Chapter 22
“I’m telling you that is what he told me!” I said slowly and evenly, trying to sound as non-threatening as possible.
Lorraine the Lost, champion and priestess of the devil Macula, stared at me with her pitch-black eyes. Her face wore a callous yet thoughtful scowl and hovering around her were several syringes full of Soul Scream, each of their needles pointed directly at me as if they couldn’t wait to sink into my flesh.
Though I was still half-way across the room from the crazy cult leader, there was nothing I could use as cover. In short I was…well…fucked. My entire confrontation with Lorraine had depended on the fact that the gaudy crucifix that Father O’Brawley had lent me was going to keep me safe from all types of witchery. Though Lorraine couldn’t lash out with her phantom conjurations or throw me around with a simple thought, she could still use her magic to hurl those syringes and turn me into a pincushion.
I tried not to cringe, terrified to think of what would happen with that much Soul Scream forcing itself into my body. With all my plans of attack failing, I had to rely on my natural defense; sleazy double speak and lies. So I tried to work out a deal…while stalling for more time.
“You spoke with Lord Macula?” Lorraine mused, the disbelief all too apparent in her tone.
“Yes and he told me that he wants to spread this organization!” I explained, not adding the part where he offered me the chance to become the most powerful man on earth…no sense in making the fanatical witch jealous.
“Hmm.” She took a step forward and the syringes dragged along in her petite orbit, “I did sense a lot of potential in you, as did my Lord. But why should I even bother sparing your life, much less your soul after all of the grief you’ve caused me?”
Well, other than eternal damnation being a factor, this was conversational territory that I knew all too well. Plenty of mobsters, gang leaders and one very pissed ex-fiancée had already asked me the same question: Why should they bother letting me live? Every time I found myself in this situation whether I was staring down a gun barrel, blade length or rocket launcher (she was a really crazy ex-fiancée) I had always given the same answer: I was useful.
“Because I can help you.” I replied with a winning smile, locking eyes with the crazy cult leader and suppressing a shiver, “Hell, you wouldn’t even have to leave the city. You can rebuild the Daughters of All and with my connections to the underworld, we can have every street gang, thug and thief at our disposal!”
Keeping her face admirably disinterested, Lorraine waited for me to continue. Using my own desperation to fuel the momentum of my words, I quickly began to break down what we could accomplish if Lorraine the Lost and Broker the Con joined forces…I gotta say, it didn’t sound half bad…
“Macula needs to expand. He wants more souls and he wants them now. Even if you bring your cult…er…followers into the hundreds, that’s still not realizing half the potential you and I have!” I used all of my charm, all of my natural dishonesty as I weaved the biggest con in my life, “It’d only be a matter of time before your body transferring scheme is flagged by either the FBI or Child Services. But… if you made me the kingpin of crime in this city...”
“How would that benefit me?” Lorraine asked, her dark eyes narrowing in suspicion, “Sounds like I’d just be setting you up as an even bigger threat as I do all of the hard work.”
My smile almost faltered, because referring to kidnapping, murder and soul-icide as ‘work’ really made me sick to my stomach.
“I wouldn’t double-cross you! It’d be in both our interest if we were both successful! Think about it. If I were the crime boss around here, I could lean on the right people! Maybe even get the governor in our corner. Or better yet! Convert him!” I rambled on, sweat started to run down my neck and soak into the collar of my shirt, “It’d be great! We could establish you as a full-blown religion, spread all around the country…hell, we have the time! Why not spread across the world?”
Lorraine’s scowl broke momentarily, becoming a devious grin as she entertained thoughts of being the Pope of all psychos and misdirected youths in the world. My sales pitch was chipping away at her resolve. I had dazzled her with what could happen but now it was time to take it further. It was time to reel her in.
It was a trick as old as salesmen themselves. The proverbial carrot was no longer enough to lead people on these days. You had to make the realm of impossible a simple contract away; One deal or product that would lead to a chain-reaction of enormous rewards and loosely related payoffs. It was the swindler’s promise that made people sign contracts, buy crap they didn’t need and fork over their money blindly.
It was the swindler’s promise that would save my life.
“You’d control the high rollers and I’d dominate the low lives! Between us we’d squeeze everyone else into submission. All who oppose us would be sacrificed and none would be the wiser!” I finished my pitch, carefully keeping the desperation out of my voice, “What do you say?”
She didn’t reply at first. Lorraine just continued to stare at me with those horrifically dilated eyes though I didn’t think she saw me. If I had to guess, Lorraine was miles away, seeing thousands and thousands of people chanting Macula’s name. Of course they chanted her name as well, she being the right hand of her deity and all.
“It’d be so much work.” The cult leader mused, “And dangerous…I wouldn’t be sticking to the shadows any longer…”
“No, you’d be in the spotlight.” I pressed, “After hundreds of years of hiding, you’d finally be on center stage!”
My heart was hammering in my chest. She was buying it! It was perfect. If I could string her along just a little longer, then (hopefully) my associates would come through in the end and save my sorry ass not to mention my very soul! Hell, I wouldn’t mind Tall Man and his thugs bursting through the door right about now!
My heart sank as I felt an all too familiar itching running across my scalp.
“I will let Lord Macula decide whether or not I should follow this path you have presented me.” Lorraine said at last.
Goddamn it!
“By…praying to him?” I asked hopefully.
The cult leader laughed.
“No, we will be meeting with Him right away.” Lorraine said as my heart sank even further, settling somewhere near my bowels, “We will summon Him into our realm and offer up these souls as tribute. Afterwards, He will decide your fate.”
That…that was going to be an issue. I distinctly remember pissing off this particular devil just an hour or so ago and I doubt that Macula was the kind of demigod to let things like absolute defiance slide.
“Um, we?” I asked. Perhaps if she would make this little errand to hell by herself it would give me the opportunity to escape. Sure, I’d be damning a few souls to that sadistic devil but I wasn’t good to anyone dead!
“Yes, you and I.” Lorraine clarified, “Unless you’d prefer just to go along with my original plan…”
A few of the syringes of Soul Scream soared through the air and slowly began to orbit the space above my head. I cringed, almost able to feel that sinister concoction crawling underneath my skin, worming around inside my veins.
“…where I bring you to Lord Macula as an offering and not a business partner.”
I cleared my throat and forced my words out.
“H-How do we get there?” I asked as pleasantly as possible.
Giving her trademark laugh that just bubbled with insanity, the cult leader raised one of her hands. The room became intensely cold as Lorraine flexed her mystic muscles. I went numb immediately, probably due to the combination of the intense chill as well as good ol’ fashion terror.
Either way, I mutely watched Lorraine’s magic go to work.
The floor, the ceiling and walls began to shimmer and roll like mirages. If it hadn’t been for the unbearable sound of plaster and hardwood cracking, I might have thought I had once more been cast from my body and into that strange limbo
where all my senses had been distorted. But no, this was merely a display of Lorraine’s immense arcane might.
Large cracks appeared on the walls and even larger chunks of plaster fell from them. This wasn’t random damage as each crack seemed to have a purpose. The jagged lines ran into each other, crossing, blending and weaving together until bizarre symbols were spread all along the walls. The hardwood floor faired no better. Entire chunks of the hardwood were ripped from the floor than shattered into splinters that quickly fell back to the ground in chaotic patterns.
Soon the entire room was blanketed in what Lorraine called the holy script.
“No human is worthy enough to enter Lord Macula’s realm!” Lorraine told me as the mirages around us began to pulse, making the runes along the floor and walls dance madly, “We will invite his glorious presence into our plane of existence. When he graces our world we will be able to bask in his glory, offer up his tribute and seek his council.”
I turned in a small circle, inspecting the damage that had been done in such a short time. There was an incredible amount of detail in each rune despite being created by such crude mediums like broken plaster and splintered flooring. My eyes ached if I tried to focus on a lone symbol for more than a few seconds, so horrifyingly alien was their design. Honestly, if Lorraine was able to do this with a simple thought, I was terrified at what she might have done to me had I not been wearing Father O’Brawley’s crucifix.
Turning back to Lorraine, I felt my confidence begin to bleed away. I might have been able to pull the long con on the crazy cult leader by promising her the chance at forming a new world order…but that didn’t mean I was dumb enough to believe I could trick an actual demon into buying my lie!
I was damn good but not that good.
At that moment I was keenly aware of the weight of my switchblade. It seemed to be calling to me. Could I use it? Was I fast enough to draw the blade and bury in Lorraine’s throat before she psychically rang Macula’s satanic cell phone or however this summoning thing worked? Despite the focus it had taken for Lorraine to create these runes, the floating syringes full of Soul Scream never stopped circling me. They were less than two feet away and I’m sure that if I so much as breathed funny, they’d rain down and inject me with their twisted poison.
Cowardice and common sense won out, so I didn’t go for my knife.
“Any chance I can go put on a tie before we met the big boss?” I asked, my sarcasm reflex operating at an inappropriate level of efficiency.
Lorraine rolled her eyes and turned her back towards me. Raising her hands over her head, she began to chant. It was the same, soft-spoken gibberish that the Daughters of All had spouted at the Killington estate…it didn’t seem to be an actual language but rather random sounds forced into rhythm.
Now with her backed turned towards me, my cowardice wavered just enough to make me think I might be capable of some heroic feat (which may or may not include stabbing Lorraine in the back) but I never got a chance to act on that gallant impulse. The room grew so cold so suddenly that the simple act of breathing stung. What happened next is rather hard to describe. It’s almost like trying to describe a bad acid trip to someone who has never done drugs, lacked an imagination and was stricken blind, deaf and dumb during your explanation.
Anyway, here it goes.
As Lorraine continued her chant, the runes that surrounded us began to pulse with an eerie light. No, that’s not really accurate. It would be better to say that the runes weren’t pulsing with light but rather they were absorbing the light and colors all around us. The brighter the symbols became the thicker the gloom I found myself in.
As the light was slowly drawn into the glyphs, my eyes began playing even crueler tricks on me. The walls, ceiling and even the floor seemed to fade away. All I could see was that damned “holy script” surrounding me and let me tell you, it was off putting to say the least. All sense of direction was lost in a blink of an eye, leaving me helplessly disoriented in a void of darkness.
Apart of me knew I hadn’t gone anywhere and that I was still in the upstairs area of a shitty thrift store. But as far as my senses were concerned, I was no longer in my own reality. The gloom was too oppressive, making everything into an indistinguishable shadow saves for the pulsing runes. The cold made my skin ache as if it were sucking the very life from my body. Then there was the silence…every breath I took seemed to echo, as if we were in a giant, stone tomb.
As I did my best to look brave (while silently praying to any and all Gods to get me out of this), Lorraine’s chanting stopped and she fell to her knees, bowing low while spreading out her hands in a prostrated fashion that someone would show a King or a Pharaoh or...
Or their God.
My mind suddenly registered that Lorraine and I were no longer alone. I’m not quite sure how I could have missed Macula’s arrival. Partly because he was twelve feet tall, just as broad and staring at me with a strange mixture of contempt and amusement. He appeared exactly how he had during our first encounter, suit and all but this time we weren’t in a comfy office setting that he had pulled out of my subconscious. No, we were now in a shrine dedicated to him which made the devil all the more intimidating.
“Ah, Mr. Broker.” Macula spoke with a voice so deep it not only shook the air but the ground as well, “I do believe we didn’t have the pleasure of concluding our business last time we met.”
“I…uh…was just trying to get the paperwork to a notary is all.” I replied with a weak chuckle, “Y’know, I wouldn’t want to become a soul-sacrificing, body-snatching whack job without the proper documentation.”
Macula’s laugh sounded like a cross between a pit-bull growl and a homicidal maniac’s scream. He clapped his massive hands together in the same manner a parent might applaud a less-then-remarkable child as they performed some sort of god-awful display of what little talent they had.
“Kudos. You are mere moments away from having your very soul ripped from your body and devoured by a demonic entity,” Macula chuckled, the mirth in his voice doing little to ease my fears, “And you still take the time to be annoyingly clever. Thank you for reminding me why I should savor your death.”
Perhaps I was frozen by terror or perhaps I just knew there were no means of escape. Either way, I didn’t even flinch as Macula reached out for me, his ridiculously oversized hand looking to lock around my throat. I pondered what would be worse. The dying part or having my soul devoured? Sure dying hurt but could a soul feel pain?
I closed my eyes and waited for the end…
A moment passed and there was no pain. No…whatever sensations surge through you as your soul became a snack for a devil. Nothing seemed to happen. I opened one eye and looked up, seeing Macula’s hand hovering just a few feet from my face. He was either a superb mime or pretending to be blocked off by an invisible wall or…
Or he genuinely couldn’t touch me!
“What insult is this?!” Macula growled, the runes about us turning into dark scars in the gloom as they fed off his anger, “Sacrilege! I am summoned and yet there is the favor of another god here?!”
Holy shit…could it be? My prayers were answered? There is someone up above that loves me! By all that is good and decent! If I knew which god had answer my prayer I would have fallen to my knees right there and begin to sing His/Hers/It’s praises!
“I am sorry Master,” Lorraine whimpered as she got to her feet, “He wears an artifact of some…persuasion. It thwarts all the magicks you have bestowed upon me.”
“Ah. I remember it now. The stink of the crippled god.” Macula sneered, staring down at me with his voids of darkness that served as eyes, “How he has become so popular is beyond me. Yet it seems that his sway in this world is enough to bar me from you…for now.”
Macula’s smug smile took the wind out of my new found sense of security. However, thanks to Father O’Brawley’s crucifix I seemed safe from immediate danger. Perhaps if I stalled just a bit longer, my dear, dear fri
ends (who for the love of my eternal soul had better not have fucked up!) might be able to finish the tasks I had sent them out to accomplish.
Then, just maybe, I would be able to save myself.
“Please, Master, forgive my incompetence. I would have removed his artifact but he has a very interesting proposal,” Lorraine groveled as she kept her eyes from meeting anything but Macula’s feet, “There is much potential in his words but first I seek your council and your approval.”
The devil looked down at me with that same damned smile on his face. I was pretty sure he was debating to either hear me out or have his number one fan rip the cross from my neck so he could continue with his goal of feasting on my very essence.
“Intriguing.” Macula spoke at last, rubbing his cliché goatee as he looked down at me, “Pray tell, Mr. Broker. What was this idea of yours?”
Swallowing hard, I pitched the plan…a twist on the very offer that Macula had made me during our previous encounter.
“I could…ahem…take over the world of organized crime and from there; put Lorraine in a position to form a new religion.” I croaked, my sale pitch skills apparently lacking when it came to inter-dimensional entities.
“Ah and from there we could put my faithful in various positions of power couldn’t we?” Macula chuckled, “Why Mr. Broker, I’m glad that you brought this to my attention. Seems I was wrong about you.”
If you think I was stunned at this declaration than you really would appreciate the scope of shock that Lorraine was experiencing. Her jaw dropped and she actually looked her patron deity right in the eye…which told me she had been planning on me getting my soul ripped out from the very beginning so that she could initiate my plan solo.
Clever bitch!
Still that didn’t explain why Macula wasn’t ordering the cult leader to kill me outright. Perhaps he was one of those demigods that were big on forgiveness? No, that wasn’t it. There was something definitely going on inside his twisted mind that I wasn’t privy to.
“S-So we will follow this course of action?” Lorraine asked, then cast a venomous glance my way, “With him?”
“I know how badly you want to sacrifice the one who brought such shame upon you, my pretty little pet.” Macula replied as I took a step away from Larraine, “But I have many uses for Mr. Broker. While he may seem a little untrustworthy, he would be much more useful as our puppet king to the underworld than just another insignificant soul to be consumed.”
Lorraine turned her head to the side, staring daggers at me.
“But, my Lord, he…is still a non-believer! I can sense it! He would betray us, that much is certain!” Lorraine nearly hissed at me.
“Yeah, that’s totally fair coming from the person who was just about to sacrifice my soul and then steal my idea.” I replied with equal spite in my words.
All I got in return from Lorraine was a playful pout that, though cute, sent a shiver of discomfort down my spine.
“Silence! Both of you!” Macula interrupted us sharply with the tone of someone who has always gotten their way, “Mr. Broker would be a worthy addition to our cause…but, I agree trust is an issue. So, I require something from you. Let’s call it a test of faith shall we?”
If the bile I tasted in the back of my throat rose any higher, I’d be sneezing the damn stuff. A test? A test of faith for this inter-dimensional dickhead could range anywhere from to self-mutilation to eternal damnation…but it was worth it as long as I could keep living, right?
Lorraine’s pout intensified, almost like a child who found out they had to share their new toy with someone. This was rather creepy considering she wanted to offer my soul up to a devil. Turning back to Macula, she bowed low.
“Of course, Master.” The cult leader hissed. Though her loyalty to Macula was undying it didn’t mean she had to enjoy the decision.
“What kind of test?” I heard myself ask, which was strange because I thought I was too scared of the answer to actually voice it.
“A simple one.” Macula grinned, tiny dots of light beginning to blink into existence behind him, “To prove your loyalty, you must personally sacrifice a soul to me.”
The lights that began to appear around the devil were hard to describe beyond the fact they were nothing but a pale blue pinprick in the darkness. Hundred upon hundreds of these insignificant lights appeared and as their numbers grew the gloom gave way to a pale, sickening blue glow. My stomach twisted into a knot as I realized they were the same strange color I had begun associating with human souls.
Apparently the realization (and horror) appeared on my face because Macula let out another one of his marrow-chilling laughs.
“Ha ha yes, you understand. Each of these little specks represents a human soul, bound to me for all eternity.” The devil informed me, holding out his hand. A swirl of light leapt from the gloom and began to dance above his fingertips like obedient, electric fireflies, “It’s amazing how something as pathetic as you mortals can sustain one as great as I.”
As he spoke, one of the flecks of blue light began to expand. I took a step back, my heart skipping so suddenly I almost feared I had gone into cardiac arrest. The blue speck grew to roughly half my size, hovering in the air just above Macula’s immense palm. After several more elongating adjustments, I found myself staring at a genuine human soul.
Nearly featureless, I couldn’t tell if this soul belongs to a man or woman…or if souls were even gender specific. But I could tell the wretched thing was suffering. It was kneeling, hunched and radiating such an aura of pain I could almost physically feel its agony. I have no idea what sadistic abuses a human soul could suffer but I was positive that whatever they were, Macula had delivered them upon this unfortunate spirit.
“Feed me a single soul.” Macula smiled, clenching his hand into a fist, “And I’ll place you on a plateau of power that you didn’t even think existed.”
The vague features on the soul’s face seemed to let out a silent scream as the devil curled his fingers into a fist. The soul was compacted once more into a tiny, insignificant speck of light. Shaking his hand as if he had just touched something dirty, Macula sent the souls orbiting his hand back to the spiraling pattern of light directly behind him.
“Lorraine will be the one to select which soul you will be sacrificing to me.” The devil chuckled, taking a little too much pleasure in his proposal, “She was, after all, the one who harvested them.”
A devious smile crept across Lorraine’s lips. Apparently the idea of controlling me to at least some extent caused her joy.
Clearing my throat, I croaked, “Can’t I just pay a monthly tithe or something?”
“Sacrifice a single soul to join the ranks of my chosen and become a master among mortals in my service!” Macula declared, his voice so loud it violently reverberated the very air around us, “Or I will have Lorraine sacrifice your soul. Either way, I own you for eternity.”
Hunching slightly so he could look me in the eye, Macula’s lips peeled back into a cruel sneer.
“Decide.”
Hmm. What to do? Spend an eternity as an enslaved soul in the possession of a sadistic devil? Or become an immortal body-snatcher and spend my unnatural longevity as his bitch? Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve such a string of bad luck. But really the choice had already been made for me…I only had one option.
“I’ll make the sacrifice.” I choked out.
I wasn’t sure why I was so upset. I’ve sold out others before and some of them had even been friends! When you’re in my line of work and rubbing elbows with the scum of the earth, backstabbing is just apart of the lifestyle. Besides, I might be able to betray Macula someday. All I had to do was bid my time and wait for the chance to double-cross the devil…
But this wasn’t right! In my pathetic life I’ve done some horrible things like stealing, cheating, lying and even murder but that had been different! These were souls we were talking about! Souls of adolescent youths and whoever else Lorrain
e had been able to trick or abduct. They were innocent! They didn’t deserve this fate!
No one deserved this!
“Mmm, I have the perfect choice.” Lorraine purred, her crazed smile growing even more radiant.
Reaching to her waist, the cult leader removed her belt…the very belt that still held all of the souls she had harvested from the foolish youths who had joined the Daughters of All. In the gloom, the blue orbs that contained the imprisoned souls seemed to grow even brighter as if they were reacting to the sight of their enslaved brethren.
Lorraine dropped the belt but only the leather hit the floor. All of the orbs detached themselves, hovering in the air as they shined like spherical sapphires. My mouth suddenly felt sandpaper dry and I think I might have begun hyperventilating.
Reaching out as if she were plucking a berry, Lorraine took one of the orbs between her fingers. Smiling at me all the while, the cult leader ran her thumb across the orb and it went dim as a bluish vapor rose up from the glass.
A soul had been freed.
In the air above Lorraine, the vapor swirled and came together, conforming into a single human-shaped entity of light. I’m not exactly sure how (maybe it was because my experience told me that Lorraine thrived on cruelty) but I already knew which soul she had selected to be sacrificed.
“Allow me to introduce you to Faye Ambrose.” Lorraine cackled with delight, “I think it’s fitting that you meet her at least once before we dispose of her. After all, she’s the reason you are even here.”
The soul looked at me, it’s faded and faint features depicting terror. It might have been my imagination but I thought I could hear the soul screaming for help. Faye’s soul began struggling, miming frantic movement as it clawed at the air in hopes of escape. No matter how valiant the struggle, the soul didn’t go anywhere.
“I don’t think I could delight in anyone’s suffering quite as much as I’m enjoying yours, Mr. Broker.” Macula laughed, grinning so wide I could see my reflection in his massive fangs, “I am going to savor this soul as a delicacy. Knowing you are damning yourself into my service is going to make it taste so much sweeter.”
I stared up at Faye, the entire reason I was even in this mess. If she hadn’t been stupid enough to get in over her head for some journalistic pride, this might have ended differently. Everyone from the police to her editor had told her to leave the cult alone! It wasn’t my fault she had ended up here!
It was her stupidity that had brought her, Fiona and myself to this damned conclusion!
“How do we do this?” I asked, my voice a faint whisper.
Was that a flash of approval in Lorraine’s face? I couldn’t tell but she made her way towards me, swaying giddily as she did so. I always said it took different strokes for different folks but she was practically getting intoxicated off of the suffering she was about to cause.
Sick bitch.
“It’s rather simple,” Lorraine spoke huskily, “You’d think sacrificing a soul, the most unique and precious gift of all, would be a strenuous and enduring task. But it’s not…it’s as if the powers at be fear Lord Macula’s greatness and bend to his will.”
Once she was close enough, Lorraine slipped her free arm around my waist and placed the orb that had contained Faye’s soul in my palm. The little ball of glass felt cold to the touch and as I held the sinister little container, Faye’s soul was drawn towards me. The poor soul had stopped struggling, realizing the futility of it.
Macula waited patiently. As he stood there anticipating me to damn myself into his service forever, the flickering lights behind him began to swirl. Every speck of light started to move, slowly beginning to orbit the devil before picking up speed. Soon Macula was surrounded by rings of light, each and every captured soul circling their master.
“This ritual will weaken the barriers between our realm and the dimension that Lord Macula resides in.” Lorraine explained to me, “Like the holy script that forces a soul from its mortal shell, we will drive this soul beyond our world and into our Master’s hands.”
The rings of souls that orbited the devil suddenly expanded, floating towards us. One of the rings pulsed, becoming wider and wider until it touched the floor and the ceiling. A second ring entered the first, where it suddenly broke apart. The broken ring of souls twisted and squirmed, slowly bending itself into an exotic shape of yet another rune.
Once complete the symbol of souls began to pulse with a radiant light, becoming a white-blue scar in the gloom. The runes that Lorraine had created, the ones carved in plaster and wood, drank in these light greedily becoming inky blotches of black against the murkiness that surrounded us.
“Like…the runes that force us from our bodies?” I repeated Lorraine’s phrase.
“Yes, its thrilling isn’t it? We are actually creating a bridge between worlds! Our mortal plane and a higher realm joined as one!” Lorraine was nearly panting with excitement, her fingernails digging into me, “We are doing the impossible! Lord Macula can walk between worlds but the souls themselves need some…”
Lorraine forced my hand closed around the orb linked to Faye’s soul.
“…encouragement.” The cult leader finished.
If you think the weight of millions of lives on your shoulders would be heavy, I pity you. I’d even scoff at that notion. That burden is nothing compared to the weight of a single soul. If someone’s life ends, you can always imagine them finding peace in oblivion or moving on to a better place…but I wasn’t in that situation. I was about to force an eternity of suffering onto an innocent young woman who’s only fault was trying to do the right thing.
A single soul outweighs millions of lives. It was a realization that dawned on me as I curled my fingers around that glass orb.
Dammit it all! As if having that fucking scar tissue on my chest wasn’t a big enough reminder of how badly this week sucked now my conscience was probably going to implode with the thought of turning over an innocent soul to some demonic slumlord! And if I stalled any longer Lorraine would probably slit my throat for harboring a soul.
I chuckled bitterly at the horrible pun I just made. Harboring a soul. As if it were as easy as harboring a fugitive! Then an idea began to form, budding slowly in my mind. It would have been easier to concentrate if my racing heart wasn’t beating so hard it was making my damn ears ring…
Wait! It wasn’t my erratic heartbeat that was causing my ears to ring! It was faint, but the sound of the ringing wasn’t coming from me or even this room. In my mind’s eye I imagined the PA system outside, blaring at maximum volume. If that was the source of the ringing there might be hope for me yet!
The hope I felt caused my budding idea to mature into a reckless plan and I couldn’t help let a full blown smile spread across my face.
Lorraine, mistaking my grin for eagerness, purred in my ear, “It feels great, doesn’t it? Having this much power over another? Imagine what we can accomplish when I have the entire world chanting Macula’s name!”
Though her breath was hot against my skin, her words were some of the coldest I had ever heard. Still, my smile did not diminish in the least. I looked up at Macula, who stood patiently behind the rune that his enslaved souls had made. His face was impassive as he waited, staring across worlds at me.
I felt rather strange as I met Macula’s stare. I’m sure there was some sort of symbolism here that was simply escaping me. The devil on one end of a bridge and me on the other with an innocent soul hanging in the balance.
“You know what’s great about being a conman?” I mused aloud, not really speaking to either the devil or his psychopathic priestess, “We don’t really break any laws. We bend and twist them to suit our own needs. We find loopholes and exploit them, making others give us what we want. They give and we take, a simple transaction as any.”
Macula’s handsome face donned a suspicious scowl. Lorraine pulled away from me, her eyes hardening as her lips became a grim line.
“Throughout the years,
I’ve broken the law but I do my best work while hiding within the rules, playing off and profiting from them. It gives you a comfort zone, knowing that everyone else is using the same rulebook as you.” I chuckled, shaking my head as a few of my more successful schemes flashed through my mind, “I guess what I’m saying is that I know what rules you are playing by. So now it’s time for me to bend them.”
“You wouldn’t dare, mortal.” Macula growled, “I’ll have Lorraine bleed you dry then let your soul rot between my fangs for eons to come!”
“Well it’s still better than being your bitch for a thousand lifetimes!” I shrugged, still grinning, “If I understand this correctly, we summoned you but you’re not really here, are you? You are just a projection on one side of the fence and we’re on the other.”
Macula was scowling at me, like a parent giving a child to the count of three to stop misbehaving before the punishment came. I continued on, trying to convince myself this was the right course of action rather than taunt either of my adversaries.
“You are using those souls as a link, like a bridge between our worlds. If that’s the case, the souls must exist somewhere in between, right?” I rambled on, taking a step forward, “But like Lorraine said, they can be forced across worlds. They don’t decide where they’re going, they just need a shove…or a pull.”
Macula laughed, “Mr. Broker, if you believe you can steal these souls back to your realm, you are sadly mistaken. I gather these souls into my very being. I told you they were my fuel, my sustenance, did I not? They are apart of me and they cannot simply leave.”
“No. They can’t leave or they would have done so already.” I agreed, “But I’m sure that if they had a chance, they’d rush right over and become apart of our realm once more.”
“And how are you going to do that, fool?” Lorraine hissed at me, “Souls need a vessel. Their bodies or these orbs are the only vessels they have in our world. The laws of the very cosmos themselves cannot be bent or broken like some bureaucratic plaything!”
I turned my head and gave Lorraine a wink.
“I figured as much. And I do have a vessel in mind.” I informed her as I tapped my fingers to my chest, “My body. I still have that rune on my chest from that little nick of Soul Scream which makes me a perfect candidate to host these wayward spirits.”
“I tire of this!” Macula growled, “Lorraine, rip his soul from his body and give it to me!”
“With pleasure!” The cult leader hissed.
Finally, finally I caught a lucky break before Lorraine pounced.
The fire alarm went off.
The muffled shrieks of the fire alarm must be on a separate system then the actual sprinklers. The Ocean Grocer was such a shabby building that it undoubtedly took a while for the haphazard installation job to catch up with the emergency. The fifteen second difference between the fire alarm sounding and the actual sprinkler system going off seemed like an eternity.
Lorraine let out a shriek of rage. The old priest hadn’t let me down! I wasn’t sure whether this was the work of Father O’Brawley’s blessings or simple water damage but either way the effect was glorious. The runes no longer pulsed with their greedy absorption of light which was causing the unnatural gloom to lift. In fact the glyphs were actually being destroyed as the water caused the exposed plaster on the walls to crumble. As the holy water washed away the runes I felt the unnatural chill begin to fade and along with it, the arcane influence my adversaries possessed.
Through the artificial rain I saw more evidence of Lorraine’s powers weakening. At my feet were the syringes that had been hovering about me, now laying on the cracked hardwood floor completely inanimate. I let out a sigh of relief as I was no longer in danger of becoming a Soul Scream filled pincushion.
“No!” Bellowed Macula so loudly that I thought I might be rendered deaf due to the sheer force behind that word, “I will not be humiliated by you a second time, mortal!’
With the fading gloom, the devil was beginning to wane as well. He no longer looked like a towering incarnation of malice. Instead, the devil was beginning to look transparent, almost as if he were dwindling out of this existence…which, I prayed with all my heart, was the case. Macula refused to give in, holding out his hands and summoning the enslaved souls to his side once more.
A few flickering specks of light, the souls that couldn’t resist the evil entity’s influence, broke away from the mystic symbol they had formed. Slowly, piece by piece, the souls bridging our worlds were being ripped back into Macula’s realm of existence…a fate that made me pity them with all my heart.
“I will send you to our Lord myself!” Lorraine screeched. Completely giving into her rage, she hurled herself at me.
Without her magic to aide her, Lorraine was just a twisted, ancient soul inhabiting a young woman’s body. That wasn’t too large a threat considering all the other dangers I had faced this week but I had some very extensive injuries. Injuries that flared with white-hot agony as she managed to tackle me to the ground. I landed on my back, giving a grunt as a broken piece of flooring stabbed me in the hip.
“I’ll kill you for ruining my plans!” Lorraine spat, her face twisted in utter contempt, “Then send your soul to oblivion for disrespecting Lord Macula!”
Lorraine clawed at my face feverishly, spouting curses all the while. I actually had to brace my arm against her throat to keep her from biting me. Blinking through the tears I threw out my free hand, about to make a fist and clock the crazy cult leader right in the temple…but then my fingers brushed against something better.
“If you really care for Macula that much,” I spat, “I’d love to arrange a face to face meeting!”
Lorraine’s eyes went wide with shock as the needle punctured her skin. She stared at her thigh just as I pressed down on the syringe I had grabbed, injecting her with the entire dosage of Soul Scream. She inhaled, ready to spit more insults my way but suddenly her eyes rolled back into her head. She coughed out an unnaturally long breath, bluish vapors exiting her mouth before her body fell limp against me.
Or rather, Faye’s vacant body fell limp against me.
I shoved the soulless body off me as the bluish vapors began to consolidate above me. The blue wisps of light quickly rearranged themselves, becoming more humanoid. Soon I was staring at the very soul of my enemy, Lorraine the Lost.
Like all souls, its features were vague but had intense eyes that seemed to be brimming with contempt beyond description and its face looked withered and venomous, like an ancient serpent. Before I could let out a cry of victory, I realized my mistake.
Lorraine’s incorporeal form reached out for Faye’s vacant body and I cursed myself for not thinking ahead. If Lorraine had already laid claim to Faye’s body once why couldn’t she do so a second time? The tattoos belonging to her victims barred the original soul from re-entering the body, not an intruder.
My luck hit hot-streak status as another divine favor played out.
As soon as Lorraine’s ethereal hands touched Faye’s body, they past right through the living flesh. This seemed unexpected for both of us because the ancient soul’s features twisted in rage. Lorraine must have been a terrible poker player because upon her failure to reclaim Faye’s body as her own, she turned and looked up…directly at the sprinkler system that was spewing holy water.
With the hallowed H2O preventing Lorraine to work any of her magic, including jumping back into the body she had stolen, I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders. Furiously the ancient soul plunged its hands into Faye, again and again. The empty body didn’t respond, just lying there almost serenely as it was bathed in holy water.
One problem solved.
Now all I had to do is defeat a demonic embodiment of all things evil.
I scrambled to my feet, almost slipping on the wet, broken floor. Once standing, I locked eyes on my last opponent and tried to blame my shaking knees on being soaked to the bone and not from the bowel clenching terror. Even
though he looked as substantial as smoke, Macula was a terrifying sight as he seemed to stay visible in this world through sheer force of will.
A small pocket of gloom still clung to the devil like a cape as the blue-white light from the soul forged rune faded away. Scores of souls, those tiny pinpricks of light, were being torn from the bridge that they formed between our worlds and forced back into Macula’s presence. I took a shaky step forward, calling upon every last ounce of strength and courage I had.
“How does it go again?” I called out to the devil, moving towards the souls that lay between us, “I’ve fooled you twice now, so…shame on you?”
“Claim whatever victory you will, mortal.” Macula spat back at me, the malice in his voice polluting each word, “Just remember that I am eternal. All the combined might of your enemies cannot equal a fraction of my wrath! I will feast on your soul yet!”
“I’m not to sure about that.” I replied, reaching the deteriorating glyph of souls. I stared past their pale blue light, looking the devil square in the eye, “I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to seek revenge if I fuck with your fuel supply.”
I raised my hand, reaching out to the souls.
“You don’t have the slightest idea of what you are doing, fool! Souls need a vessel!” Macula barked at me as a handful of the glowing specks were pulled back into his dark embrace, “My mark on your chest will allow foreign souls to inhabit you but this many? You cannot fathom what it will do to you!”
I hesitated, doubt shackling my movements and stopping me from touching the bridge between our worlds.
“You are just a mortal, little Broker. You cannot use souls as we greater beings can. For us, they are bound to our very will and serve us for all eternity!” The devil spoke but there was some underlying tone in his voice, “Even if that frail thing you call a body can contain such a massive influx of spirits, your mind would not. Your own soul would become nothing more than an echo among an ocean of screams! You’d just become like they are, trapped in your body until death.”
My heart hammered in my chest. Could it be true? Hell, I had no idea what I was doing! This entire time I was playing things by ear, praying everything would work out! This was insane! My gamble had paid off, so why try and push my luck any further, right?
“You have bested me twice.” Macula continued grudgingly as a few more souls were drawn into him, “Take comfort in that. You have earned my respect. I will not seek revenge…if you vow not to interfere with my collection of spirits.”
Could I trust his word? How much faith could I put in a promise from a being that fed off souls? Still it was better than nothing. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to flee this place. I would be an idiot not to take his offer and let bygones be bygones. Yet would that keep me safe from him or would I spend the rest of my days cowering and afraid of demonic retribution?
It was more sad than anything, really. Only with my knees shaking and my stomach twisting into knots of dread did I finally identify the underlying tone in Macula’s voice: Fear. It was an emotion that a coward like me was only all too intimate with. He was bluffing! If I stole these souls it would weaken him that much was certain. But would it weaken him to the point that he couldn’t hunt me down?
Should I call his bluff or play it safe?
“Fuck off.” I told the devil, pressing my hand against the rune bridging our worlds.
What the hell? My entire life had been nothing but a string of one risk to another so was it too much to ask for one more lucky break?
My hand past through the unified specks of blue light. I couldn’t really feel anything but what I saw was breathtaking. By the hundreds these tiny specks broke away from the symbol and ring surrounding it, spiraling down my fingers and up my arm. It was hard to believe that each of these little, nearly insignificant pinholes of light was an actual soul, the very essence of a person. In seconds the entire ring and rune collapsed, breaking away as the souls began orbiting me in the same fashion that they had circled Macula moments before.
“You’ve made your choice.” The devil thundered as he began to fade from sight all together, “Now live with the burden you have brought upon yourself!”
With that Macula was gone, fading into nothingness along with all of the souls he had recaptured. The gloom faded along with its master, leaving me soaked to the bone and surrounded by thousands of souls. Each pinprick of light began to circle me faster and faster, becoming nothing but white-blue rings of motion.
It was beyond beautiful.
Then a single soul shot forward, the pinprick of light aimed right at my heart. It passed through my shirt easily enough and I knew it had been drawn right into the scar tissue tattoo on my chest. I didn’t feel anything as the soul entered my body but I did hear something, softer than a whisper.
...thank you…
Hundreds of souls followed suit.
Desperate for a vessel to hold them, the souls rushed forward in waves. My poor, battered and abused body was the only thing that could contain them and the scar tissue rune carved into my flesh might as well have been a welcome mat. More and more souls quickly sought refuge within me, and I fell to my knees, hands clasped on either side of my head as my mind began to fracture.
The damned devil had been right! I couldn’t handle this!
First it started as murmurs, almost like hearing whispers in another room. They were soft and hushed but slowly began to increase in volume. Before long the noise became a tremendous hum inside my skull, so many voices and sounds overlapping it actually caused me physical pain. I clawed at my ears in a pathetic attempt to block out the horrific sensation of a thousand voices in my skull. So many! Screams, giggles, whispers, shouts, they all blended together into a white-noise of insanity.
A pressure behind my eyes built up so suddenly that I was sure I would go blind if the pain didn’t kill me first. I had never felt such acute and perfect agony before! It was as if the souls were eating away at my very consciousness, my very mind! Those damn voices! So many of them, countless in number! Every language, every age, male and female! An endless babble of words that overlapped one another thousands and thousands of times! I was terrified that my very skull was going to rupture trying to contain them all!
Looking back on it now, if there had been a gun present, I had no doubt that I would’ve blown my brains out just to free myself from this torture.
Opening my eyes, I did my best to ignore the suffering caused by the raging maelstrom of sound and emotion inside my skull. Focus! That’s what I needed…to concentrate on something…anything…Looking through the sheets of holy water and souls that were still raining down upon me, I caught sight of Faye’s limp body.
Blinking away tears, I began to crawl. Broken flooring cut my hands but I barely noticed the wounds, their hurt almost a relief compared to what I was already going through. Bleeding, broken and on the brink of madness, I made my way to Faye’s body.
“Forgive me for this.”
I couldn’t be sure if I had spoken those words or not…for all I knew I had just heard that phrase from the tidal wave of torturous sound bouncing within my skull. Reaching inside my jacket, I drew my switchblade. With a shaking hand I released the blade and rolled the limp body onto its stomach.
My vision swam momentarily and I shook my head to clear it. With my free hand I tugged down the wet fabric of Faye’s shirt. Sure enough, on her shoulder was a familiar, twisting tattoo. The same tattoo shared by the prisoners of Hell Scratch, Mrs. Killington and that hidden scrap of paper I had found inside Faye’s notes.
It was the symbol that prevented a soul from returning to its rightful body.
I blinked wildly as my vision tunneled, the inky blackness of unconsciousness threatening to swallow me whole. The pain inside my skull, the pressure building behind my eyes and the screaming nonsense filling my ears was blending into a brilliant form of suffering. Focus! Just a little longer!
I pressed the blade against tender flesh. br />
As I cut into Faye’s shoulder, I prayed I could fight off the sweet release of unconsciousness until I finished my morbid task. After a minute, I became only aware of the cold, blessed water raining down on me…then I was aware of the warmth of blood trickling between my fingers…and then…and then nothing…
* * * * *