Paul noticed none of the scenery impressed Ray Traven. Tongue firmly caught in his teeth, possibly to concentrate through his over-boozed mind, Ray swiped at the freight elevator’s leather strap to pull it down. The elevator’s door horizontally opened and shuddered nosily above and below. Ray went to about-face but instead staggered inside the elevator and struck the opposing wall. The impact looked to be momentarily sobering.
A knot of Inner Circle church members en route for the refectory stopped at the sharp clang. Paul didn’t recognize them and waved them on. Judging from their fresh new suits and blouses, he suspected they’d flown down for this year’s Harvest from some overseas chapel. “He’s fine. Keep moving brothers and sisters,” he said. They might not have understood English that well but his tone garnered a few sour looks.
While his drunken tour guide handled the descent, Paul digested the situation. What was he going to say to Archbishop Pager? This was bound to work with Cole’s backing anyway, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still blow things. Paul knew his weaknesses and strengths, and thinking on his toes wasn’t a strength. It was just bizarre that things had gone this way. How easy would it have been for him to be out in the desert, rotting beside Justin’s body? Probably shot with his own gun too.
Paul didn’t want to think about it and yet he couldn’t be certain he was completely safe. He’d definitely have to keep an ear to the ground for Cole
Szerszen’s
rumblings. The big guy could have any number of surprises planned for Paul’s “psychic acumen,” many of which could end in death and dismemberment, maybe not in that order. But, he thought with some emerging happiness, he was going to be a bishop in the Church of Midnight. That was something else.
If only his mother could see him now.
Raymond, pale and past enjoying himself, crouched against the elevator cage. He smacked his lips and grimaced at the flavor of his words. “You’re smiling, Paul.”
“Guess it’s being in the chapel. I’ve never been.”
Darkness roared outside the cage, an endless brown scream.
“Might move Val out here,” said Raymond. “New life. New change.”
“Val your wife?”
Raymond nodded. “Money though. Money, money, fuckin’ money.”
The elevator stopped and the swiftness and displacement of motion made Paul’s stomach twist. Raymond, on the other hand, merely puked on his shoe. The air filled with a strange scent, like tuna in apple cider vinegar. “Kipper snaps,” Ray mumbled in disgust.
Paul yanked the elevator strap quick and opened the freight doors, then took
big
steps outside. The lower level had to be the most impressive so far. The passing hallways were carved through the rock and worked as smooth as Mother Nature might have intended through slower methodology. A black and orange checkerboard carpet planed over the floor. On the rock walls hung oil paintings featuring Archbishops from Stonehenge to present. An unsaid desire rang in the painted eyes, accentuated above fans of warm orange recess lighting.
Ray struggled from the elevator, kicking vomit off his loafer. Over the last two years Paul witnessed the poor fool sinking deeper into the bottle, ever since a Federal Express truck took a blind turn too fast and hit his kid. Not that Raymond wasn’t a drunk before, but losing his son dried up all the excuses for cutting back. It was a pitiful story, but Paul didn’t feel too sorry for people like Ray. Bottom line, as far as Paul Quintana was concerned: thirteen years ago the guy should have pulled out of his wife and saved himself all the heartache.
“One moment,” Ray burped.
“I got antacids.” Paul smacked his breast pocket. “Oh, I loaned them to Justin this morning. Son of a bitch didn’t give them back.” He was going to laugh but let it go. Being a Bishop would require more reserve; he had to start practicing.
“No more Wild Turn-Keys. For me. I hate those birds. In a bottle.” A ragged chuckle exploded from Ray’s lips and then he went silent. His body straightened, electrified with the need to be more sober, and he padded to the end of the hall. Ray plunked his knuckles against the shiny black surface of a door there. They waited. He plunked again, slightly louder.
Footfalls echoed unnaturally. Ray adjusted his oversized suit coat and tie. He didn’t look shitfaced anymore. Actually, he looked how Paul supposed he himself did: afraid on a level that had snapped him back to infancy. Paul already felt cold when the air conditioning cycled on overhead.
The deadbolts turned. The door opened, a block of obsidian slipping into a ravenous nothing. Two green eyes stared back, pupils dilated. There was no light beyond the eyes; emptiness soaked around the face. The voice sounded harsh, diminished chords in a mal-tuned pipe organ. “None other, save Bishop Margrave and
Szerszen
, may tread in the residence without written consent.”
Ray attempted words. “
Bizup
Mar-gave killed in the morning...”
Paul moved to hush him but Ray waved a cautionary finger back and forth, indicating control. Unconvinced, Paul spoke up, “I’m seeking audience with the Archbishop. Bishop Margrave passed away this morning. I was with him when he took his own life. Brother Traven here is my escort to the Archbishop’s presence.”
The placid eye rolled to both men and needled them. Paul’s throat dried from tip of tongue to the root of his stomach—breathing wasn’t even a question.
“Yes, Brother Quintana, the Archbishop was informed of your meeting.”
“Then why’d ya ask?” Ray threw up his hands.
Paul just stood there, frozen, heart thundering. The door swung open. He flinched, unable to question the tradition he was taking part in. He hoped it was a tradition. From the darkness a noose dropped around his neck. His guide, Ray Traven, a noose now around his own neck, shot a grimace before the ropes tightened.
With a single yank Paul hit the floor with Ray. He could hear Ray’s teeth click. His body slid forward and the door closed swiftly behind. He tried to speak, to scream, but the invisible force just hauled him along. Rolling across a dank corridor, he kicked out, swung his body over to save his lip from being torn off. Air deprivation made the darkness crackle with fireflies. He clutched at his burning neck. Just to let a thread of air inside, he tried to wiggle his fingers under but the hempen rope sunk deeper into his skin.
Screams came lofty and low. Laughter and hell-play ricocheted off the unseen rocks. Subterranean breathing; burning chest; burning throat; wheezing; working just for one lousy gasp. This was it. Paul knew his struggle would be the ghastly punctuation of his life—
It ended quickly.
In a dream the noose was removed by church sentinels. No, not a dream. They had removed the noose and set Paul in a chair. How long had he been sitting here? Had he lost consciousness? The lingering burn remained so intense he touched the tender flesh to be sure. Paul even
saw
the red length of rope coiled around the sentinel’s fist and this wasn’t reassurance. Ray’s body slumped over an old monastery table. A sentinel stood fast behind the red velvet chair, probably to catch the drunk when he eventually toppled sideways. Paul had never seen interior guards before and in the scarce torchlight he only distinguished banded muscle and black armor—barbarian warriors with assault rifles and ammo belts.
From the end of the long table, a door squeaked like a rodent. The sentinels shuffled noisily to attention. A man walked in, but in the shadows Paul only saw a mouth gliding into the room. Like the guards, the mouth didn’t appear to have the capacity for expression; it was an axe-wound turned clammy in the grave. On the far wall, something rattled happily at his approach.
The Archbishop took a seat and his soft, girlish face became a nest of torchlight and painted runic design. Shaped eyebrows were delicate over a barbarous nose and mirrored sunglasses.
Sandeus
Pager folded his gloved fingers. The smell of women’s perfume,
Chanel
maybe, drifted across the long table.
“I apologize for any injuries, brother Quintana, but the trial of ropes has been performed since the rule of Kublai Khan.”
Paul tried to clear his throat. “Archbishop, I—”
“Tell me Quintana, do you really think you can kill your way to the top? There are other ways to sit at
my
side.”
“Justin, he was depressed—”
“Better yet, don’t speak just now.” Pager took off his sunglasses, folded their stems neatly and set them down. “I’ve already heard the suicide story from the sentinels. I laughed then. Don’t make me laugh now. Humor turns my reasoning very quickly, and I want to remain fair.”
The Archbishop took out what looked like a bronze cigarette case and set it on the table. “You’re resourceful and young, and have a natural acumen with powers of the mind. Justin Margrave was several rungs closer to complete naïveté, but there are plenty other strong individuals in the Church of Midnight—even some acolytes better suited for my flank.”
Sandeus
made a face like he’d just heard glass shattering. “Yet, there was the Gauntlet. I really wish we could get rid of the fucking thing, but there it is, just like the trial of ropes—a tradition.
“Since you scored the highest in the Gauntlet and are in good standing, I can’t very well dismiss your ascension. My authority would be questioned by the European contingency. They wanted to restructure and I had them fat, happy and
quiet
with Margrave’s trade deal. But the Columbians don’t trust me to continue. They trusted the man you killed. And now that’s over.
“So it stands at this: I don’t want anybody questioning my policy, Quintana. Cole
Szerszen
finds you worthy of
bishophood
and though Cole might sometimes be a little too dreamy and farsighted about the Church of Midnight, I tend to trust him.
Tend to
.”
“What—” Paul began but the Archbishop raised a glove. He opened his cigarette case and took out one thinly rolled cigarette. Paul knew he wouldn’t win this, so he waded through those muddy eyes. “What now?”
“What now indeed!”
Sandeus
slapped the table and Paul jumped. Raymond stirred and a pained expression crossed his sweating, sleeping face. The cigarette came zigzagging over the table. A book of matches hissed over after them.
“I have asthma,” said Paul.
“You want the title, don’t you?”
Pursing his lips, Paul took the cigarette.
The Archbishop continued, “When smoked the
marrow seeds
rolled into the tobacco will spread evenly through your lungs. I pray your garden will blossom with balance.”
“Seeds?”
“Collected in the Old Domain and brought to us through the gateway last year, their effect is similar to peyote and gypsum weed, but a more aggressive hallucinogen. And, of course, more special. Think of this as dropping a foot into the Old Domain. You’ll never be the same after. It’s an honor to imbibe these seeds, Quintana.”
“I don’t understand.”
Sandeus
impatiently rubbed his chin. “Only Bishops who sit at the left and right of the Archbishop may reap the seeds’ power. But why sit here and explain when the answer’s in your hand.
Smoke
.”
Paul took his eyes away from the savage male-female glare and stuck the cigarette in his mouth—he tore off a match, snapped it against the book and lit the end, took a deep draw. The sharp heat made him cough like a circus seal. It took him a while to recover. The Archbishop said nothing. Soon Paul realized there wasn’t any substance to the peppery smoke, certainly not a tobacco flavor, and he realized that his tongue had stopped perceiving flavor altogether and once he realized that, he also realized his body exploded with realizations—realizing the reality of realizing—was instantly insane? He became a mash of disturbed parts, which throbbed between numbness and pleasure, strobe lights in his nerve centers.
“How much do I—?”
“All of it.”
Sandeus’s
voice crawled through Paul’s episodic fits. “Until you hit the cotton filter. Don’t you dare stop.”
Paul’s smile went rubbery and refused to quit his face. He took another drag. One of the sentinels stepped forward and put a stone ashtray on the table. “So kind,” he told the big man in black armor, who sank back into the darkness. Not long ago this man had almost choked him to death with a hemp rope, but now, brotherhood.
Eyes bugging, Paul took another strong, cartoonish pull on the cigarette. This was a profound experience. Enjoyable too.
Something rattled in the wall again.
Paul’s nose dripped snot, but when he touched the skin he found it dry as coal. As he tapped off wreaths of ash into the ashtray, he made a promise to get a hold of himself, if possible.
“So pretty boy, do you still want to know what’s next?”
Reality crashed. Real things had been at stake, career things, life and death things, and
Paul’d
completely forgotten. He was panting, “What Archbishop... what is next?”
A long fillet knife with an ebony grip slid across the table. The knife circuited for a moment before stopping. The Archbishop’s eyes settled on Ray. “Cut this man’s throat.”
Paul jolted and a hand pushed him down in his seat. He glanced at Raymond Traven, who still slept soundly. “Why would you ask that of me?”
“Difficult? Every murder has a purpose and price, brother Quintana.”