‘I hate to tell you this, but the word is he didn’t die in his form. And he’ll be back, and he’s mightily pissed off.’
‘So goes the legend of men.’
‘This why you dragged me here? Pump me full of dead black potion to talk about the legends of men?’
‘I invited you here that you, too, may find salvation, as did the Christ.’
Harper looked at his out-strung arms.
‘You’re barking up the wrong cross, Komarovsky.’
Komarovsky smiled.
‘Oh, ye of little faith.’
Harper’s blurring eyes shot to the tall one leaning against the wall, cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his knife. And the small one, picking up a rusty hacksaw from the floor, wiping it on his sleeve, circling the hooded man tied to the chair. Harper felt sensations churn in his guts. He shook his head, the dead black wasn’t just sucking the light from his eyes, it was breaking down his resistance to emotions.
I feel … I feel fear. Get a grip, boyo, get a fucking grip
!
‘Look, I’ll make it easy for you. Whatever Yuriev took from Moscow, I don’t have it, I never did. I don’t even know what the hell it is.’
‘Of course not. You are an errand boy for your kind and nothing more. But the sacrifice of these skins will give you the chance to achieve so much more.’
‘What the hell do you really want? You want information, is that it? You want the locations of our partisan cells? What the fuck do you want?’
‘What I really want is your salvation.’
Komarovsky raised his hands, pointed to the corners of the ceiling, small cameras panning from side to side. Down in one corner, a laptop computer with numbers streaming down the screen. They’re watching, Harper thought, slaughter at midnight, live on Goon TV.
‘You’re fucking up, Komarovsky. You didn’t hack into our SX traffic, you were let in. We’re tracking your communications right now. This stunt will lead us to the rest of the Two Hundred Club and every half-breed in the world. We’ll track them, we’ll kill them.’
‘
Che sarà, sarà
.’
Komarovsky snapped his fingers, the small one threw a switch on the wall and bright light blasted through the room, red lights on the cameras kicked on. The tall one punched a few keys on the computer, the screen switched to the room, the tall one nodding everything was online.
‘Nearly a billion hits already.’
Komarovsky smiled and opened his arms to the cameras.
‘Good evening and welcome to another entertainment presented by the Two Hundred Club. Tonight we players engage in an act of sacrifice for the sake of salvation. Who shall be sacrificed and who shall be saved? That is the question of the ages to be played on our humble stage.’
Harper felt the dead black potion seeping deeper into his brain, the room began to warp out of shape, panic rising again as he watched Komarovsky drift over the woman on the bed, touching her stomach. The woman stiffening with excitement, her voice breathless.
‘Yes, my love, I want more. Please give me more.’
Komarovsky looked at Harper.
‘So beautiful in their dreams, are they not? It was hiding in the shadows and watching them sleep, watching them dream, that first enchanted us and filled us with desire. We began to whisper to them as they slept, tell them secret things. Their bodies surrendered to us and they became the vessels of our loneliness and so we were made flesh.’
‘Such a poetic flourish for treason.’
Komarovsky reached between the woman’s legs.
‘And you, good and noble warrior? Have you never desired such treason? To touch them, to let their bodies soothe the weight of your eternity, if only once?’
The woman arched her back, took a sharp breath as Komarovsky pushed his fingers inside her. She cried with the joy of release, then she relaxed and slid back into her murmuring and whispering place.
‘Don’t leave me, my love, not yet. Give me more.’
Harper pulled at his chains.
‘Enough, she’s so drugged she doesn’t know what she’s doing.’
‘All the better to give you pleasure.’
‘What?’
‘She has been bathed in breeding oils and made ready to conceive this night, this hour. Lie with her, feed on her dreams and consecrate her with the seed of your form.’
‘You must be joking.’
Komarovsky moved close to Harper, traced his moist fingers over Harper’s lips.
‘Taste the stuff of creation, let it inflame the flesh in which you hide.’
Harper twisted away.
‘Forget it, rules and regs. No fraternization with the locals. You remember the rules and regs, don’t you?’
‘But you and me, we’re way beyond rules and regulations, aren’t we? Even now I smell the scent of fear rising from your skin.’
‘Forget it, this isn’t going to happen.’
‘Fuck her and I will spare both their souls.’
Harper shook his head.
‘You were sent here to protect this place, comfort the locals at the time of their death, guide them to their next form in life.’
Komarovsky grabbed Harper’s crotch and twisted hard. Harper felt a shock of pain.
‘But fucking their women and breeding a new race to rule over paradise turned out to be far more satisfying.’
‘Fuck you, fuck your half-breed goons.’
Thwack
!
The killing knife, skimming Harper’s throat, digging in the wall. The tall one rushed in, pulled the knife from the wall, held it in front of Harper’s face.
‘Tsk, tsk, I missed. I know, let’s have some fun with your skin friends.’
Harper felt the dead black blow apart the firewall between his eternal being and the emotions of his human form. Then came the breathless panic of being trapped in a physical space, crushing down, can’t get out … the weight, Christ, the weight …
bloody hell, no
.
‘Told you before, I don’t know these people. Don’t have friends in this place. Never did, never will.’
The tall one moved back to the bed, dragged the point of the blade over the woman’s stomach. She reacted to the touch as if it was a loving thing. The dead black in the half-breed’s eyes pulsed faster watching her. Across the room, the same thrill in the small one’s eyes as he yanked the hooded man upright, pulled the burlap sack from his head. Harper saw the fearful eyes, gaffer tape over the mouth … the bartender from LP’s.
‘Stephan?’
‘Mmmm! Mmmm!’
The small one set the hacksaw against the boy’s jugular. Harper looked at Komarovsky.
‘He’s got nothing to do with this, he’s a bloody bartender.’
‘But he has everything to do with it, as does the woman whom, I’m sure, you remember very well.’
The tall one lifted the woman from the bed. The woman’s eyes hidden by the blindfold. Her skin white and pasty. Harper stared at her, the auburn hair, the black scarves around her wrists, almost hiding the kid gloves on her hands. Komarovsky swept by her, pulled the blindfold from her face …
No, not her
.
‘Ah, I see by the expression on your face you do recall the lovely Miss Clarke. So needing to hold on to someone, so wanting it to be you. She kissed you with such tenderness.’
‘You’re wasting your time, they’re not even partisans.’
‘No, they are the innocent instruments of your salvation.’
‘You don’t fucking need them. You’ve got me in chains and a billion hits online waiting for a show. Let’s clear the place of locals and get to it. Torture me for a thousand years.’
‘You see, you are already more than a warrior. You have become the new Christ on Earth. Ready to sacrifice the eternity of your being for the insignificant souls of men. But it is not your suffering I seek.’
‘What do you want then? What do you fucking want?’
‘Lie with the woman and let the flesh of your form bond with hers. Let the passion of her love release you from your oath to an ancient and forgotten will.’
‘What?’
‘Breed one of your own kind on Earth and we shall be brothers again. Tonight, you and I will put an end to this eternal and forever war.’
Harper looked at Stephan and Lucy.
‘They are not us and we are not them.’
‘Once again, you give me rules and regulations, when innocent lives are at stake.’
‘Just telling you the way it is.’
‘Then you would choose their death?’
Harper nodded to the cameras in the ceilings, zooming in for close-ups as the half-breeds readied themselves for the slaughter.
‘There isn’t a choice.’
‘No?’
‘It’s no use, Komarovsky. I saw the hunger in the eyes of your half-breeds, they’re whacked to the gills on dead black. They want death. No matter what I do, the locals are as good as listed.’
Komarovsky smiled.
‘How clever of you to notice. Because your salvation does not come in choosing to love, but in choosing to hate.’
He spun around and pointed towards Lucy.
‘Wake her! Let her know the good and noble warrior who would not save her soul!’
The tall one threw a white powder in Lucy’s face, pressed the killing knife against her throat. A trickle of blood ran down her breasts. She snapped out of her druggy haze, saw herself naked, saw the blood. She felt the killing knife at her throat, saw Harper in chains.
‘Jay?’
Harper shook his head, tried to suppress the rage pumping in his brain.
‘Look into my eyes, just look into my eyes.’
‘Jay, what is this? What’s happening? Help me!’
Komarovsky turned to the cameras.
‘Yes, let the warrior angel hear their cries. Let him hear her cries rise to the emptiness of the heavens. Slaughter them both!’
The short half-breed tore the gaffer tape from Stephan’s mouth.
‘Monsieur, what are they doing? Please, stop them!’
‘Look at me, both of you, look at me, listen to my voice.’
Komarovsky turned to Harper.
‘Do you feel their panic, do you feel their terror!’
‘Leave them alone, you fear-mongering fuck!’
Then realizing he’d played into Komarovsky’s hands. Letting the dead black in his blood fuel the rage in his guts and crush the light in his eyes.
No, damn it! Hold on
!
The tall one pulled Lucy’s head to the side, sliced at her neck, her scream ripping at Harper’s ears.
‘Jay!’
The knife sliced deeper into her neck.
‘Ahhhhh!’
The short one pulled the saw over Stephan’s throat.
‘Monsieur, save us!’
Harper pulled at the chains like a madman.
‘Listen to me! Your life doesn’t end, it never ends!’
The hacksaw cut hit Stephan’s jugular, blood sprayed through the room. The tall one twisted the blade into Lucy’s throat. Their screams drowning in blood. Then blades set for death cuts. Terrified eyes watching him, begging to be saved. Harper felt a spark of light in his eyes.
‘Look into my eyes, listen to my voice.
C’est le guet, Il a
—’
Komarovsky slapped gaffer tape over Harper’s mouth.
‘Their souls will not hear the ancient words of comfort. Nor shall they see good and noble light in your eyes. Their souls will be fed to the devourers and we shall share in the sacrament of their flesh.’
He pulled a burlap sack over Harper’s head.
‘Nnnn! Nnnn!’
Harper twisted in the chains and chewed at the tape over his mouth. The rage in his throat tasting of bile and vomit. The chains clanging and scraping on the floor. Hearing their screams drown in gurgles of blood, arms and legs slapping in death throes. Then the sawing of blades against bone and the sound of bodies falling to the floor.
Soft footsteps stepping near.
Two dull thuds before him.
An evil voice in his ear. ‘I bring you death.’ Then an unseen hand pulling the sack from his head and tearing the gaffer tape from his mouth and forcing his half-blind eyes to the floor.
Two severed heads staring back at him.
Terror burning in their still-blinking eyes.
And in the corners of the room, shadows of the devourers forming to feed on uncomforted souls. Komarovsky drifted towards Harper. Harper tried to see through the dark glasses.
‘Which one are you?’
‘I am Komarovsky.’
‘Which one are you, what’s your name in the Book of Enoch? Let me see your bloody eyes!’
‘Names are the things of men. And the Book of Enoch is only a legend.’
Harper’s eyes shot to the watching cameras in the ceiling. The flood of dead black dragging his being under again.
‘You fuckers! This is nothing but a game to you. I’ll kill you, all of you.’
Komarovsky loomed over him.
‘And you will kill not because of your oath to a forgotten will, but because you now choose to hate.’
Harper ripped at his chains.
‘Let me free, you bastard. I’ll show you how much I choose to hate. I’ll show you how I choose to kill!’
Komarovsky leaned down. Harper saw his own face in the dark lenses, again. Unrecognizable to his own eyes, blood and frothing spittle dripping from his mouth. Komarovsky kissed Harper’s lips, licking the drool.
‘At last, brother, the taste of free will is upon your lips. You are saved.’
‘And you’re fucking dead for ever, every one of you. I’ll find all of you and every one of your half-breeds! I’ll slaughter every last one!’
‘That’s the spirit! Go forth into the world and kill!’
‘Let me go, I’ll slaughter every fucking half-breed in the world!’
‘Do you swear to hate, do you swear to kill them all?’
‘Yes, I fucking swear!’
Komarovsky held his hand before Harper’s eyes and, as if controlling a wild beast, he whispered to soothe him.
‘So let the slaughter begin with the crippled fool hiding in the tower of Lausanne Cathedral.’
Harper jolted to a stop.
The world suddenly coming unhinged from its place in the stars.
‘The lad with the lantern, a half-breed?’
Komarovsky’s form began to fade, transmigrating into shadow.
‘Go, my brother, go in the name of hate and fulfil your oath to kill them all. Go and slaughter
le guet de Lausanne
.’
Harper felt a needle punch through the base of his skull.
A flood of dead black potion rushing into his brain.