rain numb it if not wash it away. He turned to walk away, wishing he could make the stinging of his eyes go away. Before he could make it to the bottom of the steps Carlos spoke at his back.

“I tried calling you at the hospital, you know? Tried visiting you too.” Carlos’ voice trembled with both pain and accusation.

“I know,” Vanus replied with genuine regret. He stood with one foot planted on the top step and the other on the bottom. He wished the cracks in the cement would widen and swallow him whole. Getting swallowed up by the earth would be preferable to this.

The liquor bag transferred from the arm to the edge of the swing. Carlos took a step forward, rounding his shoulders as if preparing for a confrontation. Van’s foot on the top step joined with the one on the bottom, a reflexive response should he feel the need to put distance between them. He wasn’t aware he’d done it until it happened.

“They said you refused to see me,” Carlos said. It was both a statement and a question. The tone in his voice spoke much more clearly: Give me an explanation. You owe me that much.

I called into work today. Took the first self-care day in years that wasn’t a holiday or a necessity. Guess what I tried making for dinner last night? General Tso’s chicken. Like you and I always used to talk about making because it’s your favorite meal. We never got to do that because my job is crazy, because someone always needs saving. Because I suck at these kinds of things.

“I didn’t want you to see me like that,” the death magician said once he could find the words. Correction: they were the only words his lips were capable of shaping at the moment.

Carlos laughed. The sound was hot and bitter. “You do realize who you’re talking to, don’t you Vanus?”

“You’re my friend,” Vanus said.

It was a mistake.

“Meirda.” Carlos rubbed at the crease in between his eyebrows with the heels of his hands. “We were lovers, Vanus. At least I thought we were. But then after the third or maybe fourth time that I tried to reach you, at some point I came to my senses and realized lovers don’t shut each other out and neither do friends. It just so happens we’re neither.”

“I need a friend now,” Vanus said and hated the pleading, whiny notes in his voice.

“Here you go.” Carlos dumped the liquor bag in the death magician’s arms with such force Vanus almost lost his footing. “Consider this a welcome home present. The next time you want to chat, don’t come over without texting me first. You don’t have an open invitation here anymore.”

…

The elevator doors swished open. He stumbled out, clutching for something to grab onto. Something was wrong. His balance was off. The walls of the hallway kept lunging in and out at him. He was soaked. He needed to get home, needed to get out of these wet clothes, needed to get to the toilet before he pissed himself. It had been a mistake to go see Carlos without properly preparing for it. It had also been a mistake to get drunk on the way home.

You’re supposed to be a cop for Mother’s sake…

“Cops fuck up, too,” he said to the hallway in a slurred voice. “We’re human just like everyone else. Unless of course you’re not.”

He stumbled down the hallway. His balance was off. So off that the only thing keeping him upright was the damn wall. When was the last time he’d had anything to drink that was stronger than a glass of wine?

He was halfway to his apartment when he realized he wasn’t alone. When he realized he had a visitor. A very tall visitor with horns on top of his head. Horns that stopped just short of touching the fluorescent lights. Horns that could easily pierce through Van’s flesh. “This is not my fucking week,” Vanus murmured to himself as Bazzelthorpe turned around to face him.

“What are you doing here?” Vanus asked, voice husky with an anger he didn’t expect to feel. He could feel his eyes burn silver with it.

The Astorathian closed the distance between them. His shoulders were so wide they almost covered the breadth of the hallway. “We need to talk,” he said in that deep rumble of his that made Vanus think of earthquakes and erosions.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Vanus said. “You’ve gotten what you want. It’s your case now; we don’t ever have to speak or look at each other again.” He moved towards the door.

With a single stride Bazzelthorpe blocked his way, casting a section of the hallway in shadow. “If you do not rejoin the case, the bosswoman will fire me.”

Vanus barked out a caustic laugh. “Am I supposed to care after what you said to me yesterday?” He didn’t cuss often but now he couldn’t stop himself. “Fuck you. Get out of my way. I won’t tell you again.”

Bazzelthorpe did not heed his warning. "I cannot lose my job."

"Not my problem," the death magician. "Find another."

"Do you know how hard it is for an Astorathian to find a job?" Vanus opened his mouth to throw out another retort, but before he could speak Bazzelthorpe held up a hand the size of a dinner plate. When he spoke, his voice still rumbled, but his tone was strangely gentle. Conciliatory. “Just…just listen to what I have to say. Then if you want me to go I will.”

Vanus sighed, defeated and fatigued and still head-poundingly drunk; he felt his shoulders sag. “Fine. But I’m not saying another word until I’ve had a shower and a chance to sober up. It’s…It’s been a very long day.”

Bazzelthorpe accepted this compromise with a nod and stepped to the side.

Vanus fumbled with the locks on the door. There were three of them. In the moment he regretted being overcautious. Why had he let himself get so stupidly drunk? What in the Void was I thinking?

Duh, that was part of the problem. He hadn’t been thinking, only feeling, and he wished he couldn’t feel anything at all. Speaking of feeling he could feel the Astorathian’s eyes burning a hole in his back. He probably thinks I’m an idiot. He wouldn’t be wrong either.

At last he shouldered the door open. “Be careful of the red stuff on the floor,” he said with a warning look in Bazzelthorpe’s direction.

Bazzelthorpe looked down at the red line drawn across the threshold. His eyes narrowed with curiosity. “What is it?”

“Peace of mind,” the death magician said. He thought he saw the Astorathian’s flick with annoyance at his vague answer and felt a petty stab of satisfaction. “Make yourself at home,” he said with a dramatic sigh.

Vanus didn’t linger around to be a dutiful host; Bazzelthorpe wouldn’t be here long enough to get cozy. The past two days…the past year, he corrected himself…had left a thick residue that clung to him like tar. I just want to feel clean again.

In the washroom he stripped out of his clothes, feeling bruised and achy. He had to hold onto the porcelain edge of the sink in order to stay upright; the world kept tilting, threatening to pitch him on the floor. His throat tensed with the promise of bile. The blackened outline of the tattoo on his back caught the reflective surface of the mirror. It had been imprinted on his skin for so long he almost forgot it was there. But whenever he saw it, a carnivorous parasite wriggled around in his belly, feasting on his guts. He felt it now. The same exact feeling of suffocating dread that had seized him when he’d seen the Blackened Cross of Chokmah at the church.

Many times he’d had the temptation to have the tattoo surgically removed. In the end he could never bring himself to do it. Not only was it a reminder of why he’d dedicated his life to the Theocracy, but of the horrors from the past he’d escaped. He took a deep breath and let his eyes trace over the lines and curves of black inkwork that marked his back from shoulders all the way down to his tailbone: a wilting rose with nails for thorns sticking out of the stem. The Black Rose, symbol of the death angel Chagidiel.

Chagidiel was Chokmah’s shadow, the other half of the same chaotic coin.