Partholon

by D Krauss

  Just how long had these guys been watching, anyway? Had to be quite a while, and rather closely, too, so John should have picked up on it. Why didn’t he? He was good at this, better than average and the screaming cretins around him were sub-average, barely normal. They didn’t have the brains, the motivation, the cunning, or the skill, which spoke volumes about their Fearless Leader, didn’t it?

  John peered intently at the strutting Ankh. Who, exactly, was this guy? Geez, it’s like Lucifer himself showed up... John blinked. And chilled.

  If you accept the notion of God, then you must accept the opposite notion that He has an eternal enemy, always near, a merciless, relentless being who does not share God’s powers but uses those against Him. He invokes grace and Eternal Love and traps God into neutrality by His own Essence, mimicking omnipresence and omnipotence through excellent organization and doing whatever mischief to God’s Plan he can manage.

  You cannot have God without him, no Yin without Yang, no good without evil, because those qualities are known by their opposites. So if God is there as the beacon of good then standing right beside Him is the beacon of chaos.

  Chaos is powerful, the anti-good, living in the shadows that the light of good always casts. So, even in the most benign of times, there is no safe place, there is no safe hour, there is no peace save what you construct out of God’s grace but there is, even in that, a glaring and profound weakness which you cannot see because the good blinds you. The eternal enemy can, though, and he sits at it waiting for that pure, strategic moment then, wham! The black dripping claws go ripping through the chink and you are down and gasping and looking up as the eternal enemy holds your blood-blackened and still-beating heart in triumph over his head.

  As you go into the darkness, you see him take a bite of it and sneer at you through your own blood and you ask God, “Why?” and He shrugs and says, “That’s the way it is. Now rest,” because the only rest is death, whether high civilization remains intact or the world crashes into rubble.

  The circle remains unbroken. John will die horribly tonight, and the Chaos Lord will gibber and scream orgasmic joy while the ashes of civilization spiral upward, the sparks fly ever upward while stirring out in the dark, somewhere, God nudges a reluctant Gideon to raise armies and put chaos back in its box.

  Wonder if it’ll be Collier?

  Ankh dropped his hands and lowered his head, morphing into a picture of sorrow. John almost laughed. The burdened leader, all the cares and worries for his beloved children on his shoulders, now having to make a much-regretted decision. And what, pray tell, was that? Well, to rip John apart, piece by painful piece, a much-regretted sacrifice to his children’s frustration. Ah, the price of power.

  Spike played it well, letting stance and posture convey the message. After some requisite dramatic moments, Spike stepped forward, inches from John’s face, and raised the Oakleys. “Wanna hear something?” he asked in a low voice.

  John, slightly taken aback and, no doubt, showing it, frowned. His loving escorts tightened their hold as Ankh leaned in closer, “Well, do you?” he almost whispered.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Of course not,” and Spike placed a paternal hand on his shoulder.

  John held his breath. Now? Is it now? If he could shake off Rawbone and Xena then strike up hard and fast right into Spike’s throat, hopefully hard enough to shatter his trachea, then jerk-o would die, screaming for air. Who’ll be taking a bite out of whose heart, Beelzebub? He tensed but no, no, wait, not yet, hold up, it just doesn’t feel right. John stared at Spike out of his one good eye. Seemed like the old boy was expecting it.

  After a heartbeat, Spike smirked. Yep, definitely expecting it. Good thing John held off. Spike leaned, “I’m really going to miss you,” he stage whispered.

  John blinked. It hurt to do so, but how else do you react to that?

  “Really, I am,” the hand gently reached up and adjusted John’s glasses, “Came to admire you, man. You were smarter than the rest, much harder to pin down. I thought we’d just shoot you in the back but, damn if you didn’t turn the tables and get my guy instead. Well done. Well done. I tried some other ways but you picked off the watchers or the ambushes I set. Quality work. I could have used a guy like you. I thought I’d give you a chance, left you an invitation.”

  Huh? Spike looked at him expectantly, like a teacher waiting for a reluctant student. John blinked. What’s this guy talking about? “Invitation?”

  John wasn’t at his sharpest right now and he shook his head slowly, warily, not sure where this was going, “I don’t know what...” he started and then it dawned on him. “Mrs. Alexandria,” John said quietly.

  Spike clapped him hard on the shoulder a few times and beamed at Rawbone and Xena, “See, I told you this was a real smart guy!” He came back to John, “And you didn’t get it?”

  “Not exactly the type of invitation I’m used to,” John said, dryly.

  He shrugged, “Yeah, maybe we went a little overboard, but we had problems with her and her group and the children needed to vent a little. But if you’d been doing your job, found her earlier, then you’d have known and you could have found me and submitted. Or cleared out. I figured you’d never join, so I really wanted you to leave. You earned it. But, no, you screwed up. Took too long. A little better work and all of this,” he gestured around with his chin, “wouldn’t have happened. Your fault.”

  “You never studied logic, did you?”

  Spike laughed and wagged a finger at John, “That’s not very polite. Just take it. My children gladly take the discipline when they screw up. But you probably won’t be glad.” His smile hardened, “Not glad at all.”

  Oh, Lord. John felt his spine turn to jelly and it took will, pure will, to remain standing. The game was clear: prolong the terror, sweeten the torture, like tasting the sauce before cutting the steak.

  Spike loved the pain: it’s what moved him, the infliction, slow and steady and stretched over long hours. The “children” didn’t butcher the Mrs., he did, while the children watched, cowed as he slashed and dissected the screaming, hanging helpless piece of meat for hours.

  A cautionary tale. John was next.

  Not if he could help it.

  “You going to keep me in suspense?” Anger-driven strength returned to John’s legs and he straightened and squared. Xena muttered something and moved in a little tighter and Rawbone picked up the cue, doing the same.

  Ankh just smiled, “In time, in time. Don’t you wanna know what happened first?”

  “What?”

  “To your friends, those Alexandrias. Don’cha wanna know? Put up one helluva fight, they did, almost as good as you. Didn’t matter. We killed all of them ’cept for her, saved her for you. Well, saved her for me, really, she was kinda cute,” and he leered at John. “Oh, wait, my mistake, we didn’t kill all of them. A couple of the kids saw the light and joined us. You know what’s funny? You got one of ’em, just now, in your living room there.” He paused, “See what you caused, man?”

  What he caused. John eyed Ankh and had a sudden flash, the Alexandrias, especially the Mrs., solemn and earnest, red-haired and blue-eyed and regarding him with a wish to trust but the times didn’t allow it, standing next to her man with the kids arrayed behind them, all talking about something. Hung up like a pagan offering, reduced to a screaming bloody lesson.

  John couldn’t equate the hope in her, trying to rise to the surface, with that thing hanging from the ceiling. It’s just not the way she should have ended. She was one of the good guys.

  No reason for it. Hoisted up a ceiling beam, raped and flayed and tortured, for no reason at all. She died forsaken, no purpose, no expiation, just pure, howling pain. Fruitless, pointless, everything she and her family were trying to do, up in smoke.

  And, really, why’d they even try? There was no civilization, no refinement anymore. No vulgarity, either, no barbarism.

  Things just are. Things just happen.
>
  One thing became ascendant, then another. The Dark Ages took hold, then the Enlightenment, no real reason, just happened that way. You can’t say one is bad and the other good because bad and good things happened during both, so the only important thing is act, and act is successful only if you’re satisfied with it.

  Mrs. Alexandria hung from a meat hook, John in the clutches of Satan and about to do the same but it didn’t matter. They’d just lost, that’s all. Coll will win or lose in whatever life he has left, based on act alone. Forgotten after a time. Unremarked. Postmodernism wins.

  That really sucked.

  Couldn’t have picked a worse time to abandon all your premises, could you, John ole boy? If there was one thing he needed right now, it was some philosophical base, some structure, some mental template to overlay the world so he could see method. But, phffft, gone, and the only thing in his mind was act, pure act. He looked at Ankh, his satisfied smirk just inches from John’s bloodied eye.

  Act. Definitely going to act.

  He wasn’t going to hang from a tree limb and be rendered for the amusement of sewer rats, that he knew for certain, and it was calming. Maybe that’s real meaning, preparation and resolve leading to the act, something for God to watch. We’re television for divinity, but live TV, unpredictable. Maybe He applauds spontaneity. Then John should have Him pounding palms here in the next few minutes.

  Ankh clucked, “Really too bad. We’ve got plans, you know. I mean, now that you cops are no longer a threat, we’re going to finish off the black-market gangs. The Gangs, you know? Going to take a little bit, but I think they’ll listen to reason, join us, you know? Think we’re big now? Damn, man, we’re going to be the new fucking army! Get bigger and stronger then, watch out, man, we’re busting loose. There ain’t no government anymore, man, no Man, man. I’m it,” and he leaned back, proudly jamming a thumb in his chest.

  What did he say? “Waddya mean cops are no longer a threat?”

  “I mean they’re no longer a threat. They’re gone. We did ’em.”

  John stared at him. Oh, come on. Yeah, you may have driven off the checkpoint and stood toe to toe with an MPD squad or two, but a couple of skirmishes don’t win a war. There’s no way this undisciplined rabble would prevail against an organized, heavily armed paramilitary like MPD. No way. John smiled derisively, “Right. You wiped out MPD. You and the French Army here.”

  Ankh smiled back just as derisively, “Ain’t nothing impossible when no one’s looking for you. When they think you’re just some street gang, don’t take you seriously, it’s easy to get the jump. They didn’t pay the right attention, see? They were too busy looking like they were in control, saying they had the District ’cause they shot a burglar or two. They didn’t have shit. It was all show, anyway, something one faction or other could lord over the other, keep ’em in line.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about those wannabe cops. What, you thought they were real? They weren’t real, you’re more real than they were. Somebody in the government put them together to get over on some other part of the government. I don’t know who, I don’t pay attention to that crap. All show, scare the others into thinking they had control. Weren’t no control, not really, they just looked like badasses. Didn’t mean they were.”

  Well, that fit, but he still wasn’t buying it. “There’s no way.”

  “There’s always a way. If I had time, I’d take you back over and let you see where we stacked ’em up, from their commander on down, got piles of little blue pigs burning. They’re my street lights,” and he laughed out loud, which made Xena and Rawbone and, well, just about everyone else in earshot, laugh in response. Funny guy.

  “But, I ain’t got the time.” He bored in on John, “I gotta settle you first, then I gotta get ready for the rest of this place.”

  “You’re going to take on the Zone.” John couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice.

  Spike shook his head, “I’ve already done that, just some details left. I’m taking on the Outside.”

  John laughed, short and contemptuous but appropriate for the situation, and deliberately looked around, taking in the cretins. “With this? You’re going to hit the walls and the ZGs and the military with this. What are you smoking? The air force alone will take you apart. You won’t last five minutes.”

  Spike smiled, “Maybe. That could be. But, I’ll tell ya, I’m going to last a lot longer than you.” And he stopped smiling and there it was, dark and dreadful, relentless purpose and overweening pride twisting Spike’s face into a mask of pure implacability.

  John’s guts turned to ice. Talk is over, playing is done. The cat has tired of the game and it’s time to rip the mouse apart.

  Panic hit hard at John’s brain but, even in that, a calm spot formed, resolved to act. He stood, little tremors of fear throwing him off balance and threatening to overwhelm, but he kept a laser focused right on Ankh.

  Ankh nodded to Rawbone, who let go and stepped up, handing him something. John couldn’t really see what it was and Rawbone moved back to position but wasn’t holding John anymore. Xena moved off a bit, too.

  Crap. Not good.

  Ankh looked down at his hands and John followed his gaze. Ah, his tanto and .25. Wondered what happened to them. No .357, though. Damn. Someone must have claimed it.

  Ankh held up the weapons. His hands were surprisingly thin and tapering, almost delicate. “Yours?” he asked.

  John said nothing, wary and tense while desperately calculating. He was free, had a bit of room but if he broke to any direction right now, they’d be all over him. Got to wait for the right moment, the right circumstance.

  Ankh regarded the .25, turning it a bit in the firelight, then sneered, “Piece of shit,” laughed and dropped it. Dropped it. John almost gasped, swore he heard an angelic chorus hit a note of “Aaahhh!” as he watched, out of the bottom of his eye, where it landed.

  “But this,” Ankh cradled the tanto, “is definitely not a piece of shit.” Slowly he drew the blade, glowing yellow in the firelight, love in his eyes and John had to admit the man had taste. Ankh stared at it then dropped the sheath. He turned it over and examined the edge, ran a finger over it, his eyebrows rising at the sharpness. He held the tanto up, pointed at John’s face. John braced.

  “Bow down and worship the true god,” Ankh spoke it softly then his hand snaked out like lightning. John felt a red-hot searing along the side of his head, a liquid warmth and a clean slicing where his ear should be. He grunted with surprised pain then wham! someone clubbed him across the back of his knees with what, he didn’t know, but it was big and heavy and hurt like hell and the grunt became a yelp as he fell and then the real pain, the sizzling as someone applied a torch, probably a piece of wood from his own house, to his already blistered back.

  John screamed. Anyone would.

  The crowd roared its approval and threw more things at him but that was tickling compared to what preceded. John was seared and all he could think was, My back, my back. Nothing else in the universe but that screaming fired pain. He was ripped and the agony flowed to where his ear used to be and it was quite disconcerting to hold two areas of agony at once, trying to reconcile them. No, three, because his legs were pulsing and swelling as the blood clots gathered behind his battered knees.

  John couldn’t get his breath. All this pain drove it away. He was dead, here, dead and lost and Collier will never know and was now anchorless but, Coll, Coll, you must hope, you must cling to it even in the horror you must, you must, or you will die. Like your father. Right now.

  All right, all right. Regain, center, pull in, Collier’s out there.

  Focus.

  John’s tears flowed freely and wasn’t he now the craven little spectacle? Back on all fours, the dragon boots in front again, he looked up, glasses canted at a crazy level. How were they staying on?

  Lucifer stood tall, gloating, fire-lit Oakleys and a sneer distorting his very
pretty face. He held up John’s ear, or what was left of it, raw and bloody and the crowd roared again, sensual, lustful, waves of sound that were rape. Ankh smiled, feeding on it.

  You sonofabitch, you fuckin’ butcher bastard. Drakul, the undead, Impaler, every murdering piece-of-crap sadist in history, that’s you, Ankh. John was suddenly very very tired, unwilling to put up with one more second of this utter and complete BS. Who in the hell do you think you are, you cockeyed tattooed mace-headed bastard?

  And right then John knew, with all the reflexes of some Neolithic ancestor still screaming in his blood, that this was the moment.

  Because, you see, Ankh had made a time-honored mistake: forgetting about his opponent. Like too many armies and nations in history, he didn’t finish his enemy while he had the chance.

  Attila reeled drunkenly before the gates of Rome, Hitler danced at the edge of Dunkirk, and Johnson dithered while Charley slipped away. They all forgot resolve was universally shared. You may be convinced of your own power and invulnerability, but so was everybody else.

  That’s why Zulus threw themselves on British rifles, North Koreans on the barrels of American tanks, Iranians under the wheels of Humvees because, no matter the odds, no matter the apparent superiority of the foe, no one’s going down without a fight. The Zulus overwhelmed Rourke’s Drift, the North Koreans besieged Pusan, the Iranians stalemated the Zagros mountains. All Pyrrhic, all, ultimately, failures, but they scored, drove in the knife, took plenty with them.

  Surge. John felt it rise from the belly and caress his ravaged back. Kali swelled his heart and he stared at Nosferatu above him. That’s it. Going to shove a stake through your bloodless and rotting heart, cut off your abomination of a head and stuff it full of garlic. Time to cast ye down, Lucifer, Son of the Morning Star, time to, once again, assert that you may have dominion over the Earth, but not over its dwellers.

  John never lost track of the .25, despite getting half his head carved off. He marked it again, some inches past Ankh’s triumphant boots. “Tell me,” he gasped to those same boots.