Zombie Driver V.1.1

The light was so bright.

Somewhere inside the man’s mind little Dickey Dean, aka Richard Dean Smith, cried in a corner, a thumb in his mouth, his other arm pressed firmly against his face.

He blinked furiously and tried to move his face away from the awful source of light but it was everywhere. He couldn’t move his hands to block the light. He couldn’t even move his arms. All of his limbs along with his head had been tied to the three-bladed windmill and he spun.

God how he spun.

He screamed with frustration and rage, vessels bulging along his neck and temple.

Dicky Dean whimpered.

* * *

Even as loud as Dickey the zombie’s screams were, amidst the wind and squeals of a thousand windmills, they went unheard. Half a mile away cars raced along Interstate 10, too far away to hear, too far away for the occupants to make out the figure of a man upon the blades of one of the giant windmills. There were thousands of the windmills along the road to Palm Springs. Those in the cars understood that they were there to give them power. But they’d never heard of the Black Bishop. They didn’t know that he derived a different kind of power from a man’s sacrifice to the wind. Had they known, they might not have even cared.

* * *

“Is he gonna make it?” asked Pippa, skipping down the stairs into the salt cavern. Seeing Sebastian, she added, “Hi Sebastian.” She waved a hand at the blood mage who lay on his platform, his head almost lost within his 500 pound bulk. Instead of waving in return, he blinked her direction as his two meso-American Indian assistants saw to his latest wound.

Franklin, a thin Hispanic with a crew cut and goatee, looked in obvious adoration as Pippa slid beside him to look upon the work that was consuming everyone’s time. “I don’t know. His mind is awash with pain and confusion. He’s going to be hard to drive.” Franklin returned his gaze to a circle drawn on the wall which, through the blood magics of Sebastian Van Pelt, had been transformed into a porthole through which they could view the world as seen from their zombie’s eyes.

“Wouldn’t you be confused like that if someone had turned you into a zombie and strapped you to a windmill?”

“I don’t know,” Franklin shrugged. “And I don’t care. All I want is for this one to actually make it into the grotto.”

“You just want to drive.”

“Most definitely.”

“If wishes were dollars you’d be a millionaire,” Pippa said, lighting punching Franklin in the shoulder.

“Yeah.”

“What if he makes it in, then what?” she asked.

Franklin seemed to consider the question for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll worry about that when it happens. He has to survive the sacrifice first.”

Survival was something which happened to very few of those grabbed by the Monks of the Western Wind. The success of the plan was a crapshoot. The members of the League of the Red Palm had to depend on the vagaries of fate, concentrating on finding the right person to become a zombie, then placing him in the right place, hoping the Monks of the Western Wind would crucify him, then praying that he’d survive the 48 hours on the windmill to ultimately be hand delivered to the grotto. So many hopes and prayers and what ifs. How was it that the organization created to save the world from evil couldn’t come up with a better plan?

“You’re such a fatalist,” Pippa teased.

“I’m a realist.”

She watched Franklin as he concentrated on the twirling point of view of the zombie that had been lashed to the windmill. She smiled faintly as she put a hand on his shoulder. She let it sit there a moment, but he didn’t respond. So she turned away from the porthole and put her back to it. “How can you watch that? It makes me dizzy.”

“You get used to it,” Franklin said. The he turned to her and grinned. “Since when are you interested?”

“I’ve always been interested,” she said softly.

His smile was replaced by a look of confusion as he blinked rapidly. He examined her eyes for a moment as if to see what she meant, then hurriedly returned his attention to the wall.

They stood there like that for several minutes, him watching the zombie, her watching him. This was as close as they’d ever come to being together. It was clear to everyone that they had a thing for each other. But the reality was that they were at war, and as such, were subject to the whims of combat. Any day one of them could go down. Maybe not from real steel bullets, but from a magic more deadly than anything man could devise.

Frezzie and Chance were perfect examples of what could happen. The microchip with Chance’s last words hinted at something horrible, but no one would ever know. All that was left of their relationship were fragments of Chance’s bones scattered on a desert hillside along with Frezzie’s shattered dreams of a house with a white picket fence, 2.5 kids and a dog.

Finally Pippa broke the silence. “Do you ever wonder what he does with all the children?

Franklin cleared his throat. “I used to think of the Black Bishop like the child catcher on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Do you remember that movie? It was pretty terrifying if you thought about it.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe my mother made us watch that every thanksgiving. What was she thinking?”

“The book was written by the guy who wrote James Bond,” Jack Chinaski said, entering the room.

“Ian Fleming?” Franklin asked.

“The same,” Jack answered.

“Maybe that accounts for the flying car,” Pippa added.

“I read somewhere that he wrote it for his son,” Jack said. Stopping by the porthole, he glanced at the revolving view a moment, then turned to Franklin. “Everything okay?”

“Yes sir. I’ve been monitoring his internals and besides the fact that he’s scared as hell and confused, his heart and blood pressure are within reason.”

“Good. I’d go back in and talk to him if needed, but I’d rather not. I’m always left with the sticky residue of someone else’s memories. It takes a while to sort out the ones that are really mine.”

Jack had captured Dick the day-before-yesterday at the Swamp Cooler Bar and Grill. Jack wasn’t proud of the accomplishment, for to send a saint to be a zombie was a hellacious weight on his soul, but to save the world, the sacrifice of his soul was a necessary gesture. Testimonials were what the League used to balance the crime. If there was a single thing on the planet that Jack hated worse than recruiting a zombie, it was testifying to one. During the formation of the League of the Red Palm it had been decided that some of the methods they would employ where little better than the Black Bishop’s. Testimonials were devised to provide balance. Like a vampire explaining to a victim why his blood was needed, like a werewolf explaining to the little girl why her flesh was the tenderest, members of the League were expected to testify at that moment where success seemed imminent, giving the victim that one last chance to back out. And in the tradition, Jack had testified to Dick and the saint had promised that he’d be a zombie for a year. For that, Jack was ever thankful, but the responsibility of the man’s life was an awesome responsibility; one that he would not shirk however impossible and desperate a successful outcome seemed to be.

“I still think it’s pretty scary,” Pippa said.

“What?” Jack asked, snatched from his reveries by the non-sequitor.

“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” she reminded.

“The movie’s different from the book,” Jack said, smiling. “The book is all about spies and gunrunners. The movie is about magic and a child catcher who works for the Baron of Vulgaria. Do you remember why the man catches children?”

“Because they’re illegal,” Franklin said. “I think the Baron wanted all the toys for himself. Hard to remember. I was always looking at the car.”

“It’s always about the car, isn’t it?” Pippa asked.

Franklin smiled and shrugged.

“But why pretend then? Why not just take the toys?” Pippa asked.

Jack thought for a moment. He’d never delved into the motivations of the two-dimensional satirical character. “Maybe when he was a kid he couldn’t have any toys. Perhaps he was too poor. Have you seen the file on the Black Bishop?”

“That’s way above our pay grades,” Pippa said.

“Maybe we should ask for it,” Franklin said, half joking, half showing off for Pippa.

“You would not!” She gasped.

“Sure I would,” he said. Then looking at Jack he added, “That is if I thought it might help with driving.”

Jack nodded in recognition of the man’s quick recovery, but offered a frown at the folly of his words.

“I remember the scene where the child catcher was searching for the children. The soldiers or whoever they were couldn’t find them and the child catcher says that he can smell the children. ‘You have to know where to look,’ he said, ‘like in the cracks in the walls, in the woodwork!’ Pippa shuddered.

“Let’s hope the Black Bishop can’t smell the zombies,” Jack said, interrupting.

“What?” Pippa asked. “Oh look.” She pointed at the magical porthole. “It’s slowing down.”

“Be ready, Franklin. Prepare yourself,” came the booming voice of Sebastian from where he lay on the other side of the room.

“Pippa, he needs to concentrate,” Jack began. “Could you…”

She smiled quickly. Leaned up and kissed Franklin on the cheek. “Go get ‘em champ.” Then she hustled towards the stairs.

Franklin barely noticed. He removed his clothes and tossed them to the side. His skin was almost completely covered with iconographic tattoos and cabalistic symbols.

One of Sebastian’s assistants came forward with a bowl of blood so fresh it steamed in the cool air of the cavern. Meanwhile, the other assistant held a ten foot long pole with a brush at the end up, which the blood mage grasped, while the other assistant held the other end of the pole near Franklin’s chest. Working as a team, the assistant dipped the brush into the blood, then held the rod steady while Sebastian drew runes across the surface of Franklin’s tattooed skin. In places, the blood mage connected several tattoos, all the while murmuring an incantation of such power that Jack’s ears itched and burned from hearing them.

By the time the assistant finally lowered the pole, Franklin’s skin glowed where it had been touched with the blood. He turned to the porthole and waited. The revolving stopped. Within moments the zombie’s body was wrestled to the ground. An old avocado green pick-up truck, dented and rusted from thirty years of desert work, awaited the zombie. Everyone watched as he climbed inside.

“Now, I think,” Sebastian said.

Franklin began to murmur an incantation, words barely audible but lost to any without the power to understand. The driver reached forward and thrust both hands into the porthole. They disappeared up to the elbows as he began to shout and twitch. The view changed as the zombie staggered, but Franklin would not let go. He cried words that made the air shine around him. With a shout he heaved backwards. His hands came free with a length of translucent blue, ectoplasmic substance which he rubbed across the blood marks on his torso, arms and legs. The marks pulsed with power. Franklin jerked once. Twice. Then staggered. When he turned to look at Jack, the point of view of the zombie turned as well.

Goosebumps soared across Jack’s arms.

They had made connection and Franklin was now in the driver’s seat. When he sat down on the ground, the zombie sat in the truck. He put his hands on his knees as did the zombie. Where man ended and zombie began was a mystery blurred by magic. What had been forged between the two, only Sebastian or death could wrench asunder.

Control seemed complete.

The truck’s engine roared to life and it began to drive away. Franklin rocked with the roll of the truck as its tires bit into ruts and the ridges of long dried mud that rimmed the old miners track back into the hills.

Next stop. The Grotto.

Cataclysm 14

Part II.

His mind was everywhere and nowhere at all. His thoughts flew with a flock of crows who scoured the dead shore of the Salton Sea. His thoughts were with the Harlot as she watched and relayed the coming of Dahag and the being’s momentary pause as it waited to resurrect an Army. His thoughts were to Boston which had just been destroyed by a Kraken which left radioactive waste along its trail as it clawed itself landward headed west. His thoughts were on New Delhi and Sydney and London and all the other cities of the ocean that were dead and dying. His thoughts were for himself and what place he’d have in such a world. He didn’t like chaos for chaos’ sake. For him chaos was a stratagem, a greater part of the design. But not for Dahag. Chaos was a means to an end for him. He wanted it all. He wanted the world wiped clean of humanity so that he could start a new world. And this the Black Bishop wouldn’t allow. The status quo had served him well for many years. Sure, he wanted more power and more territory to ply his power, but his was an incremental victory marked with the souls of the converted. He needed good to counterpoint his evil. He needed white to contrast his black. More importantly, he needed things to be alive so that he could kill them.

“…motherfucker…needs to get…ass out to Campo and get…”

His attention snapped back to the sacristy where his body stood locked in the stone embrace of the statue. Before him three harlots lay prostrate, their guimpe’s pressed flat against the marble floor. Their naked flesh rippled with fear-spawned goose bumps. Behind them three supplicants stood, unused to their bodies and the new zombie perspective. They should have been silent. They should have been in awe. But the one in the middle persisted in his message, repeating it over and over. Now that the Black Bishop had returned, he could hear it in full.

“Listen you freaktastic Zombie fuck and remember this well. I want you to go to the grotto and tell that black motherfucker that he needs to get his ass out to Campo and get the idol. It was given to me to stop the end of the world, but I could give a shit right now. He doesn’t need the exact location, just go there and look down. You can’t miss it. Repeat this to the Bishop until he gives you an all day sucker.”

The Black Bishop allowed his human message machine to replay the words three times before he ordered one of the Harlots to silence it. She leaped to her feet and ran to the zombie. With eyes burned away and nose split and flattened, she followed the sound of the words. And as he finished with the word ’sucker’ once more, she buried her fanged mouth into his neck and drank of his life blood until he fell dead and empty to the floor.

Then the Bishop was gone, flipping into the Astral Plane and instantaneously appearing above Campos, California. And there a little to the north blazed an item of such power it was able to transcend the planes of existence. He recognized the possibilities right away. What better to subdue a creature from another plane than to use an artifact of the planes? El Cazador had done well to get this. That he didn’t know how to use it was a testament to his class and ignorance. This idol was a thing of power and promised anyone who held it almost limitless might. That is, if he could send Dahag back whence he came.

No small task.

Gathering his pet font and another Harlot, he zapped to the center of the confluence where Misery awaited him. It was time to either end it all, or end this beginning.

Looking down he saw the duality of the scene.

In the material plane, bodies of men and creature glowed red hot ruin in the fires of the damned. There’d been a great battle. Humanity had met what had come before. Where once they scrawled their deeds on the walls of caves, now they hurled flame from miles away achieving levels of destruction to pale all legend. But they fell short. As did the battalions of Dahag. The golems and the yoth had been crushed by the might of a human army. Even Soshyant, known as the Dour Man to many, lay utterly destroyed. Only a few of the great toads survived, these stumbled laconically, blinded by the fires, only the lolling of their tongues evidence of life.

All else lay dead around a great pucker in the earth. Part volcano, part chasm, something moved down there. Something older than the earth it lay within.

In the astral plane things were much different. The dead were invisible, the absence of life spark their ticket to anonymity. Only a few dim glows remained as a few struggled to live. But these were almost unseen due to the sheer brilliance that erupted from the center of the scene. The Black Bishop didn’t need to be told what it was. He knew it was Dahag. But even now, after thinking on the subject for a day and a night, he still didn’t know what he’d do.

He floated dressed as a simple monk. A cowled hood kept his features in shadow. His harlots, Misery and Sloth, swam around him, their sequined mermaid’s tails snapping at the airless nothing of the astral plane. Nearby a dead tree grew from nothing. Hanging from a branch was an emaciated Font he’d long ago captured. Bones protruded painfully at the shoulders and hips as if they might rip through the drum tight skin. His hair had long ago fallen away. The skull was mottled with green pustules that wept slime. Raw diseased gums opened and closed as it moaned, the presence of such a creature as Dahag anathema to the Font’s life.

Kill it. Kill it now.

Easier said than done.

You have the weapon to do it. You must use it. You must make it a weapon.

Black Bishop stared into his hand. Even here the artifact retained the qualities it had in the material plane. What a thing of beauty and power. As he turned it in his astral hands, the imperfections in the stone caught the ebon glow of the Dark Sun and winked blackness back to him.

How could such a thing be used as a weapon?

Before the Font could answer, Dahag came. The Black Bishop felt it rising even before it entered the astral plane. Up, up and up it soared until it popped through the veil, its blinding presence actually dimmed by its real personage.

Dahag, nee Azi Dahaka, nee Dragon King, once banished to Mount Demavand, was kept from the world for more than two Millennia and was free once more. The Black Bishop stared at the monster’s shape. Human in form it had been stripped of all human qualities. From three heads it glared back at him with a thousand piercing eyes blinking from everywhere on the surface of the creature’s albino white skin.

The Black Bishop stood transfixed, the power of the image holding him as hard and fast as the statue around his mortal coil. Only when the beast raised its hundred-taloned hands did the Black Bishop move, and even then it was pathetic. He raised his own arms above his head as if they had the power to stop the inevitability of his destruction.

But stop it they did.

His hand felt white hot as the idol began to burn through his astral skin. But he had to hold on. To let go most surely meant his death.

Dahag suddenly morphed into a small albino child. Heavy blue eyes stared from a face that was at once new and ancient. Naked and androgynous, what had once been horrific was now devoid of threat.

You are a vizar, boomed a child’s voice. You have the power, but you are not Soshyant.

Soshyant is dead.

They killed him. Those who once were as ants have grown mighty fangs.

You have been gone a long time.

In my age, great ships sailed the oceans far above the garhasp.

In this age, great ships sail the skies even farther above the garhasp.

Then this is a good age. It will be my Fourth Age. It will be the time of Dahag. Give me the idol so that I may complete the circle. The child held out its hand.

The Black Bishop shook his head. I have my own interests in this age.

Fool. Do not bandy words with that thing, cried the Font.

The Dahag child looked at the font hanging from the tree as if it had noticed it for the first time. It blinked slowly, then a tongue shot from its mouth unfolding impossibly long until it smashed through the chest of the Font. Wrapping around the body, it brought it back to the child who unhinged its jaw and swallowed the diseased thing whole. Licking its lips once, it returned its gaze upon the Black Bishop.

We have things in common, you and I. We each like power. We like to form it and shape it and use it in different ways.

Power is art, Black Bishop offered.

Ahh…yesss. You do understand. Power can be a hammer or it can be a dagger. The hammer ia large and powerful and can devastate. But the dagger, in all of its diminutivity can be equally as powerful.

Inventiveness counts for something.

Most certainly. I once turned two armies inside out and watched them still try and fight each other. I took their pain away and watched for days as they fought. You’d think that they’d die much easier with their organs tacked to their skins, but without pain they felt invincible. Little did they know that they were already dead. The child looked towards the circling mermaids and seemed momentarily captivated. What do you do well? it finally asked.

I cultivate fear.

You are a beginner. Fear is the easiest tool.

Maybe so, but I use it well. Birds. I’ve made humans afraid of them.

All of them?

Just some. There was a time I’d capture children by surrounding them with birds, then snatching them into the astral plane.

Interplanar kidnapping. As simple as it is, I’ve never thought of that. Elementary, but inventive.

But still small time.

Yes. Small. The child reached out and touched the Black Bishop’s arm. When are you going to do big things? When are you going to improve upon yourself?

When the time is right.

Who determines rightness?

The Black Bishop had no answer.

Is there some authority who will tell you when the time is right? Is there a feeling that will come upon you when the time is right? Will a special star shine in the sky when the time is right? How will you know?

I’ll know.

Just because you say it doesn’t make it so.

I know, I’m just–

–afraid.

I am not at all afraid. The Black Bishop drew himself up.

You’d think that, wouldn’t you? You’d think that you aren’t afraid. Then why are you still fiddling with fear? Why are you relegated to a forgotten desert? Why don’t more people know of you?

Anger began to own the Black Bishop.

I can tell you why. It’s because your fear isn’t one of panic, but of careful consideration. You don’t want to fail. You are a perfectionist. I understand that. I was once the same way.

I want to do it right.

Don’t we all.

I’ve been where you are. I’ve had to deal with your same problems. The child smiled a very adult half-smile. I don’t envy you your journey to success. It was a long road for me and I barely made it.

Could you teach me?

The child laughed. I don’t know. Would you be a good student?

The Black Bishop laughed. I don’t know either. But I’d try.

The child reached up and touched the Black Bishop beneath the cowl, cupping a cheek in a tiny palm. You want so much but have no one to show you. The child held the Black Bishop like that for a time, then sighed, the sound like a gale through the trees. Then he smiled. I will teach you if you will have me.

On one level the Black Bishop knew that this was a ruse. But on another he also knew that everything the Dahag said was true. He was scared. He wanted to be perfect. He needed someone to share things with. So it was with a magnum of hope that he nodded and said the words, I want you to be my teacher.

Then give me the idol and all will be yours.

The Black Bishop looked down at his hand that had almost melted away since the Dahag had first come. But he felt no pain. He paused only briefly, then proffered the idol.

But before the child god could receive it, Misery swooped in and knocked it from his grasp.

Are you fucking stupid?

The idol tumbled in astral space, neither rising nor falling, but floating towards a horizon. Misery was first to it, grasping it in her hands.

Dahag was immediately after her, changing even as he moved into the monster that he really was. Misery morphed her tail into that of a giant scorpion and lashed out with the viscous barb. Dahag didn’t even hesitate. He grabbed it and ripped it off.

Sloth flew to her aid but was ripped apart by a thousand-taloned hand. Somewhere her body did the same, suddenly erupting in to blood and flesh as the Dragon King worked his destruction.

Misery screamed. She faltered, but managed to right herself. She turned just in time and held out the idol like a ward. Stay back, she cried.

Give me the idol you bitch.

I won’t let you have it.

What do you care? You’re an invention of the Black Bishop. He wants me to have it so give it to me.

I’m no one’s invention. I am my own self.

I see your true form. I see the smoke filled hollows of your eyes. I see your snake nose. I see your mouth sewn up to hide our cries. You are a creation. You are nothing as before. You are an ugly brutish beast no better than a dog!

I am…Misery moaned. I am Mandy. I am a little girl from Barstow.

You are not. You are an unholy bitch who should know her place. Now give me the damned idol and go service your Bishop.

No! I will not.

Misery. Come to me, the Black Bishop commanded.

She glanced towards her master as Dahag lunged for the idol. He grasped it and screamed as it reacted like a nuclear explosion. The blast hurled him back. By the time he’d righted himself and was once again approaching the mermaid, he’d noticed a change in her. No longer was the eye in her hands. Now, the eye was part of her, embedded in her forehead in the space of a third eye.

His three mouths opened to scream, just as she turned to him and caught him with a beam shot from the eye full in the chest. Then he did scream, the sound of three voices, each seeking higher and higher octaves as the pain intensified, threatened to shatter the astral plane. Space rippled. Light flashed off and on, off and on. The monster’s body began to glow brighter and brighter.

Then darkness at its soul.

Kaboom!

A shockwave traveled the astral plane and with it came a cleansing of everything brought by Dahag. His monsters, his creations and his minions vanished in a single wash of sound, leaving only destruction and ravage behind.

Finally Misery and the Black Bishop were alone. The idol had left her, leaving only a mark in the shape of an eye, like an echo of the power on her skin.

She watched him for a time, then turned and fled.

He considered retrieving her, but in the end let her go

A sound came upon him like a thousand tubas, deep sonorous notes calling for them to come.

Garhasp.

The oldest creatures of the world circled low in the earth along the bottoms of the oceans. Their calls signaled the end of the Fourth Age. Dahag was once again chained on the astral cliffs of Demavand, and if anything of power wished to return him thence, it would be through them or never at all. This he knew like he knew himself. The Black Bishop thought on this for a time before he returned to the grotto. Perhaps when he was stronger he would seek a return of the Dragon King. He had a use for the creature. He could control him. Or at least he thought he could.

What’s the worst that could happen?

More destruction and devestation?

An apocalypse?

The Black Bishop’s soul trembled at such a grand notion.

Cataclysm 14

Part I.

Such an odd request to save the world: ‘I am Seeker. Get this to the Black Bishop or we’re doomed.’ Although the words were straight from a comic book, the look on the man’s face left no reason to deliberate their truth. Before El Cazador could respond, the man known as Seeker left, the only evidence of the meeting, the curious idol sitting on the bar beside the hunter’s sweaty bottle of beer.

El Cazador had heard of Seeker, but had never meant the man. People like them rarely came together. Meetings not only made them loci of power that could be traced, but often resulted in a life or death struggle as one or both struggled for supremacy. El Cazador wasn’t the type. He was a hunter of lost souls. His power hung in the astral plane. The Seeker’s power was likewise non-threatening. So it was with an odd sigh of relief when Seeker left, that El Cazador began to stew over the impact of the idol.

What the hell am I going to do with this?

‘Get this to the Black Bishop.’

Easier said than done. No one approached the Grotto and lived. He’d already encountered several of the Black Bishop’s Harlots and had barely survived the battle. No, he wasn’t eager to meet anyone even remotely related to the Black Bishop. He couldn’t take this to a Font, neither. He’d divorced himself from their service and was persona-no-grata.

 Photo by Saul Adereth- cc2.0

El Cazador guzzled his beer, then ordered another as he contemplated his next move. The ‘or we’re all doomed’ part of Seeker’s command kept coming back. The world was in chaos. Cities were being destroyed. Natural disasters were the rule of the day. Even the astral plane wasn’t safe anymore. He’d seen and felt creatures there he wanted no part of. If this idol was in any way, shape or form related to the current calamities, then he had to do as he was told.

But the Black Bishop as the world savior? He’d fought against the creature and its type of evil for so long, he couldn’t wrap his brain around the idea that the Black Bishop could do anything good.

Damn it. Can’t a guy get a beer and a burger without being asked to save the world? His food came and he forgot about it for a time, relishing instead the decadence of a half pound burger and fries.

* * *

Later, sitting on the sagging bed in the Blue Iguana Motel off Highway 94, El Cazador examined the idol. It was the size of a CD, roughly circular in shape and about three inches thick. Carved in the shape of an eye, the stone was tapered around the edges and was composed of curious multi-colored flaws that caught the light as he turned it in his hands. Other than the Seeker-proclaimed-abilities of the artifact, it could have come from any roadside stand or museum. It just didn’t seem that important a piece, except…

It should have been heavier.

For the size and heft, it should have weighed more. The stone seemed solid enough. He’d chipped the tile in the bathroom trying to bang it open, so he didn’t believe it was hollow. So how could he explain the curious loss of weight?

He couldn’t.

So he sat it aside on the nightstand and readied himself for bed,

Once showered, he dried himself and opened the bag of salt he’d bought from the store. Acknowledging that the maid staff would have raging royal fit when she found salt all over the room the next morning, he emptied a third of the bag in a circle atop the bed. Satisfied that the circle was unbroken, he climbed inside and sat Indian style. Although the television was muted, it drew his attention as an emergency news bulletin scrawled across the bottom of the screen. Evidently Boston had just but the big one. What the fuck was the world coming to?

He closed his eyes and slid into the astral plane.

What had first been the result of hours of concentration, centering of chakras and disembodiment exercises, had been fine tuned to the point that the transition was now like flipping a switch. One moment he was on a bed in a worn down motel near the Mexican Border and the next his consciousness had departed and entered another plane of existence.

Before sleeping, he would scout around and ensure that no baddies lurked about. He’d been attacked in his dreams before and had barely escaped. He wasn’t eager to repeat the event, so he’d made this astral reconnaissance part of his nightly regimen. No sooner had he entered the monochromatic universe of the astral plane, however, than he noticed a blinding presence shining like a beacon near his physical self. It was the idol. Where objects were nearly invisible from astral perception because of their inanimate states, this ancient relic was alive with power. El Cazador felt himself drawn to it. He wanted to touch it, feel the power, but knew that physical objects couldn’t be engaged from the astral plane.

But he touched it anyway and felt power like he’d never known before gushing through him.

He jerked back as if he’d been shocked, but there was no damage. There was no pain.

The idol had to exist in two places at once which might explain the missing weight.

This time he grasped it. He pulled it into the astral plane, feeling only a slight elastic tug as it transitioned the barriers of existence. Here it had a different aspect. Instead of ancient hewn stone, the eye was alive. The pupil was a storm of black and white, clouds roiling within. The more he looked into it, the more power the thing exerted. He felt pulled. He felt the beginning of detachment of his self.

Then the eye blinked.

And when it blinked, he flashed back into his body, returning to the physical plane. In his hand was the stone, not how it appeared astrally, but how he’d remembered it before. Not alive, just rock. Still, he dropped it in the circle of sand and leapt off the bed until his back was pressed against the wall. He had no doubt in his mind that if he’d stayed in the astral plane the idol would have consumed him.

He had to get rid of it. And he had to do it fast.

* * *

So he left it in the desert fifty miles north of Campo, California.

He didn’t stop again until he hit Yuma, where he drunk himself into a stupor at a roadhouse, fought three Hun bikers in the parking lot, and then staggered back to his room at the Slippery Snake Motel. He’d needed thinking and there was nothing like physical violence to attune the mind.

By 3 A.M. he knew what to do.

He slid into the astral plane and traveled north and west. Beneath him the black surface of the plane was broken only by intermittent clusters of life. Where the clusters were thickest were cities. He passed Holtville, Brawly, Calipatria and Nyland. To his left lay the Salton Sea. There was power there, a strange old power that glowed a sickly yellow in the black and white universe of the astral plane. One day he’d learn about this power, but for now, he had to rid himself of the idol. So he continued past Mecca, then Indio and finally to Palm Springs.

Photo by dbking and morphed by Weston Ochse- cc2.0

He wouldn’t approach the Bishop or try and get past the guards of the Grotto; instead he’d approach them obliquely. He knew of the windmills and how they were used by the Monks of the Western Wind. To everyone who drove by on their way to or from Los Angeles, the immense field of hundred foot tall windmills seemed to be nothing more than what they appeared to be. But for the monks who strapped humans to each of the three great blades of a selection of windmills as sacrifices to the wind, they were much more. These giant machines represented their religion like the crucifix did to a Catholic. But instead of one man sacrificed for the sins of the world, the monks sacrificed hundreds. Few survived the spinning windy torture, but those who did were transformed into zombies and became acolytes in service to their most holy prophet, the Black Bishop.

It was these zombies that El Cazador now searched.

From the astral plane he saw where the grotto glowed near the horizon. He saw the mass of humanity that comprised Palm Springs and the rivers of souls that flowed between all the towns. He saw souls speed by along Interstate 10. And he saw a few lights above them all, these representing the souls of the unlucky few who’d been captured and crucified to the wind. Even as he watched, one winked out.

In this realm El Cazador looked differently. Gone was his five foot ten inch frame and black hair. All that was human about him was replaced by a form more akin to the Silver Surfer of comicdom, the appearance of his skin like sleek liquid metal black, red swirls storming through the depths. He soared lower and examined each crucifixion. Most were dying, and his words would be lost to them. But some were getting stronger. These were what he desired. He didn’t have to wait long. A truck carrying three man arrived from the grotto. Two of the men disembarked, the darkness to their souls marking them as monks. They remove five bodies which they tossed unceremoniously in the back of the truck before they began the process of gently removing a zombie.

El Cazador rushed to the newly-minted creature. He thrust his mind forward and whispered sweet nothings that were meant for the Black Bishop’s ears only. With any luck, the big baddie would find the idol and save the world. At this point, El Cazador didn’t care much. Maybe it was high time for the world to end. Like this zombie, maybe the Earth needed to reform and become something different.

* * *

END Part I. Stay tuned for Part II where the Black Bishop takes the idol to Iraq and confronts Dahag.

For more information about El Cazador see Border War.

Cataclysm 11

A flock of a thousand carrion crows swooped and dove as automatic gunfire lit up the night. The red zip of tracer rounds slicing against the impervious barrier surrounding the excavation site were mirrored in the supernatural sheen glowing from the avians’ eyes who moved as one dark beast, curling blackness through the sky. Troops had been trying to assault the position for hours. Missiles had been raining like hail in a Midwestern summer storm. B-52s dropped enough 500 pound gravity bombs to polka dot the sky with promise. But nothing could penetrate the barrier.

Nothing, that is, except the birds. Nothing ever held the birds at bay and these were the eyes of the Black Bishop.

The Harlot held the plane above, while the Black Bishop himself watched the plane below. Through the eyes of every carrion and hooded crow in a ten kilometer range, he watched and noted the events as they were transpiring. And where he normally sat back with a practiced aplomb, here he worried and vexed at the comings and goings of the being he’d come to know as the Dour Man.

Trucks had been coming for days now filled with bodies of the dead and nearly dead. A backhoe shoveled the bodies into a pile in the dirt where a platoon of children armed with axes severed and organized the limbs. When they’d come upon the occasional wounded man, they’d drag him over to the dread beast that watched over them all. Like a gargantuan toad, it’s ponderous bulk resting on four man-sized limbs, it sat, a cluster of seven eyes watching everything with the attention of a hellish foreman. The children would push the live man feet first into the creature’s trunk-sized maw, a thousand razor-sharp teeth filleting the meal as it entered screaming. Once consumed, the children giggled and ran back to their piles of human meat, axes waving excitedly above their heads as they returned to their hellish organization.

Nearby, several dozen women, their eyes burned away, back’s bent as they knelt in black mourning robes, sewed together the limbs of the dead to form golems of flesh. Seven of these five-story tall creations already stood while another hundred were in the process of creation. Human arms and legs had been stitched together to form an even greater version of their namesake. Each arm was constructed of a hundred limbs; each leg of three hundred limbs. The torso was comprised of several hundred of the smaller versions. But the head, the head was something too strange to gaze upon. Comprised of a hundred heads of the dead clumped and sewn together, the faces were now alive as two hundred eyes gazed in every direction and blinked as if the world was new and it was in awe. The mouths opened and shut as if they were screaming but no sound came forth.

The women sewed them together, but it was the Dour Man who gave them life. Throughout the day he’d leave the interior of the excavation and press the idol against the many-torsoed chest of each newly created golem, mouth words even the Black Bishop didn’t understand, and stand back as the creation would begin to twitch and bend. Within minutes, it would gather itself and stand, sometimes like a newborn, twisting and falling. One crushed an outbound truck off to retrieve more bodies. When it finally came to rest, it grabbed the truck and threw it deep into the desert, where it eventually coming to rest atop an artillery battery with no luck.

Now an array of Klieg lights lit the courtyard of the excavation. The improbable guard toad had been joined by another of its kind. Half a Roman century of golems stood in formation, two blocks of five by five facing outward prepared to assault anything coming down the main road. Around them a new creation showed itself as the sand began to undulate as first one, then another creature climbed from the depths of the excavation to crawl just beneath the surface. Here and there a purple tentacle could be seen surging above the sand as more and more of the creatures surged forth. Finally the Dour Man climbed to the surface and stood surveying his legions as they were created. A tentacle latched onto his leg then slowly climbed up his body. He caressed it and allowed the beast to climb atop him. And it was this singular thing that gave the Black Bishop the information he needed.

The Zoroastrians were an ancient race first hinted at in the writings of Herodotus in 440 BC when he told of the Magi and the Medians in what is now known as Iran. Predating almost all religions, Zoroastrianism promoted monotheism with Ahura Mazda as their deity. The symbol for the god was fire and was used as a prayer focus much like the crucifix and the cross of Christianity.

Knowing the genesis of the magic allowed the Black Bishop to device ways to defeat it. More importantly he now knew who the Dour Man was. He was Soshyant and he’d come to cleanse the earth.

Excerpt from a text on Zoroastrian Mythology:

The history of the world is twelve thousand years long, with four distinct periods. In the first period good and evil are separated, in the second the good world is invaded by the evil and the third is when the fight between the two forces intensify. In the final period evil is defeated and goodness prevails. During this third and final stage, hot metal will flow over and purify the earth and return it to a perfect and unified state. The stream of molten metal will sweep over all men and make them pure and uniform as well. The gift of immortality will be conferred when Soshyant, acting as a priest, celebrates the final sacrifice with the last ox to die in the service of man. From the fat of the ox and the mythical White Hom from the cosmic ocean the elixir of immortality will be prepared. After the earth is leveled and humans restored to their ideal unity of body and soul, the whole creation will again be the perfect combination of spirit and matter that God intended it to be.

That the Dour Man was the savior of the world meant not a wit to the Black Bishop. He was not yet ready for it to be destroyed. He enjoyed his particular interaction with humanity and wished it to continue. Whether it was Jesus or Soshyant or the Buddha in a disco dress come to purify the world, the Black Bishop would do everything in his power to defeat them.

He remembered another part from the ancient text:

A monster who was earlier defeated and imprisoned on top of Mount Demavand by the hero Thraetaona will escape, invade the world and smite the sacred elements of fire, water and vegetation and aid in the redemption of humanity.

The Black Bishop knew this monster. He’d seen it in the other worlds trying to escape its supernatural bonds. He’d even approached it once as an impetuous young man, wondering if he would be able to control it, so great was the beast’s power. For it was Aži Dahaka, or Dahag, who’d been freed from Mount Demavand, described as a giant with three mouths, six eyes, and three heads. His servants are of both the sea and the land, tentacled creatures who serve as both pets and allies called the yoth.

From within his statue shell in the Black Grotto thousands of miles away in the American state of California the Black Bishop did something he hadn’t done in an age. He shuddered. He’d come up against something more powerful than he’d expected. Suddenly it all made sense. The natural disasters were a response by the world to Soshyant’s presence whose coming was fortold and deeds written on the bottom of the ocean floor, the binding spells guarded by garhasp, those great lumbering creatures the harlot had spotted in her traverse through the astral plane.

Suddenly all the golems turned towards the excavation site. A screech of joy escaped the hole in the earth knocking dead all but a few of the crows. The woman who’d been sewing the golems collapsed, their skin smoking beneath their robes. Only Soshyant, the guard toads and the golems remain unscathed. The yoth rose out of the sand and waved their tentacles in the air. Now clearly seen, a hundred of these abominations danced in celebration of their master’s call. Black-spotted octopi with spikes on the ends of each tentacle that were used to propel themselves along.

That Dahag was coming forth was unarguable.

The question was what was the Black Bishop going to do about it?

More importantly, was there anything to be done except kiss his ass goodbye?

As the last of his crows fell dead to the earth, he allowed fear to overtake him and knew not what he could do to save his world from the salvation of this ancient Zoroastrian messiah.

Cataclysm 8

A freight train rush of souls assaulted her senses destroying her ability to see as the creature roared in the face of her fear. Caught in the vice-grip of its hand, she was unable to even struggle, so tight was she trapped. She wanted to be free, swimming a million miles away. Its eyes had scorched her with its interest. The skin of her simulacrum still sizzled with the residue of its vile power. She was caught tight and final.

It took an ultimate toll on her will, but she managed to subdue her fear enough to re-imagine her surroundings. She was not in reality. She was not in reality. She was not in reality. She could leave at any time if she wanted to. Sure, she’d be busted up inside, but she’d be alive. This creature that had her, this being that gripped her so tightly, didn’t really exist. It was a projection, just as she was a projection and merely represented someone material. No matter how big and how bad it appeared to be, she had to remind herself as she re-imagined its hundred eyes and tentacled-mouth. It was in the end only human. Perhaps some pimply-faced poltroon sitting behind a computer sluicing through Myspace, or an octogenarian from San Diego like that shark bitch hunter she’d encountered on the Mexican Border. Just as she had once been a little girl named Mandy and was now Harlot of the Black Bishop, her body surrounded by her sisters in the Black Grotto, this thing that had her had a human counterpart.

And she knew what to do.

This was a land of the dead. There was a war on. Cities had been destroyed. Atrocities were the word of the day. Chaos was at hand. Such a thing couldn’t be controlled by mere humans. This Diaspora had an astral cause, a magical cause. Even with all the good wishes and best intentions, the dead, as numerous as they were, had no where to go. With the fracture of the cities came the dissolution of the rivers of souls. Once connected to every corner of the world through rivers of souls, the dead powering as they passed through, the once great Land of Ur had been amputated from lands of the living. The Earth’s life’s blood flow of souls had been halted, continental gangrene eating away at the fabric of the land.

And everywhere the souls of the dead wandered, hungry and angry.

She could use this. She had to use this. It was her only option. One glance into the hundred eyes of the creature and its slavering tentacled-jaws and she knew this was not the destiny she wanted. So like a barker to the undead she called, her astral voice carrying shrill insistence across the astral landscape.

The nature of the creature changed. It lifted her high until its hundred eyes could peer into her face.

What is it you do?

She ignored the question and concentrated on the dead. Chill blains, black-jagged-souls, wandered everywhere suckling off the living. She felt them acknowledge her and bend to her will. One by one then two by two they came to her regarding her call as one would a dinner bell. They were eager to feed and began to berserk as the neared.

What are you doing? the djinn repeated.

Still she ignored it. Nor could she do anything directly. Something this size was beyond her ability. Instead, she’d let the dead handle it. She felt hundreds moving towards her. Thousands more had heard her call and considered her offer.

Food, she blared.

Come to me, she commanded.

And they swarmed.

Soon thousands of dead souls shot to her. She gathered them about her, and began to formulate a plan. She wasn’t a general, but she had resources. Whether the souls survived meant nothing to her. Instead, she counted on sheer numbers. So with only a momentary pause to plan, she launched a thousand chill blains at the creature and watched with barely constrained glee as it was surrounded and attacked like an undead Lilliputian light brigade charging a Cthulhu Gulliver.

But there was no effect.

The chill blains scraped and scrabbled on the surface of the being. Neither did it blink, nor did it loosen its grip on her. Instead, the grip tightened, the tentacles covering the mouth waving in what could only be laughter.

You cannot kill me, it boomed.
She thought of a dozen things do say, but in her desperation, refused to say all but one.

Fuck you, she anwered.

The words had no effect, but it made her feel that much better.

She called more chill blains to her and hurled them at the immense djinn. More and more until it was completely covered by the souls of the dead, like ants on a corpse.

Still no effect.

From somewhere she head laughter.

Fuck you! she cried to the entirety of the astral plane.

What could she do?

She couldn’t understand why the chill blains had no effect. They sucked the souls of the living to power their existence. They were the negative to life’s positive. They’d been the downfall of societies. They’d brought down empires. Never before had a living soul been able to defend against such an undead assault.

Unless.

She sneered.

She stared into the hundred eyes and said one word- Boo!

And she moved through the creature’s grip like it was butter.

Her perception had trapped her. She’d thought it real, so had treated it as a real thing. But the djinn was made from pure magic. It had no soul, therefore the chill blains had nothing to consume. The nature of magic was such that believing lent it power. By thinking it real, she’d convinced her body that the proper way to act to the entrapping hand was to be entrapped.

Her ego suffered from the indignity, but not terribly. For although the danger wasn’t real, the magic was substantial, and magic of any kind was a rare thing indeed.

You can go now.

The djinn regarded her, and after a moment, vanished.

Who was it that controlled such a thing? Like the littler girl she’d once been pulling aside the curtains and peering through the window as her father drove into the drive, the Harlot pushed aside the veil that separated the astral and real worlds and peered through. Beneath her she saw the master of the situation. Tall and slim in a way impossible to replicate in a human form, this dour being with the long sad face paused from its complex machinations along the ground and turned its attention to her. She jerked back, releasing the veil and gathered around her the chill blains in a populous cloak of hungry souls.

She’d felt the age of the man. He was from another time, another place. There was an aura about him that worried her.
His magic was strong.

So strong.

The only other she’d felt with such a presence had been her own master, the Black Bishop. She couldn’t but wonder who was the stronger. She couldn’t but fear the answer.

(For background on Mandy, read League of the Red Palm, of Zombies and Saints V.1.2)

Cataclysm 5

Misery soared across the monochrome plain, the lights of humanity clumped like bear grass amidst the great expanse of earth. She scorned them in their pedantic lives. Like ants they crawled and worked, never knowing, never understanding what occurred in the universe around them.

Nor would they ever.

As she crossed the border between land and sea a shiver of fear took her. She slid higher, more in fear of what lay beneath the waves than the pull of the Dark Sun above. She could sense them, great entities of power and age slogging through the depths. Was she far enough away? Could they sense her? Did they think of her the same way that she thought of humanity? A part of her hoped this was the case, after all, if they were to notice her, she might not survive it.

What had the captive said? The lights at the bottom of the sea? They’d once been doorways, her master had told her. Entrances for creatures beyond creation to come and go, sometimes consuming, sometimes delivering, free to do as they wished on the celestial body called Earth.

Some thought the things in the oceans were their echoes. Others believed they were their children. Whatever they were, she wanted to be far from them. Even within the astral plain far far above she could feel their power, curiosities like death rays.

A splinter of decency slipped free of her fear– a memory of a sunny desert day, a boy fallen and her rush to save him. They’d called her Mandy once, back when she’d been a person, before the birds had taken her and she’d sworn her soul to the Black Bishop. The weakness appalled her. She slammed the memory aside. She hadn’t thought of those times in years. What had made her remember? What had caused it?

She knew the answer. It was why she was traveling. Why her master sent her on this mission. The psychic wave, the destruction of the great city of India, her own weakness, it was all connected. The deaths of fourteen million had fed the rivers of souls like a flood, entities spilling over the banks and flitting free. The chaos potential of these chill blains was astounding. But as appreciated as this reckless destruction was, the Black Bishop was concerned that whoever did this, whatever did this, would not be satisfied with mere random confluence.

There were many evils in the world, each able to exert necessary directives upon their own hostage communities. Nothing much could stop them; such was the balance of power. This intrusion, however, promised a shift in the power, perhaps a dissolution of power, and the Black Bishop would have none of it. So he sent his harlots far and wide, to scout the edges of this new evil. Which is why Misery, once known as Mandy Jeffers shot through the astral plain, over the brightly clumped peoples of China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and across the Arabian Sea. And there, above the Old Kingdom of Ur, the once great Acadian Empire, the Sumerian land of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, once proud home to the Tower of Babylon and the lair of the Crocodile-Masked Assassins of Saddam Hussein, was the locus for the entity that had shattered the psychic contentment of Earth. Where the astral plane was a geometric study in blacks and whites, the once monochromatic plain before her roiled hues of greens and yellow, putrid puss-like clouds boiling into nothingness and dribbling onto the astral superstructure.

Fear struck the harlot. Like the child she once was, she wanted to turn and flee, knowing the scene would be her doom. But she held in place. The training took over. Months and years of astral gymnastics slashed across the potential horrors, promising her that she had the skill to survive. And this above all else allowed her to divulge herself of her dread and move boldly across the border of the ancient land.

With trepidation she touched the putrid ruin of the astral plain and felt its connection to that which it had been done and to that which might be done. Far beneath her a great beast moved with celestial patience. Akin to those that lumbered beneath the waves, this creature was from an age unseen by the mountains and the deserts of the land. Older than the oceans, the energy emanating from this being promised that it had had arena seating for beginning of it all.

She was awed by its age.

How old was this thing?

Where had it been all this time?

More importantly, why had it returned?

As she was contemplating these and other questions, something took shape in the mist. Roughly human form, this new creation towered stories above her, its many arms forming into hands and tentacles. A face with a hundred eyes gazed upon her and she knew this was part of the beast.

She tried to scream, but was struck by its hands as it gripped and lifted her astral being. Her mermaid’s tail swished, she fought to get free, but nothing she could do could save her. As she looked into the eyes of the dread beast, its gaze burned her.

Misery became Mandy once again and sobbed in terror as doom struck her full in the soul.

(For background on Mandy, read League of the Red Palm, of Zombies and Saints V.1.2)

Cataclysm 2

The sky was black with crows, swarming like their killer bee cousins in angry clouds of nevermore. Lost and confused their cries filled Cathedral Valley. Other animals and birds fled to the safety of the mountain crevices and craws, leaving this savage demonstration of avian insanity to the silence of rock shrub, mesquite and a few lonely yuccas. Insects sought their hidden places beneath the sand to hide until the madness passed. Then with a deafening screech from a thousand voices, the immense black birds began to collide in midair, their beaks ripping and tearing, claws clutching at machinegun hearts. So many cries, so many dying birds, wings slapped and pressed and tumbled– in-flight crow-fu maneuvers that seemed practiced beyond all martial ken. These birds wanted to kill. They wanted to die. And they fought like the warriors they’d once been.

Soon the heavens rained black feathers and blood until the surface of a lone stagnant pond was covered with what was left of the flock, bodies bobbing and sinking. The crows, once harbingers of the Black Bishop, had been reduced to flotsam and jetsam. They’d been his eyes. They’d been his ears. They’d been the engine of his magic, stealing those he’d wished to welcome into his congregation. But no more. Now they were unremarkable, so much supernatural road kill struck dead by something that had reverberated through the world like a paranormal tsunami, smashing and annihilating magics at once delicate and magnificent.

Inside a small black hut within the Black Grotto twenty miles through the Santa Rosa Mountains to the Southeast, five women squatted half naked before an obsidian statue and wailed. The statue was a life-sized Roman Catholic bishop standing with one hand in supplication and the other in blessing. From his three cornered hat to his slippered feet, the vestments of the bishop were complete in the finest detail; all save the eyes. The eyes were out of place because they lived, blinking and watching the supplicants through bright blue pupils, creased with the declination of concern.

The five women were dressed in sado-masochistic mockeries of nuns. Atop their heads they wore the traditional black veil and white bandeau across the forehead. The stark white coif that clutched the throat was woven seamlessly into the equally white guimpe which covered the chest and tops of the breasts. But this is where any comparison to a real nun could be made, for everywhere else these women were devoid of clothing. Nary a stitch, nor a tattoo sullied their pale white skin. From nipples to toes they were as God made them, naked and unblemished; except for their faces which were manmade hell. Their eyes had been burned away. Nostrils had been split and flattened. Their lips had been removed revealing teeth sharpened to points and tongues that had been split and shaped like serpents’. Their ears had been melted, sealing forever the sounds of their own final screams in their minds.

Some thought them mad.

Some thought them abominations.

They were these and more. They were the Harlots of the Black Bishop. His personal servants. His emissaries to the outside world. These were his ambassadors of evil and had the power to desecrate those that would be consecrated, murder those who might live, and possess those who’d be pure.

And now they prostrated before the statue of their living god. Their inhuman mewling cries were like those from a Victorian sanitarium, or a hospital set ablaze, the occupants unable to flee, tied to their beds as they burned and screamed and melted and dreamed. Pathetic and unintelligible, none would know that these sounds were mere accentuation to the subrosa machinations of their true communications.

* * *

The Black Bishop raged from within the statue. He’d thought the loss of the flock impossible. They’d been his fist for so long, seeking and destroying when his mind’s eye found what it wanted, needed, craved. Now to be without them felt like someone had removed that hand, crippling him.

What had it been? He’d felt the power as it had washed through him. For a moment he’d thought to harness it, but there was something alien and old about it. The energy that had washed through him resonated with predatory insistence as if it were looking for something. This was more than a rogue phenomenon, this was a portent.

He flipped to the astral plane and soared upwards from the hut. His harlots surrounded him as he rose, their bodies transformed into mermaids, scars and imperfections removed until they were as beautiful here as they were horrific elsewhere.

The astral plane was one of blacks and whites reversed. A dark sun hung in a stark white sky above a blackened earth. The hut glowed white beneath him, the only thing breaking the flatness of the earthen plain for as far as the eye could see except the hanging tree a couple hundred meters to the south. This, like the hut, glowed white against the dark earth, hard taloned limbs reaching out to grasp. From its branches hung a man, legs still twitching, head bowed by the impetus of the rope.

The harlots swam through the air around him as he rose to a height of fifty feet. No longer was he dressed like a bishop. Here he was a simple monk with a cowled hood hiding his features in shadow.

-What was that?-

-Who was that?-

-What happened? -

And a thousand more questions erupted from the harlots as they tried to make sense of what had occurred.

But the Black Bishop didn’t know. He was as mystified as they were, as the whole world was. Because whatever had occurred, no doubt had occurred on a global scale. So he allowed their whispers to serenade him as he floated in thought.

Perhaps…

Perhaps…

A sob escaped the man hanging from the tree.

The black bishop shot across the space separating them in less than a second, the harlots close behind. He shoved his face into the waxen visage of the hanged man. -What is it you want, Font?-

-You must stop it- the man sputtered. Bones protruded dramatically at shoulders and hips, as if they might rip through the almost translucent skin. The skin had shriveled in places. Hair had long ago fallen away. The head was mottled with blood spots, eyes yellow and weeping pus. The teeth had rotted away leaving the gums green with disease.

-What do you care?-

-Everyone. Everything.- The man tried to turn his head and make eye contact with the Black Bishop but failed to even move his head.

-What is it? Do you recognize it, Font?-

The once Font coughed.

-What do you see?- the Black Bishop persisted.

-The light.-

-What light?-

-The light at the bottom of the sea.-

The Black Bishop spun away and hovered in the sky above the black plain. A memory surfaced like a rotted body of another reference to the sea lights he’d once encountered. Could it be? And if so, what could they do? Dread began to creep over him and he was uncomfortable for it, for he was used to causing such a feeling, not having it himself.

LRP Memo — TOP SECRET/EYES ONLY

Yesterday morning a zombie recovery team discovered a GPS signal emanating from the side of Drury Gulch. After investigation, they discovered a field of bones and a single microchip upon which Chance LaRue had recorded his last words. After chemical analysis, the DNA was attributed to C. Larue and traces of Hydrochloric Acid were found on the remains.]

Admin Note: Before Frezzie Simmons hears this, prepare a pcychological evaluation team to evaluate and monitor her status.

EL CAZADOR
Border War
V 1.10 Conclusion

Harlot of the Black Grotto
The Land of Inside-Out
The End of an Era

The mermaid-shaped simulacrum with the barely concealed breasts began tearing the chill blains from the top of the pile. El Cazador had no choice but to join her. At first the going was easy. The creatures were so ravenous with their meal that they ignored the two hunters who tore at their flanks. But soon the creatures’ desire to live overrode their need to feed, and they began fighting back.

El Cazador found himself engaged with no less than seven creatures who sought to rend and tear his very soul. As soon as he destroyed one, another took its place. There were so many of them. He was amazed that he wasn’t hurt worse than he was. After a second’s inventory he realized that he wasn’t even hurt at all. To think he’d had so much trouble with that one yesterday, and these were such pushovers.

Come on! Help me, hunter!

Photo by cerebrodinamo

Twisting and spinning, he shot though a pair of his attackers to where the mermaid-creature had dug her way into the mess of bodies. Spying a flash of white that could only be Kennedy, the sight spurred him to move faster. When he got there, he began tossing chill blains aside, no longer caring for the sickness they transmitted. Within seconds he and the female creature had managed to jerk Kennedy free and pull him across the line to safety. The skin of his simulacrum is scored in a hundred places. Red lightning shoots through the wounded man in a chaos storm of pain and wonder.

Lean on me, El Cazador says.

Now do you see what I mean? groans Kennedy.

Now that they are on the American side of the line, they are as close to the Font as they’ve been in a while. El Cazador takes advantage of this.

Tell me that what he says is a lie! he screams.

There’s so much more involved than you know, El Cazador. They’re twisting you with half truths.

I asked you a question. Is it true?

In a word…yes.

Then I can no longer be a part of this.

There’s more to the story.

There always is.

Why don’t you ask the harlot? She has some things to add.

What? Who?

Didn’t you know? We have a consort of the Black Bishop in our midst. A true blue Harlot of the Black Grotto.

El Cazador spins and looks at the mermaid woman. Are you?

Of course.

You work for the Black Bishop?

We fight against the sort of things the Font did. We hated that New Orleans was released from protection.

But I’ve always been trained to believe that you’re evil.

Evil is a matter of perspective. Those who are evil think of themselves as good. Look at the Font over there in all his lucha libre splendor. I have no doubt that he thinks what he does is good. Such is the nature of evil.

Glancing around, he realizes that the chill blains have stopped attacking. They’ve gathered again at the border and rest there, as if awaiting a command. He should have been dead. It was too easy. He turns back to the harlot.

You controlled them this whole time.

I did.

Why?

We thought we could get to the Font. He’s a war criminal. He’s responsible for so many deaths.

Perspective?

Not perspective. He knew about New Orleans and did nothing to stop it.

Kennedy is completely healed. Look at us, friend. You and me could do some good out there.

That’s perspective, the Font says.

El Cazador knew instantly the meaning of the word. One man’s good is another man’s evil. It just depended on which man you were. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He longed for the days of burritos and beer where his only fear was of the air conditioner busting.

Why should I believe any of you?

Because you want to fight the chill blains, the Font says. Perspective or no, there’s no denying that they are evil.

That’s a matter of opinion, the harlot says.

Why should I believe you? El Cazador asks.

Because your mother wants to see you, the harlot says.

My mother? It was just yesterday that he’d heard word of her from as unlikely a source as a chill blain. The Font had postponed talking about it, but suddenly the subject was front and center.

What does she mean, Font?

It’s as she says. Your mother belongs to the Black Bishop.

In what capacity?

In every capacity, laughs the harlot.

Suddenly one of the hammerheads attacks. A blur with a red stripe slashes through a line of chill blains on a ballistic trajectory to the harlot.

No! screams Enola Gay.

The harlot turns as if in slow motion. Just as the hammerhead seems about to eviscerate her, the body of the harlot shifts, the mermaid tail becoming that of a giant scorpion, and as the hammerhead closes the distance, the barb strikes upwards capturing the shark-hunter, piercing its heart. Things that happen in the Land of Inside-Out don’t generally affect those in the material world, but by the unearthly scream unleashed by the hammerhead with the red racing stripe, there is no doubt in El Cazador’s mind that a certain old folks home in La Jolla was suddenly one octogenarian short. The staff would chalk it up to old age, never ever dreaming that the woman had died upon the barbed tail of a Harlot of the Black Grotto in the ethereal universe of the Land of Inside-Out.

That’s all she wrote for Raul. He’s sick of the entire thing.

The Font.

The Harlot.

Kennedy.

Every inside-out fucking one of them. The lies. The truthes. The secrets kept for his own good. His mother. Oh god, the idea of his mother part of the Black Bishop’s harem, screws with his mind like nothing every should.

So he bolts, flying through the Land until he is a reasonable distance away, then he flames out, returning to his body in a rush that sends him into a cataclysm of seizures. He trips over Kennedy’s still form, the man barely beathing, jerking like a dog caught in a rabbit dream. Staggering from the trailer, Raul encounters Duran, standing with his pistol like he was a Mexican Clint Eastwood. The words Make My Day hung unspoken in the air between them.

He’s alive, Raul whispers and thumbs back towards the door to where the Font still sprawls. He’s in there.

Duran looks coldly at Raul for a moment, then slowly lowers the hammer on the trigger. You’re no longer welcome here, he says.

How the man knew, Raul couldn’t fathom, but he agreed entirely with the statement.

No shit, amigo.

Then he found his El Camino, revved the engine, then peeled away from the curb.

This whole idea about right and wrong, about good and evil, being a matter of perspective was an old one. He’d always thought he was on the right side, but this business of the Big Easy worries him. At the best of times the Font was secretive, only releasing information on a need to know basis. Well, those times were over. Raul decides that if he’s going to be El Cazador again, it will be under his own terms.

He heads west from Tucson on a back road that leads to an Indian reservation. He needs a quiet place to think for a time, a place where people avoid. There is an old leper colony deep in the desert. This he will find and call home for a time, until he understands how to hunt on his own.

Photo by dosmosis

–Thus Ends Border War, but stick around for more adventures of El Cazador in the future–

CODENAME: TRAVESTY
Watching the Watcher
Issue 1.2

photo by imagebysp

CODENAME: TRAVESTY
Flight Sequence 20060524b
CLASSIFIED TALENT KEYHOLE
UAV Narration: Sgt Frank Spann
UAV Mode: Combat Swarm

…6 fly 100 meters, overview of compound. As was before, single black adobe hut set back 300 meters from nearest buildings. Other buildings include three two story dormitories, a main meeting lodge with dining facility, gymnasium and motor pool. No substantive activity.

…22 fly 40meters, circling black hut. Flock of black birds completely covering roof. Flight experiencing technical difficulty. Returning to roost.

…13 fly 17 meters, above meeting lodge. Twelve women dressed in black shawls covering their heads and faces walk in single file.

…2 fly 120 meters, above Drury Gulch. Two golems (already designated) feed body parts into a wood chipper. Remains of unidentified human covers lower slope of ridge on NW side of gulch. Advise Talent Keyhole to review last twelve hours in order to determine identity of deceased.

Frank Spann was sick after what he’d seen last night. He’d replayed the golems shoving human remains into the wood chipper over and over on the monitor. He couldn’t help himself. Try as he might, he couldn’t not watch. At first it was like watching television and he was able to remove himself from the moral equation. Nothing more than Three’s Company or Love Boat with a Jack Tripper/Captain Stubing wood chipper ending. But after awhile he was forced to admit that he was a participant. He could have stopped them. Each of the Predators were armed with Hellfire-C missiles. All he had to do was override the Peace Protocol and the golems would have been juiced.

So why hadn’t he?

Part of him was convinced that there was nothing to be done by the time his UAV was on station; nothing but revenge. Then again, golems weren’t capable of murder and disposal. One or the other, sure, just as long as the task was single-minded and uncomplicated for their undead brains, so killing them would be just as bad. They were beasts of burden, little more intelligent than single celled organism.

Another part of him, the Army part of him, stressed non-participation. He was there to observe and nothing more. I’ve been doing this for three years and hate myself, he’d said into his audio diary last night. Our target is less than human, but we’re told just to watch and report what we see. Does anyone read the reports? Does anyone care? He pressed a button twice a day that transmitted the information to a station-keeping satellite directly above him. The information was then relayed to a room in NORAD west of Colorado Springs, where someone surely must read his recon summaries.

Right?

Someone was reading them, right?

In January he’d broken one of their prime protocols and had used the emergency radio to data burst a query. He’d been summarily reprimanded and ordered never to do it again.

His job was to pull seventy-two hours on, and twenty-four hours off, every day, for the next two years. He’d signed up for a five year hardship tour which paid triple salary and double retirement points. He was three years into the tour and had seen things that no one would ever believe. Then again, no one would ever have a chance to believe. His clearance was next to God’s. He was polygraphed each month, both lifestyle and counter intelligence. He couldn’t steal a government pen without the machine pinging. No, he’d seen more and heard more than could be contained in a Stephen King horror novel, but he’d never tell. Nor would he want to. If word ever got out, he might have some tough questions to answer, and he never wanted to have to answer them.

Just doing my duty, sir!

When he wasn’t working, he lived at the old hotel they’d co-opted in Idylwild. For the first hour or two he was thrilled to get away, to lead a somewhat normal life. He tried to watch television, but it was too much like what he did on shift–constantly staring into monitors in the event something happened. Then after awhile, he found himself missing the work. He needed to know what was going on. He needed to keep track of the Black Bishop and the Harlots and the golems and the other creatures that inhabited the compound. It was crazy this impulse to know. He knew there was something wrong with him, but he didn’t care.

He just had to know.

The urge to smoke hit him, but he did his best to ignore it. That javelina had been hanging outside lately. Twice this week he’d seen it looking at him with eyes more intelligent than they should have been. When he’d stumbled on the steps once last week 48 hours into a 72 hour tour, he could have sworn the animal was laughing at him. Plus he had another ten minutes before the flights released from orbit. Flight 22 had experienced cascading malfunctions. He’d just barely managed to shut down all secondary systems and regain control. This was the fifth flight this month that had gone haywire over the small building. He wanted to speak with Shultz later and ask him what he found when he recovered the UAV. So far, there’d been nothing concrete, just supposition and innuendoes of magic.

Ten minutes later all twenty-six flights were released from their orbits. He had about half an hour to finish his recon summaries, then the bus would be by to take him off duty. He stank. He needed a shower. He needed about a dozen beers to wash down the bile in his stomach. He needed a burger and fries and a cold dark closet.

He opened the door and peered outside, checking to see if he was as alone as the monitors promised. And there it was. The javelina squatted a dozen meters out in the desert, its pig eyes on him.

photo by the horned jack lizard

‘You haven’t known fear until you’ve seen ten thousand Chinese charging up the side of your hill,’ said his grandfather’s voice in his head.

Oh yeah, gramps? Try a javelina at midnight east of the Black Grotto.

Frank lit up a smoke and sucked down the nicotine, never once taking his eyes off the wild boar. The bus couldn’t come soon enough.