Edgar watched patiently and eventually Josiah turned back to him, about to ask another question. Mulligan could tell this as soon as the impostor’s lips parted and he snapped his hands back, slamming a fist into the mud.
“Enough!” He bellowed. “Enough with the questions. No more! Oscar White, I don’t know who you are, why you’re here and yet you believe you can walk into my castle, dirty my carpets, pass judgement on our women: I don’t think that’s right, I don’t think that follows the code. This is my turf, Oscar, you listen to me and soon a share in our revolution could be yours. Just first, please, a little common decency?” He paused a moment, wafting his hands in a sideways gesture. His lips even curled into a smile; “Now enlighten me sir, what brought you here?”
Josiah stammered at first, unsure what would happen if he opened his mouth. “I suppose you could say a common interest.” Hartt mused with Oscar’s voice, bluffing through a story in his head as the words tripped off his tongue. “The men who have possession of our land right now are bad men. They have the homes of our children Edgar, for what? The dirty tricks they’ve played; the injustices they’ve dealt across the battlefields? Men have lost their lives out there because of the Officers who led our enemy’s men, and now have been entrusted with the rest of our lives as well. Since I was a new recruit out there, fighting for a cause I never believed in, I felt that their injustices should be revenged by a justice of our own. One by one I want to bring them down Edgar, and Cedric Baltazar is just a worthy as any of them out there. If you’re the people who can help me bring justice to another Patriarch then this is where I want to be.”
Edgar Mulligan raised a fist to his lips, breathing gently in and out as he ran Josiah’s words through his thoughts. “But do you know who we are, what you’ve walked into?” He mused gently. “You know, people would call me a murderer Oscar,” He uttered, making a point of his own. “Some would call me a monster, then lock me away in prison or wrap my neck in noose. They are incorrect. I may be an executioner but down here we are judge and jury also. The things Baltazar has done, they’re a poison, a contamination that affects the people who serve beneath him as long as he stays towering above them.” He paused for a moment, as Josiah looked at him with a grimace of utter confusion.
“The universe is bulging Mr White. Galaxies are burning with new suns. The dust in the void is being pulled together and forming new planets and, as the planets form, new systems align. New systems mean more suns, and as the stars grow in number the sky gets brighter. Eventually the darkness will be so filled with starlight the night will look like daytime and we will all be blinded.” He sniffed. “At the moment the bad men are few in number, the Patriarchs may be rotten but there are boards and kings and many more good people who can hold back the tide. Still the bad men are like suns; the more they lie the more their deceit and their evil suck everyone else in. People around them become tainted and corrupted; the void between the rot is filled up with the corruption too. It spreads like a cancer. In the end we will all be blinded by it, and it will be too late to stop. It, is, nature.” Edgar for the first time pushed himself away from the wall, with each word moving closer, pressing down on Josiah where he sat. “Or at least that’s what they think. You see, the stars are too strong, the likes of humanity - we can do nothing to stop them, nobody can and so they overwhelm us. People like Cedric Baltazar believe they are the same, they believe they are so… untouchable. But in reality we can lean over and snuff them out. We can wipe his evil from the face of this Earth.”
Josiah Hartt smirked, acting as though the speech had impressed him, while beneath his grin he’d found the whole rant rather disturbing. Edgar leant back and finally allowed himself to sit in the modest chair on the other side of the desk. Josiah tried to alter the course of the conversation; he was suddenly feeling the sooner he knew their plans and could leave - the better.
“So why Cedric Baltazar?” He wondered. “Of all the Ex-Officers out there with pasts like his, why choose him? He killed a platoon near here, am I right?”
Edgar looked rather confused, leaning slightly forward. “Yes, but it was hardly the greatest tactical destruction of the war, nor the most devastating. There were barely a dozen men passing through Ashton town, on their way to join a regiment across the mountain range down by Lake Dumont.”
Hartt was confused – Cedric had said he’d killed hundreds that night. “Well now I really must know!” Josiah exclaimed with another man’s voice. “There must be old officers out there with much more blood on their hands…” He stopped short as Mulligan cracked a light smile. The leaders face was creased with bemusement and jubilation.
“You don’t know do you?” He asked gleefully. “You haven’t a clue…?” A smile turned to the wildest of grins as Edgar broke into laughter. “All this way, you must have trekked for miles, and you just thought we were doing all this, all of this killing and chaos just for a crummy little platoon?” He snorted. “You walked in here like you were the dog’s dinner but you’re just a fool!”
Hartt suddenly panicked, he hadn’t been ridiculed since his childhood and he wasn’t much enjoying the experience as an adult. “Then what? What don’t I know?”
The man’s face suddenly dropped. “Ashton wasn’t some military pass point Oscar, it was strategically important but truly it was just a town; a town with families, with shops and rooms to rent and a community sent to war. The platoon that stayed there checked into a little bed and breakfast for the night, the Liberalists can’t have even known they were there – well - eyebrows would hardly have been raised even if they had. There was just one bridge over the river that they wanted destroyed for good and even a hundred kitten-loving orphans wouldn’t get in their way.” Edgar stopped and swallowed. “Luckily for what remained of the townsfolk a storm had been brewing for quite some time. It was the rain season and many of them had already cleared out, waiting for the river to flood. But there was one little factory left running in the centre. It was open a final night, all it did was make straps for Revolutionist arms bags, they were working past hours just so they could hand over the final batch to the soldiers before the platoon departed in the morning. The next day the workers would have left, joined the rest of the town upstream where it was safe for the winter. But then he came, Cedric Baltazar with his orders and his buttons, ready for the pushing when he deemed the time was right. He blew the town apart; he launched his weapons and retreated to the shadows, with every man and woman in the town that night obliterated. Gone, forever.”
Josiah could barely speak, his throat as dry as smoke. “Who was in the factory?” He croaked.
“Only the women.” Edgar muttered. “They modelled the system after the one they had in place during the Second World War: while the men were sent to battle, most of the females of the household were shipped off to the factories, making clothes and harvesting food. They kept civilisation running while the boys ran off and tore each other apart. Everybody in this building lost somebody that night. George lost a sister, Josephine was in school as her mother was blown apart. Field Specialist Elisa Smith will be here quite soon – she betrayed the Detectors in exchange for revenge upon the man who blew her lover apart. They were all somewhere helplessly far away while back home their loved ones were massacred as they worked. There are hundreds of grieving families like us, but they’re just normal people, they don’t want to fight. We’re different Oscar; we see the truth and we want justice to be served.”
Josiah felt his anger fading, all his previous opinions of Edgar Mulligan replaced with a reluctant sympathy. “And you lost someone that night too…?”
The leader nodded quietly. “My fiancée. Abigail. They took me from my house just a year after we fell in love. I was just nineteen, her twenty. We loved only through post and I proposed with a letter. I had seen her only a few times since and it was by ink I learnt of her death also. It’s in ink I hope to prove she was murdered.”
He raised himself from the desk, composed bu
t furious. “Officer Baltazar was sat in this wood, he knew they were inside, he would have seen the lights, he must have seen them. He wasn’t innocent in this, he was in control and he knew what he was doing. You and me Oscar, we will snub out his life and tell the world why. Cedric Baltazar has to pay.”
Josiah Hartt stumbled through the door and closed it gently shut behind him. He rested against the splintering woodwork, his head titling back as inside it spun. His mind raced with what he’d just been told, conflicting reactions of anger and sympathy leaving him so surrounded by falseness and lies he was unsure who he could trust. Still he felt assured Edgar Mulligan’s heartfelt pleas where significantly more convincing than that of Patriarch Baltazar, sitting on his desk amongst pens and paperwork, with a face as cold as stone.
The lie made sense now; even to Cedric Baltazar killing a thousand unsuspecting soldiers would always be much less shameful than butchering a few dozen innocent women.
Josiah was so shaken he daren’t attempt to muster the confidence he’d flaunted before, and so now he was left to observe the scene before him. George and Josephine had stood from their seats and rushed to the opposite door, huddled under the frame as they furiously quizzed and interrogated someone trapped in the mud crafted corridor. They shuffled against each other, each barking indistinguishable questions at the figure before them. They were so excited by the new arrival they were unaware Josiah was even in the room as he moved closer to the table. He listened as one voice rang loudly above them all, carrying a familiar, piercing tone.
Josiah listened carefully to its cries.
“Please, come on now! George you idiot, let me through-” It got closer, louder. “We haven’t got time; I’ll tell you in a moment, I need to see Edgar!” The voice finally cracked as its owner fell through the open door, stumbling at first before steadying herself and standing tall in the centre of the room. She looked straight at him.
Field Specialist Elisa Smith.
As she stared at his mangled features, crinkled folders in hand, her eyes grew wide and she muttered two simple words -
“Josiah Hartt!”
A Return to Normality
L ylith White sloped back on the sofa, an old cup of tea growing stale in her hands. She placed it on the carpet beside her and sighed, leafing through the pages of a book she had no interest in. Infact it occurred to her she didn’t even know what it was about and so she turned back to the front cover and read the title with moderate interest. Social Interaction in the Workplace. Great.
She’d spent the whole evening wandering through the same tedious circle, making herself endless cups of tea and then sitting on the sofa, letting the steam soak her skin until the flow ran out and the drink turned cold. She’d decided to try a different tact - picking herself from the seat and exploring the lengths of the tower.
Lylith had found various items of interest on her travels, stumbling upon bits of Josiah’s half-hearted experiments left to bubble dry without his constant, loving maintenance. Each new floor was so packed and overflowing with varying contraptions she was faced each time with a dilemma of which to examine first, and so often stood gormlessly in the centre of the room without assimilating any great knowledge. In some cases she allowed herself to be drawn in by any strange feature a random set-up possessed, like the rancid smell that drew her to the kettle full of fish eyes, or the whirring sound emitted by the mechanical arm which even now continued to stubbornly poke a slab of rotting bread.
Still in the end she found herself sat on the same old sofa thinking about him.
She wasn’t pining anymore, the ridiculous fad had long since passed and she parked there wondering if she would remain in a strop or if she could ever lose face and admit maybe he had done a lot more for her than she cared to admit. Something told her the former would remain selfishly dominant. But most of her thoughts sat alone in the silence as the sun began to peak and brought with it her worries and fears. Her mind stressed about what would happen to Josiah on his little conquest. He knew nothing about where he was headed, and for once it seemed he couldn’t just work everything out beforehand. He might have walked in there and someone could have shot him dead.
Then there was fear at what would happen if he did wind up with a bullet in his brain. The thought of Josiah as meat on the floor of the forest churned her gut of course but she was always left with his words ringing through her head.
“The first thing they’ll do is go looking for anybody I told about them”
There was only one person who he’d told of his plans. That person was her. And from there her contemplations grew darker. What if Josiah in his final throws gave them her name, what if after their bold words on the doorstep he would be happy giving up her name to save his own skin?
She had no choice but to stay put, stay alert. After all, why else but for her own sake would she want to stay in the building shaped tomb? But if Josiah Hartt said she’d be safe then that was surely where she needed to be. After all, going against his word and leaving would be madness surely…
Lylith stood from the sofa and went for her coat. She kicked over the cold tea in protest then marched to the door, hanging with one foot across the ground’s sharp canyon and one pressed into the doorway. She looked back for a moment; the place she’d been told was a sanctuary now seeming more like a threat than ever.
She thumped her fist into the wall, and found it ringing with a reassuring cold, steel resonance. Josiah hadn’t lied, the tower was firmly reinforced and entirely secure but there was no way she could stay there, not yet. Lylith White pushed her sweaty hair aside and closed the door behind her.
Patriarch Cedric Baltazar let the cold water trickle from the pores of the shower head and wash down his skin. He breathed out, watching the cool liquid spray like rain from his lips and he sighed a heavy smile. The water seemed not only to cleanse his skin of the sweat that chained him to his clothes but also allowed his troubles to tumble down the drain. The sound of gushing liquid put his mind so far from the vicious Michael Prince bellowing spiteful orders, or the bug he’d found attached to the base of his cup allegedly placed there by his loving wife.
Wife...
Cedric leapt from the shower and out into the expanse of bathroom sealed off by a flimsy curtain. He reached out for the towel and scrubbed it violently through his hair, a flurry of water spitting out across the marble tiles which creaked beneath his shrivelled feet. He rubbed himself slowly dry, eking out every second before he had to replace his rank old suit and step back into his office, seated like a king looking down upon his empire while it plotted against him. As he fastened the last button on his crisp white shirt the carefully constructed image still didn’t feel complete. Only as he placed his handle on the thick oak door and forced a smile across his lips did he at last feel that he was dressed.
Breathing deeply he pushed the door aside.
Baltazar let the door swing into place with a subtle click of metal. He pulled his jacket tighter and began to march down the corridor, noticing as soon as he appeared swathes of people going about their business suddenly dispersing, distancing themselves from their leader. Those that were unfortunate enough to pass him as they walked went by with a gentle nod, more through routine than respect. Cedric dived eagerly towards his own private sanctuary at the end of the corridor, closing the great oak bulkheads behind him to ensure he was alone as he walked the last few steps across the hall to its side.
The image was a small print of Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica. It had been painstakingly replicated by his own suit of artists hunted diligently as soon as he’d made the request. Each figure was silhouetted in deep black and white, newspaper crafting the pale shadows of the bodies as in Picasso’s original, splayed across the picture in abject horror, scattered like fleeing ghosts across the canvas, falling over each other in deep, agonising wails.
Baltazar found his task diverted as his eyes became predictably lost, scouring the ink and shreds of paper of the surreal sharp
edged figures, each wide mouthed with bright, leering eyes. His gaze fell upon Picasso’s most bold creation - a woman in the painting’s corner, her breasts exposed to the day as she pushed the corpse of her child up into the sky. While the image was based on a real attack on a village a hundred thousand miles from there, Picasso had captured it with such a deep and meaningful horror Cedric felt he too had been standing amongst Guernica’s crumbling walls as they fell.
His examination faltered away from the painting for a moment and Cedric found himself returned, still shivering, but his skin now brushed with excitement too. He pulled at the images frame and it swung away from the wall on two hinges, revealing behind a deep hole carved into the wall. Inside it was his safe, a stern looking box formed by tight steel panels pressed into one another to create a rigid, dull grey coffin.
Cedric leant forward and twisted the ridged dial, listening with a heavy heart as one by one the gears turned and the locks fell out of place leaving the door, once so safe and protective, swinging limply open.
The Patriarch reached forward and pulled it aside. He stopped instantly, for inside the box was everything he expected - a pile of money, a hand gun, his passport; every piece in place except for one thick, brown document labelled Operation Naked Wrath.
Lylith White stumbled through the fields, the rows of mills peaking like pyramids across the horizon. Their fans waved like arms in a festival, a whistle and hum wafting down the valley in the midday wind. The sun hovered in the sky above her, lingering in the blue mist like a light bulb masked by a thick quilt of cloud. The grassy plain around her began to shrink and disperse, the metre long blades sloping back into the dirt and making way to a gravel path winding beneath her feet and through the village of Stonemoore a few feet ahead of her. The little cabins marked the communities’ territory, boxes in their dozens folding back into each other along the length of the forest edge.
Blood & Baltazar Page 17
