Midian Unmade

by Joseph Nassise

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Causwell held something small and furry in his hands. He tried to hide it behind his back, but Luna saw it dripping on the concrete floor.

  “Are you eating rats again?”

  Causwell grinned a bloody, guilty grin. “I’m building up my strength.”

  “For what?”

  Causwell looked away. “Always good to have strength.” He changed the subject. “How is it out there?”

  “Still dark,” Luna said.

  “No change?” he asked. “No call?”

  “If there was, I didn’t hear it.”

  “I told you. No one is coming. The Breed are gone. They’re all dead.”

  “Not all,” Luna said. “There is the one known as Cabal. He who…”

  “Unmade Midian,” Causwell finished. “He who helped cast us out.” He spat on the floor.

  Luna shrugged. “No refuge is forever.”

  “You sound like Baphomet. And where is he now?”

  “Don’t blaspheme.”

  “I didn’t. I asked a question.”

  “I have no answers. I’m tired.”

  “Sleep, then. But don’t dream. There is no comfort in dreams. If we’re to find survival, it must be of our own making.”

  Luna smiled faintly. “That’s the spirit.”

  “There is no spirit,” Causwell said. “Only flesh.”

  He looked down at the dripping piece of rat in his hand and stuffed it into his mouth.

  * * *

  Luna didn’t know the girl, but she recognized her right away.

  She found her under a stunted tree on the edge of a sprawling, empty parking lot. It was in the industrial part of the city, near an old warehouse whose roof was full of holes. The girl—younger than Luna, maybe twelve—lay shivering beneath a pile of newspapers. Luna thought she was sleeping, but as she pulled the papers away, she saw the girl was bleeding. She was full of holes, too.

  “What happened to you?”

  The girl tried to shift away, and grimaced in pain. In a low, trembling voice, she said, “Please, let me be.”

  Luna touched the girl’s cheek, smeared with grime.

  The girl recoiled.

  “You’re Nightbreed.”

  The girl turned her head to look up at Luna.

  There was no question. The girl’s black hair was truly raven, not hair at all but feathers that curved down in a sleek wave to frame her porcelain doll face. Her eyes were small and brown; her nose was hooked, her mouth a lipless line that quivered with fear and pain.

  “I don’t know you,” she said, but her imploring eyes held a glimmer of hope.

  “My name is Luna.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “The Lighthouse! I should have known. Your eyes!” She tried to raise herself up, then slumped back to the ground, wincing. “It hurts. It hurts even to breathe.”

  Luna put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, easing her down. “Tell me your name.”

  “Mordryn.” She clenched her teeth, and Luna saw they were small and sharp, a mouthful of tiny fishhooks. “Mordryn of Midian.”

  “Midian is gone,” Luna said.

  “I know it.”

  “Who did this to you?”

  “Men,” Mordryn said. “Monster men.”

  “From this place?” Luna asked. “The city?”

  Mordryn shook her head with a faint ruffle of feathers. “No,” she said. “But they followed us here.”

  “Us? There’s more of you? Other Breed?”

  “Not now. The monster men got them. They hunt us.” She reached out and gripped Luna’s wrist with a yellow, reptilian hand. Talons lacquered with hot pink nail polish pierced her skin, drawing small pearls of blood. Luna barely noticed, her attention focused entirely on the words coming out of Mordryn’s trembling mouth.

  “They eat us,” she said. “They tried to eat me but I got away from them.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Monster men,” she said. “They call themselves the Sugar Babies. They followed us from Midian.”

  Luna was confused. “I thought the men who destroyed Midian were killed.”

  “They were,” Mordryn said. “These were the men who came after.” She flung her head back and sobbed. “Our mistake was going back.”

  Luna shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “After Midian fell, a group of us left. We didn’t know where to go. We traveled north, into the Territories, but it was cold and we couldn’t find shelter. So we went back.” She closed her eyes and spoke the words like a mantra: “Our mistake was going back.”

  “To Midian?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Midian is gone.”

  “I know, but we were tired and hungry. We took refuge in the ruins. Then the monster men came. The Sugar Babies.”

  “I don’t know who they are.”

  “They look like men in suits. Do you know suits?”

  Luna nodded.

  “The suits are as false as the men. They’re monsters wearing other monsters. The ties they wear around their necks are alive! They move like snakes, and the men talk to them!”

  “What happened?”

  “We ran,” Mordryn said. “We came here, to this city. But the Sugar Babies followed us. There are others of our kind here. We saw them. Tribes on the move. We warned them about the monster men, but they found us. They killed my friends. They were saving me for last. They called me their little treat, their dessert.” She let go of Luna’s arm and covered her eyes with her hands. “Our mistake was going back.”

  Luna cradled her and told her everything was going to be okay, but Mordryn died that night with the mistake still in her mouth.

  * * *

  The Lighthouse.

  She never thought she’d hear that name again. She had gone by many names in Midian. To the trolls she was Li’l Luna. To the blind witches, the hagathas, she was Helper Girl. It was Wardent and his clan—a brave and foolhardy group of souls who went on raiding missions to Dwyer and Shere Neck for supplies—who called her the Lighthouse.

  She had earned the nickname by climbing to the top of Midian’s tallest structure, a towering obelisk that the Nightbreed had called the Strivent, to stand as lookout for Wardent and his raiders.

  Every time before they left on a run, Wardent would curl one of his claw-tipped fingers under Luna’s chin and tilt her head up to him. His pale yellow eyes, slit by triangular pupils, would stare into her glowing blue ones, and he’d say, “Keep a watch, little one. Climb to the top of the Strivent and show us the light. That’s what you are, the Lighthouse of Midian. Show us the way home.”

  Luna was certain that Wardent and the others could find their way back without her, but she was glad to be included. With their excited howls still echoing through the night, she would climb the Strivent, digging her fingers into the cracks in the cold stone while the wind tried to pull her off and fling her to the ground. Once she reached the top, she would open her eyes as wide as possible, and even though she was far above Midian, and the Breed so far below the ground, she could see them, her people, her family, down past the graves and tombs, deep within the catacombs, thousands of darkling souls. She’d stay up there for hours, eyes blazing out into the night, until Wardent and the others returned with their pillage.

  She knew they didn’t really need her light. But they wanted her there, and that was more important. That was what made them family. What made them Nightbreed.

  * * *

  There was something different about the radio station.

  Luna couldn’t tell what it was at first. The building looked as decrepit as ever. A yellow-brick box with a metal tower sprouting from the roof. Smashed-out windows glaring like black, blind eyes. The pavement cracked and frost-heaved, sprouting weeds.

  She stepped through the glassless front door and called out in a timid voice, “Causwell?”

  No answer.

  She started down the stairs to the baseme
nt … and froze.

  Something different, right there. A ragged curtain hung across the entrance at the bottom of the stairs. Luna approached it slowly, warily, swept it aside—it was dry and thin, like very old paper—and stepped through.

  As she stood there looking around, a series of emotions coursed through her; surprise, sadness, dread, and finally, fascination.

  Causwell wasn’t in the basement.

  Causwell was the basement.

  He had done something with his body, extended it, stretched it, spread it out across the walls and floors. His flesh and bones had been transformed into a structure that infused itself with the building’s architecture. The previously sagging ceiling was now supported by beams of bone. The cold concrete floor was carpeted in warm, soft flesh. Luna looked over her shoulder at the curtain she had passed through. Not a curtain, she saw now, but a diaphanous sheet of skin.

  This was unlike anything she had ever seen Causwell create before. And yet she knew it was him. His body, his smell, was unmistakable. But why had he done it? If he had grown tired of life, he would have killed himself. He had talked about it enough. But what she was looking at wasn’t the result of suicide. Quite the opposite.

  She found his head in the corner where he’d taken refuge so many times before. His skull seemed to grow right out of the Sheetrock, his blanched face peering at her like someone sunk almost completely in quicksand.

  Luna leaned down to cradle his cheeks. “Oh, Causwell, what have you done?”

  “I built it for them,” he said in an airless voice.

  “For who?”

  “The others,” he gasped. “The ones who will come.”

  Luna brushed her fingers across his forehead. “You said they were all dead. You didn’t believe.”

  “I believe in you,” Causwell said. “You’ve always been able see further than I can.” His eyes darted around the room, admiring the sanctuary he’d made. “But it’s not finished. I’ll need more…” His gaze fell to the floor.

  Luna looked down at the desiccated rat carcasses scattered about.

  “I’ll bring you more,” she said. “As many as you need. And I’ll bring them, too.”

  Causwell smiled. “I know you will.”

  * * *

  She went up to the roof.

  The cold wind caressed her, blew her hair around her face. The light in her eyes ebbed and flowed.

  She went over to the broadcast tower and began to climb.

  Her mind drifted back to the day of her baptism in Midian. The cold fire of Baphomet’s touch, his enormous hands raising her up, his words searing into her mind, branding her brain.

  You will light the way. When everything goes dark, when all ways are lost, you will be the beacon. You will guide them.

  She reached the top of the tower. She couldn’t tell if it was as tall as the Strivent, but it didn’t matter. There was a light at the tip, but it was dark. That didn’t matter, either.

  She opened her eyes—opened them wide—and her light shone out across the night sky.

  It was not a light for all to see. It was a private light. Only the Breed would see it. Only the Breed would know it. She hoped Wardent would be the first to come. If he was still alive. If he was out there, somewhere. She wanted to feel his claw-tipped finger tilt her face up to his. She was his Lighthouse. Now she would be the Lighthouse for all the Nightbreed. She would guide them here to the House of Causwell.

  She clung to the tower with her legs, her arms flung wide, her eyes blazing.

  And she waited for them to come.

  LAKRIMAY

  Nerine Dorman

  I like the big house better than when Mom and I used to stay in the flat. There are lots more rooms where I can play hide-and-seek, and the furniture has dragon feet holding balls. At night I’m sure the tables and chairs go for walks. Mom says I’m silly but if I lie awake after the lights go out then I hear feet marching along the passage outside my room. Up and down they go all night. Sometimes someone calls a name, over and over again. It’s a woman, and she says Lilium, Lilium … Lilium. So sad it makes my chest tight and my eyes burn.

  I asked Uncle Rory about the people in the passages but he just looked at me funny. Mom told me to stop talking nonsense, but I know I hear footsteps. I hear them every night but I don’t get out to look because then the shadow thing under the bed will grab my feet.

  Sometimes I want to call out “Here I am!” when the woman asks for Lilium, but I’m scared I’m going to get into trouble for waking Mom and Uncle Rory.

  We live by the sea now but Mom hasn’t taken me to the beach yet. It’s walking distance, she says, and we’re right by the big lagoon where the flamingos visit. I like the flamingos and I want to go look at them, and also go on the swings by the play park, but I’m not allowed outside the gate without Mom or Auntie Stella. Uncle Rory is always too busy in his studio so I mustn’t bother him but I don’t like Auntie Stella. She comes to look after me every day and she stinks like cigarettes and her perfume is too sweet. I can taste it when she hugs me or picks me up. I don’t like it when she hugs me. The skin on her neck looks like wrinkly rubber and I think it’s a mask. Underneath her skin is scaly, like in that TV show I’m not allowed to watch where the bad people are green and swallow rats.

  Mom says I must be very quiet during the day because Uncle Rory works from home. He takes photos of the nice ladies who have bright red lips and wear panties. I know this because they come outside to smoke cigarettes when they have their tea break. They are always nice to me. Once they put some lipstick on me but Auntie Stella got very cross and made me wipe my mouth clean before Mom got home or Uncle Rory saw. She says they are bad ladies but how can they be bad when they are so nice to me?

  Uncle Rory often has parties at the house. I’m supposed to be in bed then but I wear my blanket like a wizard’s cloak and sneak around. The adults are always so busy talking and laughing and dancing. They listen to music so loudly they have to yell to hear each other. Sometimes the nice ladies with the bright red lips are there, like Sindy and Desiré. I want to talk to them but they are busy—pouring drinks and chopping white powder on plates with their bank cards. Chop. Chop. Chop.

  Then they roll up money and stick the tubes in their nose and sniff loudly.

  I tried the same the other day. I didn’t have money so I drew paper money and rolled it up. I got some flour from the kitchen and Auntie Stella found me trying to make those lines. Chop. Chop. Chop. But I didn’t have a bank card so I was using my fingers and I got flour all over the tiles in the hallway.

  Auntie Stella was very cross and smacked my bum.

  I’ll be a good girl. I won’t stick things in my nose again.

  Not long after we move in I see the green lady. She stays in the room under the stairs that go to the basement. She has long black fingernails like claws and eyes like a cat. I’m scared of her but she’s nice to me and whispers at me to come downstairs to talk to her.

  “Look, little girl, I have a present for you,” she says, and holds out her hand.

  Her eyes gleam in the low light, but I’m scared of going down the stairs because of the shadows. I don’t look too closely at her gift.

  But I’ll sit at the top, and the green lady will sing and tell me stories about a city under the ground called Midian, where all the monsters go.

  “Will you take me there?” I ask her.

  The green lady smiles and shakes her head. “I can’t.”

  Auntie Stella doesn’t like it that I sit by the basement’s stairs so much. I hear her tell my mom, “Jennifer needs to go to play school to be with other children her age. It’s not right that the child be inside all day. She’s making imaginary friends.”

  “What is your name?” I ask the green lady one day.

  “Lakrimay,” says the green lady.

  “Are you an imaginary friend?” I ask.

  Lakrimay smiles and shakes her head sadly. Then she reaches into the pocket of her black dress
and offers me a little bone. It nestles in her palm and makes me think of a long, thin finger. “I’ve got a present for you. Will you come downstairs and get it?”

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “It’s an albatross bone,” says Lakrimay. Then she tells me how the giant birds spend months at sea and never touch the land, always wandering, wandering in the wind. Yet every year they go back and meet their mates at the same place.

  I want to go down into the basement but I can’t. The shadows will pour down my throat and choke me. As it is, my heart is racing so much I’m scared it’s going to end up in my mouth. Maybe that’s why I sit at the top of the stairs—to see how long I can be at the edge where the day melts into night.

  The next morning, when I wake up, the albatross bone is on my bedside table. The surface is creamy and smooth, and so very light. I think of the bird with the big wings flying forever, never resting, never walking, and I wonder what it must be like to soar like that.

  “What is that ugly thing you got there?” Auntie Stella asks me when she comes to get me dressed for breakfast.

  “It’s an albatross bone,” I tell her.

  “Sies, that dirty thing? Give it here.” She reaches out for it but I’m faster than her, and I run away to one of the rooms upstairs on the second floor where I’m not supposed to go.

  “Jennifer!” Auntie Stella screeches. “Come back here this instant!”

  I pretend I don’t hear her and I go hide my albatross bone in the room Mom calls the spare room, where an orange quilt covers a big bed. This room scares me sometimes because I can hear a clock ticking and the air is always very thick. Sometimes I think there is a monster hiding in the cupboard, and if I keep my back to the doors, it’s going to jump out with long, spider hands and snatch me into the darkness.

  But no one goes here except for the time when there was one of the parties, and I saw the man and the woman wrestling on the bed. There’s a little table with a drawer on the side by the window, and I hide the bone in the drawer where I put the marble I found in the garden. This is my treasure chest where I’m going to put all my special things, I decide. Magic things, like when I was grubbing in the flower bed and my fingers closed around the cat’s-eye marble.