Harper raised his head and tried to focus.
Dimly lit room, dirty wood floor, mirrors on the walls. The smell of sweat and fear.
He wasn’t alone.
A woman on a bed in the center of the room. Lolling trancelike on red sheets, her naked body covered with oil. Black scarf tied over her eyes, black scarves holding her wrists to the bedposts. Table next to the bed, mortar and pestle, powders, oils.
“You on the bed, can you hear me?”
She didn’t answer. She wasn’t even on the same planet.
Muffled sounds from the other side of the room. A man in a chair, burlap sack over his head. Stripped to his boxers, arms tied to the back of the chair, his whole body trembling.
“You, tied to the chair, can you hear me?”
The man twisted, searching for Harper’s voice. “Mmm, mmm!”
“Stay calm. You’re filling the sack with carbon dioxide, it’s making you panic.”
Shreds of black mist curled through the room, washed over the hooded man in the chair. The man felt the mist on his skin, jerked frantically to shake it off. Harper called to him.
“They smell your fear, don’t move.”
Two shadows shot from the mist and smashed dense as iron into Harper’s kidneys. He cringed with pain. A voice hissed throughout the room.
“Never mind the skins, killer.”
Then a powerful hammerlike blow smashed across his face.
“Aw, bloody hell!”
Forms emerged from the shadows. A tall reed of a man and a runt of beef with whiskers on his chin. Same forms described by the lad with the lantern, same creeps Harper had seen at LP’s Bar the night Katherine Taylor disappeared.
“Jings, it’s the goon squad.”
The tall one leaned down, eyeliner and a five-o’clock shadow on his face, a razor-sharp killing knife in his hands. “Watch your mouth, killer, before I stick something in it.”
“All right, what the fuck am I doing here?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“That’s why I’m asking, dickface.”
The small one grabbed Harper by the hair. “Name-calling isn’t polite.”
“Wasn’t talking to you, squirt.”
Double kicks slammed into Harper’s stomach and ribs, air rushed from his lungs. He felt himself blacking out, his eyes searching for something to hang on to. He saw his reflection in the mirrored wall on the other side of the room. On his knees, stripped to his shirt and trousers. Chained at the wrists, arms stretched out to the walls. His face battered, blood dripping from his mouth and down his shirt. The small one hissed in Harper’s face.
“Want some more, killer?”
Harper spat blood on the floor. “Fine for now, thanks. Who are the locals?”
“Them? Just a pair of skins, friends of yours, don’t you know?”
Harper’s eyes quickly scanned the woman on the bed and the hooded man in the chair. Whole room looking blurry as hell, but he could tell it wasn’t Miss Taylor or the lad. Then who the fuck? He couldn’t think through the dullness in his brain. Couldn’t be partisans, they’d already be slaughtered, their souls fed to devourers. Then who? He looked at the half-breeds, shrugged as if he didn’t give a damn.
“Take me to your leader, because you two goons are dumb as soap. I don’t know these people.”
The half-breeds pounded Harper’s stomach and back with rabbit punches. He buckled over, dangling by his chains. The small one cocked back for more, his fists held in place by a disembodied voice.
“That will be sufficient.”
The half-breeds parted like waters as down a mirrored hall and into the room came a tall and elegant form. Black suit, black shirt. Long silver hair tied to the back of his head, dark round glasses over his eyes. His scent filling the room like something heavy and persistent. He stopped before Harper, bowed slightly.
“Good evening. I am Komarovsky. I’m pleased you could attend our little soirée.”
“Cheers, but I think there’s been some mistake.”
“That would be most inconvenient.” His hands swept toward the hooded man and the woman on the bed. “As you see, some of the guests have already arrived.”
“Big party, is it?”
“The rest will join us presently.”
The half-breeds hauled Harper to his feet. He looked down, saw iron shackles and chains at his ankles. And next to his bare feet, ten hypodermics on the floor. Traces of dark liquid in the hypos. No wonder your skull feels three sizes too small for your brain, Harper thought; 60 cc of dead black potion in the veins. Half-breed narcotics manipulated from dark matter, gave the fuckers an insatiable appetite for death. Cranked them with an orgasmic rush every time they killed. Made them imagine slaughter was a sacrament of nothingness. And as the potion surged through Harper’s blood, he felt the dark matter absorbing the light in his eyes. They want to flip me, they want me to become one of their kind. Harper gave his shackles and chains a shake; they chinked like a pocketful of spare change.
“In that case, how could I refuse your gracious invitation?”
Harper looked at him, trying to see through the dark lenses, only seeing himself looking back.
“Sorry, what was the name again?”
“Komarovsky.”
“Komarovsky, Komarovsky. Nope, can’t say it rings a bell.”
“Do you expect us to be seduced by this ongoing pantomime? You, of all your kind, wandering the streets of Lausanne unaware, unawakened?”
Harper looked at the woman on the bed, the half-breeds, the hooded man tied to the chair, the whole stinking charnel house of a room.
“You call this awake? Looks more like a bad dream.”
Komarovsky sniffed at Harper. “But to dream you must first know the sleep of men. You do not smell of sleep, you do not smell of dreams. You smell of an eternity born of the unremembered beginning.”
“Now you’ve lost me completely.”
Komarovsky held Harper’s chin, examining his face. “Your kind never learned to completely hide the light in your eyes. It made it so easy for us to spot you in the forms of men. Have they told you your kind are all but extinguished from the face of the earth? I suppose it is a sign of their desperation that they would bring you back in such a tattered form, haunted by feelings and emotions. No, you cannot hide. I spy the eyes before me to be those of the celestial warrior the legends of men call Michael.”
Harper felt the dead black hitting his brain hard. He tried to snap to, sort the terrain.
“Let’s see. Celestial warrior, legends of men, eternity. Right, all coming back to me now. I’m one of the good guys, and you’re one of the bad guys fucking up paradise with your half-breed goons.”
The small one hammered hard into Harper’s side, the pain tearing through his guts.
“Argh!”
Harper wobbled. Komarovsky’s hand caught him by the throat and held him upright.
“How dull your eternity must be. Sworn to the will of a creator who has all but abandoned his creation. Driven only by an urge to hunt and slaughter our children, our giants among men.”
Harper pulled his neck from Komarovsky’s grip, gagged for breath, steadied himself on his feet.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were sworn to the same will once upon a time, remember?”
“Once upon a time was so long ago. And times change.” Komarovsky turned away and walked to the hooded man in the chair, petted his covered head. “Tell me, good and noble warrior, do you feel nothing as you slaughter our children?”
Harper felt the heart of his human form pound, blood rushing hot through his veins. Don’t give in, boyo, don’t give in.
“Not really, it’s a job. Clock in and slaughter as many half-breeds as you can in a day, clock out and head to the nearest pub.”
The tall one swooped in as fast as light, slashed the killing knife across Harper’s chest.
Harper dropped to his knees, looked in the mirror. Shirt cut open, blood oozing from the hairline incision in his flesh. The tall one set the serrated blade at Harper’s throat.
“Sliced or diced?”
“How about you shove it up your arse instead?”
The tall one kicked Harper in the ribs, driving him forward. The chains pulling his wrists, stretching his arms to the walls.
“Christ!”
Komarovsky studied Harper’s pose. “Indeed, you look very much like the Christ. Arms extended from your sides, cherishing the exquisite pain of salvation. But even Christ, for all his perfection, knew the taste of temptation in his final moments. I remember his voice: ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani…’ ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ He questioned, he considered his place. And as we drove the spear into his heart to finish him, and the sky turned black, the four winds raged and we were moved to tears considering the perfect balance of flesh and spirit he had discovered in the form of a carpenter’s son. He was the best of your kind. It is fitting he is worshipped as a god.”
“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 is 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 into 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 were 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?”
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 deaths?”
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 toward 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.
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 fearmongering fuck!”
Then he realized 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, 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 toward 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 forever, 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 fulfill 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. Falling into blackness…Kill…