Theatre de l’Etrange
v2.1

Upon a time, the house belonged to Mr. Priest. He kept order. He kept discipline. He was wicked, sometimes, and impossible to understand, but he had a duty and an intention and a mission.

Now, Mr. Priest was gone, the Cataclysm had passed, and the house was a shambles.

Ben had seen a lot of things during his life, all of which had been within the theatre. Sure, he knew about the outside world; his mom had sometimes talked about the bright neon lights and the unrelenting sun and moon.

She’d missed nothing but the moon.

Mom was gone now. And though Mr. Priest had been nice to him, Ben never quite got over his fear of the man. Firstly, Mr. Priest towered over everyone, and especially over a boy. (Ben was fifteen now, and considered himself a man, but the first time he’d met Mr. Priest in the flesh had been on his fifth birthday.)

With Mr. Priest gone, Ben should have nothing to fear.

Yet, he found himself very, very afraid.

There had been blood. He never saw anyone bleed, never saw anyone fight, but he saw what they left behind. He saw the bodies. He heard the noise of the Cataclysm, even after Mr. White locked all the doors. Ben didn’t even know that was possible, but there it was. The doors were locked, Mr. White in charge with an iron fist.

But Mr. White didn’t know anything.

He didn’t know half the ways around the house. He didn’t know any of the secret passages, and didn’t even seem to realize there were rafters and lofts and upstairs rooms at all. Mr. White was stupid, and he believed he could control everything.

How could he control everything, eh? He didn’t even know about Ben.

A week ago, Ben found one of the most hidden doors, and went to speak to the man inside. It was calm here, and the sweet smell of his pipe was stronger here than anywhere else. (But it was everywhere else, most definitely, and always had been.) Martin held a book, though it was closed, and sat comfortably in an oversized chair. There were few hints of the violence that had wracked the house, but even Martin’s sanctuary hadn’t escaped unscathed. The walls seemed weak, less solid, and the bookshelves were warped.

“You’re the man Mr. Priest always came to see,” Ben said.

“And you’re the boy whose mother left you here,” Martin said. Despite the words, there was nothing malevolent or unkind in his voice.

“Why didn’t you do something?”

Martin took a puff from his pipe before answering. “About what?”

“Mr. Priest,” Ben said.

“I thought you feared Mr. Priest,” Martin said.

Ben nodded. “So what? He kept things the way they were supposed to be.”

“How do you know the way things are now isn’t the way it’s supposed to be?”

“Have you seen Mr. White lately?”

Martin smiled. “I have never seen Mr. White.”

“Something’s wrong with him.”

“Something went wrong with the world,” Martin told him. “The theatre did what it needed to survive.”

“But that’s just it,” Ben said. “Look around you. You don’t even have to leave here. Your walls are rotting. The house is dead.”

Martin glanced at the walls, then turned the full power of his gaze on the boy. “The house is not dead,” he said, “but you are right to think it. The house is unwell, Ben. Do you think you can do what is necessary to fix it?”

“Why can’t you do it?” Ben asked.

“It’s not for me,” Martin said. “You’ll have to leave the house. You’ve never been outside, have you?”

“No,” Ben said. “But Mr. White, he’s sealed all the doors.”

“And that’s going to stop you, is it?”

Ben grinned. “Doesn’t have to.”

“Good,” Martin said. “You know what to do, do you not?”

“Find Mr. Priest.”

“That’s a good boy.”

A week later, Ben hid in the rafters above Mr. White’s suite. The man who had taken the house had failed it, and had failed himself. He was half the size he’d been upon entering, wasting into himself, his skin wrinkled and ghostly. He mumbled a lot, talking to himself, or perhaps talking to the house. As if the house would reward him with answers. There were no answers to be found. Mr. White had brought all of this upon the house, and no one seemed able to do anything about it.

No one dared stand up to Mr. White.

They feared him. Not like they feared Mr. Priest; that had been tinged with respect, and perhaps a little admiration. The fear of Mr. White mixed with loathing, abject hatred and disgust. When Ben came back, he’d be considered a hero.

But he couldn’t come back without a key.

Mr. White had all the keys.

And Mr. White almost never left his rooms anymore. He paced in circles. He argued. He consulted mirrors and tarot cards and dice and rat bones. Someone had knocked on his door, someone Ben didn’t know, and he’d taken her in and did all sorts of nasty things to her. Cut her. Bled her. Shaved every hair off her body, and not carefully. He chanted over her, and lit candles, and bound her with what seemed like ribbons of black silk. She was still there, withering like Mr. White himself, mewling sometimes but rarely trying to move. Still bound, she couldn’t have gotten very far, anyhow.

Someone in the house missed her. Ben was sure of it.

Someone would come.

Someone would take care of Mr. White.

But Ben couldn’t wait. He needed the keys. And though the man seemed to need very little sleep, he did eventually lay himself down and close his eyes.

Ben waited. Not an hour, because he didn’t think the man would sleep that long. He shimmied down a rope ladder not too far from the tortured woman. Her wide eyes watched him. Begged for release. She opened her mouth, showing the missing teeth Mr. White had yanked out, but made no sound. She wasn’t lost. She knew sound was the enemy. If Mr. White awakened, the pain would continue, and how could she know if it’d be better or worse with someone to share that pain?

Ben glanced up after reaching the floor. The rafters were hidden in perfect darkness. It would take a man of unnatural sight to penetrate that black. The rope seemed to descend from nothingness.

How had Ben found such a place?

He’d been young. He was still young. He didn’t waste time wondering. Instead, he went straight for the keys.

There were a number of keys to the house, all on an iron ring. They were numerous, and mostly small, though a few were shaped like skeleton keys and a few were shaped like simple rods. Some were toothed, and some looked like the key his mother had kept. She’d said it had locked her bedroom door in Vegas. She’d said it was important to lock your bedroom door. She never said why.

Ben didn’t bother with choosing the right key. Couldn’t afford the time. He took them all, though he knew it was anger Mr. White. Perhaps it would give someone a chance to finally fix the usurper, to teach him some sort of lesson. Had he had it in him, Ben might’ve taken a dagger with him and slit the man’s throat.

He went back to the rope.

“Don’t,” the woman gasped. Her voice was rough, no longer human, but piercingly loud.

Ben’s gaze shot toward the sleeping Mr. White. No reaction. He said, “I can’t help you.”

“Kill me,” she said.

Ben shook his head. “I can’t.”

“I’ll scream.”

Ben closed his eyes. He wanted to help her, but he couldn’t do what she’d asked. And he couldn’t just let her go. She’d never get out. Mr. White would devour her.

Mr. White would devour Ben if he wasted any more time here.

“I’ll be back,” he promised, starting up the rope.

“No!” she cried. “Stop! Thief! THIEF!”

NEXT: MR. WHITE AND HIS ENEMIES

Hero
v3.1

As the Cataclysm began, two Captain Justices faced each other in an alley.

Death came at its own pace. Quick. Slow. Without regard for your plans, hopes, wishes, and dreams. When it’s time, it’s time.

Sometimes, apparently, Death took a holiday.

Donovan stared for a long time, his grip tightening around the knife, hearing nothing but the agonized mewlings of two dying thieves. For emphasis, he repeated, “You’re dead,” but the other Captain Justice merely tilted his head, gritted his teeth, and sneered.

“I’m you,” Donovan said. “I deliver justice.”

The original stepped closer. He’d been dead. He smelled of death and decay. But he had healed, somewhat. Wounds had scarred. Flesh that had been blue and yellow and black was now flesh colored. Even under his mask, one eye was clearly milky and useless. One gloved hand was held in a tight fist. His belt gleamed. Nothing else really mattered.

“I know who killed you,” Donovan said. He held his ground as his predecessor took another lumbering step. He moved like the zombies in those old Romeo films.

“Mr. White gave the order,” Donovan said. They were separated by barely an arm’s length. “I only wanted to give you justice.”

When Captain Justice finally spoke, his voice was rough and dry, and bits of moist dirt and detritus spilled from his mouth. “He…is…gone…”

“I haven’t killed him, no,” Donovan said.

“He…is…gone,” Captain Justice repeated. “Now…your…turn…”

Donovan shook his head. “I’ve done good by you, man. I salvaged your identity, and your purpose. I’ve delivered fear.”

“Your…turn…to…fear…”

Best defense a good offence, Donovan lunged forward with the knife. Caught Captain Justice in the gut, angled the blade up and ripped it upwards until it struck bone. The knife consumed blood. Demanded it. But no blood spilled from the walking corpse. Knife protruding from his belly, Captain Justice merely smiled and licked his rot-encrusted teeth and blinked his one good eye.

Then struck. With all the strength of Hercules, of Superman, of the Hulk, powered through a glove Donovan had left in its grave, a glove he hadn’t realized carried such power. He’d wanted the knife, and had reveled in the blade.

The one punch crushed bones in Donovan’s skull, snapped his neck, threw him bodily a dozen meters across the alley until he struck a brick wall.

Captain Justice pulled the knife from his belly, then staggered away.

Before finally losing consciousness, Donovan wondered what the dead Captain Justice intended to do next.

In life, Gerald had had his fans. Most worshipped from afar, believing in his ideals, believing this vigilante was a hero. In the end, he’d been a murderer of innocents, and then murdered himself. Targeted.

For days, weeks, months, however long it had been, he’d wandered the alleys and sewers, following unvoiced commands. They’d come from somewhere. Someone. He’d killed, and he’d punished, and he’d been the cold eyes for another.

He’d never heard of Mr. White. Didn’t know a thing about him. But Gerald knew this: whatever power Mr. White had held over him had passed, but still he walked. He didn’t breathe. He needed no food.

But he needed to rest.

And there was only one place to go.

~~~

He knocked, heavy and slow, continuously until the door opened. When she saw him, it took a full minute for Sue to realize who was standing there. Shock. Joy. Revulsion. Her Gerald, her Captain Justice, had come to her. Her search was over.

He slumped into her apartment, into her arms. He felt cold, frighteningly slick and pliable, and weak. “Gerald,” she cooed, “Gerald, you’re here, you’re here, you’re alive, I knew it…”

“Help…me…”

~~~

She put him to bed. She’d have to change the sheets. Sue had never even considered necrophilia before, and now the very idea horrified her. No way. She couldn’t even stay in the same room.

On the other hand, he certainly didn’t look six months dead.

She would care for him, then, and nurse him back to life. Bring him from the edge upon which he so obviously danced. It would take a long time, and there would be a Cataclysm to survive, and then, together, they would take the next step.

NEXT: THE SEARCH FOR MR. WHITE BEGINS

Cataclysm 15

There wasn’t much left. Smoke rose from the city, the streets were blanketed in ash, the buildings that had once towered over the earth in a monumental skyline had been reduced to piles of rubble. It was a scene repeated in almost every city of the world. Sure, plenty of structures survived seemingly untouched: Sydney’s Opera House was still there, though it had been flooded and most of the rest of the city devestated. The Eiffel Tower never fell. Neither did the Empire State Building, amazingly enough.

But much of the world, so much of the world…

Mr. Priest paused at the edge of the city to watch. Since leaving the Theatre de l’Etrange, he hadn’t done much else. He hadn’t yet found his purpose. One waited for him, but perhaps the time hadn’t come.

The sky, for the first time in what seemed ages, was a crystalline blue, marred with wisps of white clouds. None of those gray and black doom-sayers that had been running rampant over the past few weeks, months, years. Nature was righting Herself.

Against all expectations, the world had survived.

Mr. Priest shuddered to consider the cost.

Was that his purpose, then? Would he be called to pay that cost?

He watched the city, its people clearing the streets, gathering the dead in massive funeral pyres. Preachers sermonized. Madmen slithered in the alleys. Women tended the injured. Men delivered bread and bottled water. Military helicopters arrived with medical supplies.

This might’ve been any city in the world after the cataclysm. Mr. Priest moved on.

~~~

In the deserts of the Middle East, where once there had been sand or rock, where once a cave had been opened and a man unleashed the things that were the cataclysm, there was now a mile-wide glass bowl. The glass was white, and hot, and malleable. Seeker stood at its edge, staring for a while at the man caught in the middle, the man Virgil, who might be dead or might be alive or might’ve become something between those two states–or, indeed, something entirely other. It was hard to tell. And Seeker had no real interest.

He reached into the still liquid glass and fashioned from it a simple shape. He pressed it tight within his hands. He cooled it with his breath, with which he drew Arctic ice by means of a relatively simplistic spell.

Still, he was spent, as was the world. He started walking again, eastward, toward the Himalayas and perhaps beyond. He would find a place to rest, to recover. His recent battles, before and during the cataclysm, had taken quite a toll.

~~~

Mr. Priest wandered for days, from city to city, watching debris being cleared, witnessing the ritualized murders of left over creatures from the cataclysm. They were smaller things now than they were, and already dying, so he wasn’t sure if it was meant as vengeance, justice, or pity.

He reached London on a Tuesday. The city had seen better days, but it wasn’t a total loss. He didn’t imagine London ever would be. It’d survived fires, bombings, stupid kings and queens, all manner of idiocy. It had brought some of the greatest, most enlightened people to the earth, as well as some of the most degraded and unwanted. For all its good and bad, for all the darkness that had covered it in the recent and distant pasts, London’s blood still pumped through her veins.

It was hard, not to think of such a place as its own entity, something more than the sum of its people, its buildings, its underground, its triumphs, its secrets. There were other such cities, and they would probably all rise again.

Here, the strengths of human nature seemed to be holding power. Temporary homes had been erected, engineers were testing surviving structures for stability, hospitals were running full force. And food, plenty of food, had finally made its way to the city, and was being distributed to everyone, no questions, no concerns, and no end.

A boy looked up at Mr. Priest, recognized something of his power, or his former power, and said, “London Tower still stands.”

“That’s good,” Mr. Priest says.

“They say it’ll never fall,” the boy said.

Mr. Priest nodded.

“But the ravens,” the boy said. “The ravens are all dead.”

“They say that,” Mr. Priest told him, “but do you know it to be true?”

“The ravens died when the Fourth Age tried to begin,” the boy said. “Everyone knows it. The empire will crumble.”

“The empire survived the cataclysm,” Mr. Priest said.

“You don’t know that,” the boy told him. “It might not be over.”

Actually, Mr. Priest knew it was over, or at least delayed, even if he didn’t know how it had ended. Someone had stood up for earth, someone with the power to stand, and sent back the demons (he could find no better word), reset the tides, calmed the storms, extended this Third Age for just a little while longer.

“It’s over,” he told the boy.

And the boy believed him, his eyes said so, but something else troubled him, too. “And what of Arthur?”

“Who?”

“King Arthur, and his knights,” the boy said. “They were supposed to return in the hour of Britain’s greatest need. Did that hour not just past?”

“Perhaps it did,” Mr. Priest said, kneeling beside the boy and putting a hand on his shoulder. “How do you know it wasn’t King Arthur himself who saved us?”

CATACLYSM IS OVER
A VERY BAD WORLD CONTINUES…

Cataclysm 12

Getting to the door wasn’t hard. Security everywhere was a mess. Borders weren’t patrolled, making it easier than usual. Panic had set in, perhaps throughout the world. Sunset in Cairo, pink and purple striating the clouds; the Nile reflected the colors, as well. But the city lights were out. The skyline consisted of a mass of towers, some monolithic, and in some places the flickerings of firelight.

It was not, like Delhi, a city laid to waste, but the otherworldly creatures (a mere front line) had cut a wide path through the city. Now, there was smoke, there was wailing, there were birds that might’ve been phoenixes except that they scavenged off the dead. And there were many, many survivors, some in hiding, most in the streets; some chanting or crying or praying to Allah or Jesus; many searching for their loved ones, and some tearfully reunited; others finding charred husks that had been bodies and might be recognizable.

Cairo was not a happy city.

And Seeker was not happy to be there.

From his approach to the city, he saw neither the pyramids nor the Sphinx, nothing that suggested the wonder of this part of the world, though of course there was plenty of dust and sand and, now, ash, a preponderance of brown and tan and beige.

Seeker didn’t have to cross the river. In the older parts, east of the Nile, there was once a theatre, a seedy place, hidden within an alley, accessible primarily to the foolish. Though Seeker had never entered through the Cairo door, he had been inside that theatre, and he had walked out. Alive. Relatively unscathed. And surprised to be able to so easily escape.

He did not expect so easy an exit this time, especially since he needed to leave elsewhere.

Devastation had spread through the city like a virus, started by the attack but carried forth by the inhabitants, much as it would be in many cities before any sense of order could be restored. But Seeker needed neither order nor sense. He needed a deep breath. An extra ounce of fortitude.

The theatre was there, but the door was locked.

It was a strong door, albeit made of glass. He could break the glass, but that wouldn’t get him inside. The door must be opened. So he knocked.

And he waited.

And he knocked again.

A man, a mere shadow in the corners of the alley, said in Arabic, “You can’t go in there.”

Seeker looked at him.

The man repeated the words in English, and when Seeker didn’t respond said it again in French.

“Why not?” Seeker finally asked.

The shadowy man grinned, a smear in the darkness. “No one goes in. It was never safe, and now, now the door’s been closed. Something’s wrong inside.”

“There’s always been something wrong inside,” Seeker told him.

“Yes, yes,” the shadowy man said. “A house of mystery. And of death. It’s been upset.”

“Houses don’t get upset,” Seeker told him.

The man shook his head. “You cannot understand.”

Seeker regarded the shadowy man a moment, and decided it was best to show off. “That shroud won’t protect you from what’s coming,” he said. “What you’ve seen, what you’ve already survived, was a precursor. It will be worse. The streets will run with molten metals. The human race will be entirely purified, and purged, and Sindbad’s corpse never wore that shroud. Sindbad’s corpse never made it home to Arabia, but I don’t suppose you would know that. You can’t wear that thing forever. The shadows will devour you, and the shroud will move on to someone else, perhaps under the guise of Ali Baba’s tablecloth or the Prophet’s mother’s sari.”

The shadowy man trembled in his shadows.

“There’s a path, beyond this door,” Seeker said, “that will take me where I need to be, so I can learn what I need to learn, and no other piece of knowledge in the world can prevent what is coming. If you have the key to this door, or know where to find it.” Seeker paused. He knew there was no key; that wasn’t the point. “If you can open this door for me, maybe I can find something that might save the world.”

Was that overstating? Unfortunately, probably not. The real trouble was Seeker’s weakness. The exertions of the past few weeks had been monumental, and after his confrontation with the Chinese Sorcerer ― who might’ve been able to close the lock ― Seeker lacked the strength.

The shadowy man hesitated. Bit his lip. Looked to the sky as if he might pluck an answer from the stars. (Yes, even in the midst of Cairo, tonight there were stars.) Then the shadowy man stepped forward, careful not to touch Seeker (with either his hand or the shroud he wore as a cloak), and rapped a code on the door. Standing back, he said, “I can’t promise it will open.”

“You tried,” Seeker said, though he knew trying wasn’t enough. If this door didn’t open, the only other option was a jet. A jet which would take hours, almost half a day. A jet that would be vulnerable, in a world gone mad.

The door opened, but just a crack. A woman’s eye peered out. “Can I come out?” she asked.

“If I can come in,” Seeker told her.

Pulling the door open, she nodded. “Where is this?”

“Egypt.”

“Oh, no,” the woman said.

“You can stay inside,” Seeker said, but he wasn’t about to give her a chance to close the door before he got inside. He pushed past her, and didn’t look back.

The halls were bright, blindingly so. Fresh blood stained the wall. Cracks along the ceiling. None of this was visible through the glass, of course.

“Go back,” someone said. Not the person Seeker expected.

“Who are you?”

“I am the master of this place,” the man said. “If you don’t turn around, I shall have the walls crush you.”

“I cannot turn back,” Seeker told him, “so either help me, or stand aside whilst the world dies. Your world, too, apparently.”

“This isn’t what it seems.” The person was wasted, shriveled, no longer male or female. Something had gone horribly wrong within this house of mystery.

“What it is,” Seeker said, “is none of my business, and I don’t expect to make it mine. I request passage.”

“A strange request,” the person said, “at such a strange time.”

“I need to go to Port Ransom, Illinois,” Seeker said.

“You think it’s so easy?”

“I know there’s a door.”

“If you can find such a door, I’d gladly let you pass.”

“Then stand aside.” Seeker brushed past the person, who fell back in a way such a person wasn’t mean to fall back; it was an effort, to resist pursuing this mystery, even if in his mind, a necessary but amazingly tough effort.

No one barred Seeker from the door (which he knew was right, though he’d never seen it before), and it opened on a backroom in a bar in Port Ransom, Illinois.

~~~

Sal Scalzi was dead, yes, but finding his notebook proved rather simple ― for someone with Seeker’s sense of smell (and, perhaps, some other senses).

“Mr. Christie,” Seeker said. “Or is that, Special Agent Christie?”

Matt Christie stared back at him, but said nothing.

“You know what I need,” Seeker said.

“I can’t give it to you. It’s evidence.”

Seeker smiled a joyless smile. “You think there’ll be a trial?”

Special Agent Christie lowered his head. “The world is ending, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to,” Seeker said. “At least, I don’t think it has to.”

“And this book will help you?”

It was Seeker’s turn to remain silent. The FBI man pulled the book out of his pack. He handled it delicately, and removed it from a plastic bag before handing it over. “I’ll need it back.”

Seeker said nothing, but flipped through the pages. Myriads of extraneous information, some of it quite interesting, but Seeker went through the pages like a speed reader. Glancing through drawings and inscriptions and calculations and paragraphs in a half dozen languages. He wondered how much of it the Special Agent had actually managed to see, himself, when looking through the pages.

And then he found the page he needed.

One page.

Christie peered at the page, as well, but left his questions unasked.

“Zoroastrian,” Seeker said, translating and summing up rather than reading directly. “The Soshyant has arrived.” He shook his head. “A soshyant has arrived. Not the first, and not the last.” He met Christie’s eye. “You’d think people writing this shit down would catch a detail like that.” Then he looked back to the book. “Elixirs, immortality, molten rivers, a perfect re-creation. But Thraetaona stopped it once. A single man. Powerful.”

“What you’re saying,” Christie said, “means nothing to me.”

“It wouldn’t,” Seeker said. “Doesn’t mean much to me. But what’s important is this picture, here.” He pointed. “Do you know why?”

Christie shook his head.

Seeker withdrew the idol he’d gotten from Virgil, and Christie’s eyes went wide. “Because it’s this.”

“A key,” Christie said.

“You’re understanding more than you know,” Seeker said. “A key. And here, this passage here, explains how to open it.”

“You have to unlock a key?”

“What you see here, this stone, is the casement. It’s the physical part. The key itself is not physical.”

“Then what the hell is it?”

“Something I cannot wield,” Seeker said, “but I know of at least one man who can.” He frowned, because he had no desire to meet the Black Bishop. Ever, if he could avoid it. “I’ll take this.” He ripped the page out of Sal’s notebook. Christie protested, if only in his expression, but was resigned.

“You’re right, of course,” Christie said.

“Of course,” Seeker said. “Now’s the hard part. Care to give me a lift?”

“To where?”

Seeker frowned again. He didn’t want to go to Palm Springs, but there weren’t many options. In fact, there seemed to be just one. “California.”

~~~

After more than a full day at top speeds on a borrowed motorcycle (Christie had been as helpful as he could, but the FBI couldn’t spare anyone to ferry Seeker across the country), Seeker stopped at a roadhouse off Interstate 8. He was tired, cold, hungry, thirsty. He needed a beer.

He parked the bike next to an El Camino and couldn’t help but grin as he entered the roadhouse.

Catacylsm 9

“How?”

Virgil’s question echoed through the Iraqi night.  Seeker had no answer, not yet, but he was in the process of creating an answer.  Creating it from the bits and pieces he could see, the things he heard under his mind, the facts and fictions whispered in the night.

“Tell me,” Seeker said, “how it began.”

~~~

As Virgil told Seeker his story, most of it ― enough ― tidal waves pummeled Oceania, New Zealand, Australia, that whole quadrant of the earth.

In Salt Lake City, a man whose name had been Erwin decided the end of the world wasn’t just nigh, it was present and accounted for, so he loaded up all the automatic weaponry he could find and went to the mall.  There, he met another man, Carl, who had thought to do the same thing with a shotgun.  With a glance and a nod, they realized they’d come to do the same thing.  Between them, they killed forty-seven people at the Gateway, wounded another three dozen, and then turned their weapons on each other.

Rumors ran rampant through the streets of London, something about the ravens, all the ravens, being dead, the Tower being unwatched, the imminent fall of the empire.  Somewhere amidst all that, some clung to the hope Arthur would return, and maybe a few other knights, and that magician Merlin.  By now, it seemed obvious only some great and powerful magic could save the world.

Cameras had gotten pictures of some of the things marching across the world.  Unlike Napoleon’s armies, however, winter did little to slow these creatures.  The images were mostly static, their very nature disrupting all cameras and videotapes and computer files and film and discs and anything else pointed in their direction.  They were there, visible but not visible, strangely off-center, ignoring the attacks of police and military.

Some people found comfort in the images from the Middle East, Israeli and Palestinian soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, Muslim and Jewish and Christian soldiers, not that they managed to save anyone in Jerusalem.  Only those who fled ― and a surprising number did that ― survived.

In a frighteningly short span of time, this invasion reached the shores of North and South America.  Not a continent was untouched.  The people most capable of making such estimates didn’t tell the public, but they figured this unreal army to be about one billion strong.

From Seeker’s point of view, that would be one billion against one.  Two, if he counted Virgil, and it was with a short deliberation Seeker vetoed that idea.

~~~

“You led the man there,” Seeker said.  It was as much question as accusation.

“How the hell was I supposed to know what he’d do?”

“I need the lock.”

“I don’t have any lock,” Virgil said.

“You were there before you brought that man,” Seeker said, “and you took something.  An idol.  You thought you’d bring it back as a souvenir, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Then you planned to sell it,” Seeker said.  “Black market.  Consider me your buyer, then.”

Virgil stopped the Jeep.  “We’re close to the border now,” he said.  “I have to get out of Iraq.”

“So do I,” Seeker said, “but I think I’ll go on my own from here.”  He held out his hand.  “The piece.”

“If you’re a so-called buyer,” Virgil said, “what do you expect to give me for it?”

“Nothing,” Seeker said.

“You’re fuckin’ nuts.”

“Sometimes,” Seeker conceded.  He shook his hand, still out, palm up, open, waiting.

Reluctantly, Virgil reached behind his seat, into the rucksack, and withdrew a stone that had been carved into the shape of an eye.  Almost the Eye of Horus, with slightly less flourish on the ends, a cat’s iris etched into its center.  It was about the size of a CD, oval, and fit neatly into Seeker’s hand.  “You better know what the fuck you’re doing,” Virgil said.

“If it’s any consolation,” Seeker said, climbing out of the Jeep, “I know more than you did when you started.”

Virgil grunted.  And stayed where he was, Jeep still running, as Seeker walked into the night.

~~~

For Seeker, slipping across the border was easy.  He’d made a life of passing undetected across more strongly held boundaries than this.

Saudi Arabia wasn’t necessarily the best place to be, but it was close enough to the fracture (portal, doorway, fissure, whatever else it might’ve been called), and desolate enough already, a vast desert, for Seeker to feel safe from the invaders.  That’s what they were, invaders not bent on conquest but on destruction.  The differences between our world and theirs were vast; their very existence here disrupted natural laws.  In the not too distant future, it was not hard to believe they would actually transform the earth, maybe the universe, into whatever made up their home.

Some might survive the transformation.  But it would be a harsh world; the dead would become known as the fortunate.

The lock was open.  It could be shut again.  There were two keys.  One, in the hands of a man in league with the enemy, devoted to them, intent on becoming a lieutenant in their transformed world.

Seeker had seen the symbol before.  Once.  In the hands of the most unlikely of men.  He hadn’t wanted it then, hadn’t seen any purpose, but now he knew.  Port Ransom, Illinois.  Sal Scalzi.

There were two problems.  First, Illinois was half a world away; that would be the easier problem to solve.

Second, Sal Scalzi was dead.

Cataclysm 6

The world trembled.

In North America, though hurricane season had ended, three struck land within a week, two at category three and one category five. Bermuda, the Yucatan, and the east coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina bore the brunt of these, and although very few deaths were reported, damage estimates were in the tens of millions.

It was said that India and Pakistan had, between them, enough nuclear weapons pointed at each other to destroy the entire world. No one was ready to officially blame Pakistan for the destruction of Delhi; nor would anyone dismiss the possibility.

An earthquake in Mexico City left a hundred thousand homeless.

Winter storms in Europe buried Berlin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and London five meters deep in snow. In less than a week.

Three Japanese whaling ships disappeared at sea, swallowed by sudden and unusual swells in the Pacific.

All contact with Antarctic research stations was lost; McMurdo was the last to go dark, but they gave no indication something was wrong.

Three unknown volcanoes erupted in the Pacific, one not far from the coast of Hawaii. Hawaii’s active volcano, Kilauea, became violent again. When Diamond Head decided to reignite, it buried most of Honolulu in ash; as yet, no one’s certain as to the number of casualties.

A scattering of earthquakes have been reported: in Seattle, Boston, Miami, Perth, Shanghai, Kyoto, Rome, Kiev, and Cairo,

Some reports are definitely exaggerated. Flying monkeys were spotted in Johannesburg, and all the Greek statues in the Louvre were said to have revolted against the museum’s security staff. A plague of bats probably did not invade Toronto, and surely all the animals in the San Francisco Zoo did not spontaneously burst into flames. They claim New Orleans was spared by the winds because of the efforts of Mama Ruth, though no one had ever heard of the woman before.

They say the worst of it is at ground zero, though whoever it is that they are, they can’t agree as to where that might be.

Seeker knows.

He hitched a ride with a couple of Italian soldiers on a Jeep into Iraq. He followed his instincts, he followed his inner compass, he followed whatever it was that led him to wherever he went; this time, he went in search of a man. A man who had taken something that was never his, a man who had somehow allowed a fissure to be opened. It was hard for Seeker to define events, as they were jumbled and misaligned and beyond his experience. Beyond the experience of any living man. Fissure was no more (or less) accurate a description than portal.

Speaking English, one of the soldiers told him, “No one’s allowed in or out. We’ll drop you here.”

“Thanks,” Seeker said.

The soldier smiled. “I know I’ve done right. I wish I could do more.”

“No need,” Seeker said. “The man I’m seeking will come to me.”

“How can you know?”

Seeker shrugged. “It’s a sense.”

“In bocca al lupo,” the soldier said, and he waved as his partner drove the Jeep away.

They’d left Seeker on the side of the road, just before the crest a hill overlooking a checkpoint. It was night, but he could see the top of the temporary buildings, and the barbed wire fences, and the garrison of mostly American soldiers. Not the one he sought, and not as many as he might’ve expected. Deserters, or more urgently required elsewhere?

There was a Jeep on the inside, the driver speaking vehemently with one of the soldiers, throwing words at each other, showing off their guns, and no one else seemed to care about the bravado. A wad of cash was produced, with quieter words, and finally the guard nodded and backed away, calling to one of his companions, “His orders are good! Open the gate!”

And the gate was opened.

Seeker was still weak, physically exhausted by his ordeal in China and emotionally drained by what he’d witnessed in India. But this was the man he needed. He reached into a pocket, considered pulling a throwing star and forcing the Jeep to stop, but it’d be preferable to have his quarry in an agreeable state of mind. So he withdrew something shiny and old and, after Seeker’s fight with the Chinese sorcerer, inert. Standing in the middle of the road, he held it out in front of him like a stop sign. The Jeep swerved to avoid him, rolled a few meters downhill, and stopped. The driver leaned out of the windowless door and said, “You offering that to me?”

“Yes,” Seeker said.

The driver seemed nervous and anxious and yes, quite a bit afraid, but he was by nature greedy, and therefore liked shiny, glittery things. “Gold?” he asked. “Diamond?”

“A few sapphires,” Seeker said, “an emerald, and yes, three diamonds, but it’s copper, not gold.”

“It looks…”

“Oriental,” Seeker finished. “I carried it here from Tibet.” Which was true, though it had been in his pockets for several years now.

“Is it magic?” Asked with fear.

Seeker shrugged. “I know nothing of magic.”

“What do you want for it?”

“A ride,” Seeker said.

“Where to?”

Seeker shrugged. “Away from here.”

The driver considered this a moment, and finally said, “Hop in.”

~~~

The shiny, worthless trinket tucked into the soldier’s rucksack, they were on their way away from wherever they’d been. Still in Iraq. Leaving the city (town, village, whatever) was one thing; it’d take more effort than that to pass the country’s borders. Unless this soldier had another plan ready.

“Name’s Virgil,” the American said through a cigarette. “You?”

Seeker rarely used a name. “David.”

“Why you in such a hurry to get out?”

Seeker wanted to ask the same, but refrained. “World’s gone cockeyed,” he said instead. “I know it started behind us. I aim to put as many kilometers between me and it as I can.”

Virgil twitched. Barely noticeable, but it was there, merely confirming Seeker had found his man.

“You know what happened back there?” Seeker asked. “I have suspicions.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“I think someone opened a doorway,” Seeker said.

“Wasn’t no doorway.” Mumbled. Probably another person wouldn’t have caught the words.

“More like a rip, then,” Seeker said. “Like our world was cut open. From this side.”

“I didn’t see nothing,” Virgil said.

“Somebody did,” Seeker said, “but I don’t really care about that.”

Virgil slammed on the brakes, nearly throwing Seeker out of his seat, pulled a pistol, and turned on Seeker. “What the hell is it you want, then?”

Seeker showed his empty palms. “I want what you took.”

“I didn’t take nothing.”

“You didn’t do much, apparently,” Seeker said, “but you do have something. A lock, is it?”

Virgil pushed the pistol under Seeker’s throat. “I could blow your brains off.”

“But you won’t,” Seeker said, “because you know I can do something about all this. I can make things right.”

“Things are too fucked,” Virgil said.

“And no amount of money is going to save you from it. I can.”

After a heartbeat’s pause, Virgil asked, “How?”

Truth was, Seeker didn’t know he could do anything, he merely hoped. But if anyone could, it would be through Virgil, and through what he’d found.

Cataclysm 3

Once upon a time, Delhi was the capital of an empire. More than one empire. Some of the bricks lining this city were first used perhaps seven thousand years ago. Delhi: the city of Indra, city of elephants, taken by the British in 1857 and perhaps they should have used it, instead of Calcutta, as their capital.

There are thousands of modern rickshaws, buses, railways, and they are growing.

The Bahai House of Worship is there, the Lotus Temple, and Humayun’s Tomb (topped with minarets, this mausoleum shares its style with the Taj Mahal), an arch called The India Gate, universities and maidan (to play cricket). The 2010 Commonwealth Games will happen here.

Almost twenty million people live there. Almost as many as the entire continent of Australia. Almost as many as live in New York City.

The man called Seeker had been there half a dozen times in his life, perhaps more, always searching for something, and always finding it. He doesn’t appreciate the claustrophobia of such huge urban centers, but he’s not crippled by it. So when he left the mountain temple of the Chinese sorcerer six weeks ago, he journeyed west. On foot. He needed time to recover, he needed time to think and plan and plot, he needed time to figure out what he’d done wrong.

While he walked, something happened.

He was too weak, still, to know what it was. He felt nauseous most of a day before coming across fields of dead birds and animals, a mixture of suicides and murders, traits not normally common to such creatures. Feathers and fur and blood and teeth. Would’ve made him sick, but he was already. He felt an urge, himself, to commit something, whether out of anger or despair.

Traveling hidden roads under the Himalayas from Tibet, Seeker met a monk who had never seen daylight his whole life. The monk shook his head sadly and said, in imperfect Mandarin, “Something’s wrong.”

“Something,” Seeker agreed.

“Something’s broken.”

Again, Seeker agreed. “Can it be fixed?”

The monk smiled, but there was no joy in his smile. He touched Seeker’s shoulder and said, “Find peace.”

“Can it be fixed?” Seeker asked again.

“You know magics,” the monk said. “More than one.”

“I know things,” Seeker admitted.

The monk shook his head. “Mine is lost.”

Then he fell to his knees, expelled one last gust of air, and that was it. Seeker stepped back as the liquids from the monk’s body oozed out his nostrils, his eyes, then even his pores. That final breath had carried the last of his strength. The liquids bubbled and boiled. Seeker went on, not wishing to inhale the poisonous fumes. He had learned something from that dying air, something he didn’t quite understand. He needed to find a man, an American, a greedy self-centered bastard; Seeker could almost see him, in his mind, could catch the whiff of cigarette smoke in the pure, under-mountain air. A man full of regret, or merely fear? A man who had taken something, had seen something he couldn’t comprehend, a man who had…who had what, unlocked something? No. Not exactly.

Seeker held onto the image, would wait for it to clarify. It’d be a while before he reached the States, he was still a week or two out of Delhi.

So he traveled more swiftly. He ran when he could; part of his purpose in walking this great distance was to rebuild his strength.

Since meeting the Chinese sorcerer, his charred skin had lost its crunchy, crumbly-ness, but was still mostly black and very sore. He couldn’t see his eyes, but he knew the whites would be forever gray, and he doubted his irises retained their color. He had spent days absorbing water through his skin just to replenish his veins, and had taken almost a full week to rise again to his feet. He was strong enough, now, to walk, but running was an effort.

When he left the Himalayas, in India now, the temperature rose unnaturally, along with the winds, and it rained day and night. Hard, cold rain, a welcome relief in the heat but, as the monk had said, wrong. Very wrong.

From afar, Seeker’s first view of Delhi was no different than the first view of any city: near its center, it stretched into the sky with both generic buildings that could be anywhere and distinct monuments that proudly proclaimed this was no place else, a mixture of so many influences, so many religions, so many magics and architectures and passions, it was a relief.

And it was wrong.

Through its streets, though far away, Seeker almost saw them. They weren’t part of this plane, they didn’t belong, they left a wake of fractures in reality behind them, and they were an army. Despite Seeker’s knowledge, both learned and inherent, he knew nothing about these things (the American would know something, or would lead him to information). They were barely perceptible, like snow coming across a television, but only visible in the periphery.

Seeker pulled a spyglass from his pockets. The creatures had recently arrived, they were only beginning their invasion. Most the city of Delhi existed in their normal states of bliss or misery. In its east, the unearthly army overturned buses. They stepped through buildings; walls crumbled behind them, and the structures fell. Soon, gas tanks were erupting, tiny explosions peppered through the streets, then bigger as gas mains, or whatever fueled the city, went up in flames. Water pipes burst, streets cracked.

One man (more than one, but Seeker noted this one in particular), a criminal, stood against the advancing army and emptied a gun he had surely used to kill competing drug runners, every shot hitting its mark, every shot striking the peripheral army in the head, in the chest. The bullets popped as they went in, ricocheted in random directions, nicked the street and the buildings and the cars, until the man reloaded and started again.

They didn’t grab him, didn’t make any attempt whatsoever to slow him down. One of them simply walked through him, scorching his skin, exploding all his bullets and his skull. Effortless.

As Seeker watched, there was an explosion, a good sized one, half a city block, and by now authorities (policemen, soldiers) were responding. People fled. Cried. Screamed. Some simply stood their ground, though whatever defiant words they had went unheard.

Seeker had lost half his supplies fighting the sorcerer. Even fully armed, even if he had won the way he’d expected, he would’ve been helpless to stop the slaughter.

After most of a day, the big explosion. A sudden loss of pressure in the air. The storm ceased, momentarily. It was as if everything in existence was sucked toward the center of Delhi, toward the twenty million people and their city of seven thousand years. A flash of light, a mushroom cloud, a pillar of smoke, crimson skies; the concussive wave threw Seeker off his feet. Debris was thrown out of the city, though it didn’t reach quite as far away as Seeker, but there was little of it to scatter. All that remained of Delhi, and a great many of its suburbs, was a smoldering crater.

The army of peripheral things filed out of the city in multiple directions: toward Calcutta, toward China, toward Mongolia and Sri Lanka.

Seeker hid, as best he could, and he saved his tears until the army had marched past him.

Seeker
v1.11

Six weeks ago…

The poison worked in Seeker’s system.  So, too, the antidote, the magic of the jade, but it was a race Seeker might lose.  He was barely able to move, paralyzed by the poison; his vision blurred, all senses were muted; a mixture of tears, sweat, and blood coated him.  He felt the icy touch of death at his extremities, and he wasn’t ready.

He insisted on living.

He refused to surrender.

The old man descending the stairs, Wukong, the Chinese sorcerer, with his long white beard, supporting himself with his staff, chose this moment to attack.

Under ordinary circumstances, the full wrath of Wukong was a glorious, if deadly, thing to witness.  The skies darkened.  Clouds whorled.  Lightning cracked the sky, thunder shocked even the beams supporting the temple.  Creatures for a thousand miles fled, and Wukong put all his power and strength, and also all of his hatred, into a single assault.

Time fractured, giving Seeker glimpses of himself as a child; the moment his parents sacrificed themselves; his first find; a girl, an incredible exotic enchanting beauty who believed in him even still; something inhuman and not quite there streaking through an impossible portal; a city in ashes; himself on the floor of the temple, breathing in the terra cotta dust, withstanding the full wrath of the Chinese sorcerer.  Past, present, future, not necessarily in that order.

Space fractured, and they saw indescribable alien cityscapes; armies of animated broomsticks brought to confused life on a faraway stage; an ocean liner filling with brackish water ― things that would never have any bearing on Seeker or the sorcerer.

The heat burned Seeker’s skin, seared and charred it, and the pain was awful and unimaginable and so great his nerves fried and became useless.

The light blinded his already obscured eyes, so the things Seeker saw were in his mind or burned through damaged retinas.

The force put him through the floor, through the rock below it; and it was only the immense force that kept his bones more or less together and saved his flesh from rupturing.

He couldn’t breathe.  He couldn’t move.  He couldn’t think.

And then it was over.  Smoke rose through the hole in the temple floor, from Seeker’s charred body, even from his smile.  A sonic boom would’ve shattered the temple’s glass, but there was none; instead, it bowed some of its steel and shattered some of its wood.

Wukong stepped forward, weaker for his effort, satisfied grin spreading across his face, mumbling about the uselessness of conjured and enslaved spirits.  He looked down at Seeker, who met his eye.

Seeker couldn’t speak.  He didn’t have the strength.  But he breathed, though raggedly, and he reached out of the hole, and he met the sorcerer’s gaze.

“No,” the sorcerer said, staggering back, leaning more heavily on his staff than he should have.

Emerging from the hole, Seeker nodded.  The poison had worked through his system, or had been burnt away, or had finally succumbed to the jade.  And though every muscle burned and ached and screamed whitely, Seeker climbed out of the hole onto one knee and looked at the sorcerer.  The rose pendant he wore, which helped protect him, flaked away in bits of ash.  His clothes were black beyond Gothic dreams, his skin crunchy, the whites of his eyes soot-colored.  It hurt when he inhaled.  He was dry, all moisture removed, no tears left to cry, no blood in his veins, held together by spells and talismans and faith and will.

“You madden me,” Wukong said.

Seeker would’ve agreed, but had no voice.  Instead, he grabbed the sorcerer’s staff ― not the source of his power but a magnifier ― and thought with power and precision and direction, What was yours, now is mine.

He came to the mountain with three surprises for the sorcerer.  First, a weapon to defeat his shadows, a white marble from fourteenth century France that even now pinned a shadow, if it still existed, to the ground outside.  Second, the jade to defeat his terra cotta warriors and their venom.  Third, an assortment of protective talismans (the rose would’ve been most powerful, but he had settled for a rose pendant; its destruction suggested Seeker was now without protection) and bindery tools.  Specifically, a curette, or something like it, an ancient, handheld scoop used in India to perform rhinoplasty, used once by Shushruta himself almost three thousand years ago.  With thick, deadened fingers, Seeker withdrew this from pockets which should have been melted or burnt or flayed like the rest of him.

The sorcerer tried something else, a spell, a casting, a summoning, whatever he managed to put to his lips, but it was too late.  Seeker shoved the curette up through Wukong’s nostril, into his brain.  Not to give the old man a nose job, but to remove his power, his strength, his magic ― and yes, his life.

Rain poured from the sky.  Thunder bellowed.  Lightning danced.  The Chinese sorcerer died, exactly as he expected to one day die, but he said, “You are not my enemy, and you are not my subjugator.”

When the sorcerer died, his power left him.  A bit of it pierced Seeker, shot through him, became a part of him; and a bit of it restored a fraction of his strength, a fraction of his breath, a fraction of his blood; but the greatest part of it, which should have poured into Seeker, was siphoned away, drawn to someone else.  Somewhere else.  Somehow.

Which was not supposed to happen.

Seeker collapsed next to the sorcerer’s corpse.  Rainwater flowed into him, drawn as if by gravity, through cracks in the temple’s ceiling, through the glassless windows, through the doors, uphill if necessary, and water bubbled up from the hole Wukong’s wrath had left in the floor.

Over the course of a week, the temple crumbled to dust, and also the sorcerer’s corpse, and his staff.  Seeker crawled down the side of the mountain back to his cave.

And when he was strong enough to begin his search anew, when he was able to stand unsupported, Seeker went west.

NEXT: IT GETS WORSE!  CATACLYSM!

Theatre de l’Etrange
v1.6

No one noticed at first.  Which was exactly as planned.

The soprano missed a couple of performances.  Stayed in her room all day, roamed the halls at night.

She slept all day because she was exhausted.  Viola saw through her eyes, felt with her hands, tasted with her tongue, all the things Mr. White had her do.  She bore silent witness.  Her muscles ached from his exertions.  Her throat was raw and dry, and she could not sing.  But at least she wasn’t sick anymore, not puking bits of her insides.  It was an improvement.  She was sure of it.

But she didn’t know what Mr. White was doing.

He wandered halls, he opened doors, he avoided all contact.  He had a sense of when Mr. Priest was near, as if the walls themselves warned him, so their paths never crossed.  Not in those first days.

But the house didn’t warn him to avoid the seer.

Cleo met Viola in the hall one night, whilst she should’ve been on stage.  Her understudy, however, seemed to revel in the part, and while Mr. White was in her there was nothing Viola could do.  She wanted to sing.  She wanted to sing more than anything else.  That was how she ended up here in the first place.

“You don’t look yourself,” Cleo said.

“My throat hurts,” Viola admitted, though it was Mr. White guiding her voice.

“Have you taken anything?”

“All sorts of things,” she said, which was true.  Possessing her body didn’t give Mr. White her knowledge, so he didn’t know about Cleo, didn’t know about her sight, didn’t recognize the threat.  But the house trembled around them, the very walls.  “In fact, I was just returning to bed.”

“Dream well,” Cleo said, and watched her go.

Viola smiled at the seer as Mr. White walked her legs down the hall, around the corner, and back toward her room.  Safely inside, Viola found her voice and asked, “How much longer?”

“Not long at all, my dear Viola,” Mr. White said.

“What are you looking for?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Then what do you want here?”

He didn’t bother to answer.

~~~

Mr. Priest roams the passages of his house like a ghost.  There’s an uneasiness, as the outside world encroaches and something very bad is happening outside these walls.  Something he wishes to have no part of.

He feels he’ll have no choice, in the end.

Several times, he stops to speak with Martin, the enigma, whose sweet pipe odor lingers even in places he has never been.  He never seems to leave his room, but his smoke wafts through the theatre as if it has a mind of its own, in clouds or thin tendrils, and Mr. Priest thinks he knows a thing or two more than he knew before.

“Something vexes you,” Martin says.

“Something.”

“You know not what?”

“Do you?”

“Why would I?”  Martin never actually answers, just puffs on his pipe and opens his book and adds, “You know I hate to get involved in things.  You intend to involve me.”

“Of course not,” Mr. Priest says, because he knows there’s no point.  Martin is not a man of action, but a man of words.  Does that make him half of what he might have been, or something more?

Another time, Martin says, “There’s an intruder, isn’t there?”

“The house knows,” Mr. Priest admits, which is odd because in the past, he and the house have always been one and the same.  Something’s askew.  The house has always had its secrets, but this is different.  This is dangerous.  This is imminent.

“They’re calling it a cataclysm, outside,” Martin tells him.  “Innumerable dead.  A hundred, at least, have fled to the safety of your house.”

But Mr. Priest shakes his head.  “None of them.”

“Perhaps your intruder is invisible,” Martin offers, which isn’t really much of anything at all.

Realization comes on Friday.

Mr. Priest greets new arrivals for the show.  It’s evening on the east coast of the U.S.  It’s cold in Florida.  Warm in New York.  A cyclone that shouldn’t be there.  An earthquake.  Yet still, people flock to the theatre, people believing themselves to be safe, untouchable, immune.  But they are not immune.  And neither, Mr. Priest realizes, is he.

The soprano.

She steps out of the shadows, wearing another’s smile, bearing a voice that is not hers.  The theatre trembles.  The doorman glances over, confused, as does the cigarette girl, and the coat check, and the concession man, the ushers, and three or four of the new arrivals whom the theatre intends to swallow.  “You were ill,” Mr. Priest tells her.

“She’s cured,” the man inside her says.

“Release her.”

“As you wish.”  Mr. White rips free of the girl, tearing her flesh, cracking her bones, to the sound of wet snaps and Viola’s desperate screams.  The body, not a corpse but horribly mangled, collapses, but the soprano’s screams are so high-pitched they break glass and set dogs barking across three continents but go unheard in the theatre lobby.

Mr. White stretches his arms, cracks his neck, twists his back, says, “That’s better.”

Mr. Priest would react, would respond, would answer this attack, but as Mr. White ripped free of Viola’s body, the house severed itself from Mr. Priest.  He’s surrounded by nothingness, now, a void where once there was knowledge, and he feels the theatre’s terrible heartbeat.

“Yes,” Mr. White says, stepping forward and putting a hand on Mr. Priest’s chest.  “Much, much better.”

He shoves Mr. Priest out the door.  Into a world in cataclysm.  Into the desert.

And Mr. White smiles.  The house is his.

NEXT:  THE NEW REGIME MAKES SOME CHANGES!