by David Beers
Only now, he thought that the sickness had finally grown larger than his love for God.
And that’s why, when he stood in the room with Sesam, hearing the offer, he’d been so conflicted. His entire life had been dedicated to serving the Lord, but Jackson couldn’t lie to himself and say that this was for God. It wasn’t. It was for him.
Because Nicki Sesam was the last one, and Jackson understood that better than anyone else in the world. Her father wasn’t wrong in thinking something was different about Jackson and his ability to find those with the sight. That ability also made him quite sure that after Nicki Sesam, there would be no others to find. He didn’t know what caused the abnormality to stop reproducing, but he was certain it had. There were no more. Nicki Sesam would be the last one he ever found, and with that realization, the affliction took over.
Had Jackson given his soul to it?
He thought, driving in the car he took from the Vatican, that perhaps he had.
Certainly if he was found out, he would be excommunicated, living the rest of his life in exile from the Church and God’s Grace.
So, yes, Jackson had sold his soul. Not cheap, though. He could take some pride in that. He would have the last one, the last person to possess the sight. Before, the moments had been fleeting. Maybe this time it didn’t have to be.
Maybe it could last forever.
Yule’s eyes were closed as he prayed. He needed no distraction right now, wanting to focus only on his call to God. When he spoke to God, he did it with a casualness that might have surprised those that knew him. The reverence that the Church displayed in public was missing. He spoke to God as if—and this would most definitely be interpreted the wrong way if someone found out—he was speaking to himself.
This girl, Yule prayed. She’s in this through no fault of her own. You know that. Man did this to her, my predecessors, and perhaps me too, if you want the honest truth. I didn’t understand what was happening beneath me, and even when I did, I didn’t act correctly. But regardless, it shouldn’t be put on her. From what I understand, she loved you. Her father brought her up in the Church. She’s one of yours, Lord, and now she needs your help. I need your help. I need you to guide me through this conversation with the High Priest, and I need you to change his heart. I don’t come to you a lot with needs, Lord. I try to come wanting to know what it is you want, but this time … this time I need our wills to be aligned here. Please help your faithful.
The Pope kept his eyes closed for a second, deciding if he wanted to plead his case any longer, but recognized additional words would be futile. The Lord knew what he wanted and talking to Him longer wouldn’t give Him any further information.
Yule opened his eyes.
The tarp had descended from the ceiling. It was still blank, waiting for the High Priest to connect from his side.
A few minutes passed, and then a large bald head filled his vision.
The lights in his office were dimmed, giving all focus to the tarp and the High Priest’s huge face that lay across it.
“We give thanks,” the High Priest said in the True Faith’s customary (and idiotic according to Yule) greeting. “Pope Pius XX, how may I be of service? It’s truly a glorious day, isn’t it? A glorious life, if you ask me. The Black has been defeated again, and humanity survives.”
He stopped talking abruptly, as if he hadn’t spoken at all.
“Yes,” Yule said. “It is a great day, and perhaps, a great life. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, High Priest.”
“Certainly. What is it you wish to discuss?”
Yule held his eyes firm, doing his best to give no indication of how nervous he felt. It wasn’t for his own life, or any possible slight to his ego if this man rejected him. The Pope felt fear for Nicki Sesam’s life. A girl he had not met, but whose fate rested in this man’s hands.
“I’d like to talk about the one with the sight. The woman we discussed before, with the other Ministries.”
The First Priest’s face didn’t change at all. He stared with that same blank look, his face untouched dough. “Yes?”
“We cannot locate her.”
“That isn’t good news. Especially given that we just defeated the weapon. Perhaps the Black is looking for a new one?”
Yule nodded slowly. “Perhaps.”
“Have you spoken with the other Ministries about this?”
“No,” the Pope said, shaking his head. “Only you.”
The High Priest’s lip twitched up slightly, in something that might have been considered a smile. He said nothing, though.
“You have her, High Priest,” Yule said. “Why?”
If the High Priest moved on his side of the world, Yule couldn’t tell. His face filled the entire tarp, but Yule imagined him leaning back wherever he was, taking in the question with a certain sense of happiness. His face showed none of that happiness, but Yule believed it was there all the same.
“I thought that might be what you contacted me about,” the High Priest said. He blinked once. “I thought to myself, what would this man do to have the girl back? If he thinks I actually have her, what would he do?”
He blinked again.
“Do you know what answer I came to, Most Holy Father?”
Yule was quiet.
“Nothing,” the High Priest said. “You would do nothing to get her back. And then I thought, well, what if he did? What if I’m wrong and he decides to actually act?”
Yule felt anger growing in him, a dangerous thing that he hadn’t felt in long years. Frustration, yes, but not rage like this.
“You couldn’t do anything to me or the True Faith if you decided to act. Your dedication to the old ways has left you defenseless against the world. You believe your faith in your God has kept you safe, but the truth is, only the Black has. Our common enemy kept us from overrunning you all these thousands of years.”
The High Priest swallowed, his throat clicking and the noise echoing off the Pope’s high ceilings.
“I kept thinking, though. I then asked myself, what if the Black isn’t coming back? What if with this last war, we finally won? Or, what if another thousand years passes before It returns? That seems like enough time to destroy the Old World and bring in whatever is left under the True Faith’s reign. Doesn’t a thousand years seem like enough time to you?”
“Are you declaring war, High Priest?” Yule asked.
“Oh, no. Of course not. I’m simply telling you the thoughts I had. Nothing more. Just things that went through my head when you asked for this meeting.”
“Why do you have her?” Yule asked. “What possible benefit can she give you that you couldn’t find somewhere else, with any number of women, if that’s your desire?”
“I would ask, why it matters to you what I want with her? You can’t do anything about it, so why trouble yourself?”
Yule’s fingers gripped the top of his desk until his bones ached.
“Give her back.”
“No, Most Holy Father. I don’t think I will. I think I’ll keep her.”
Seven
The High Priest left his chat with the Old World’s Pope feeling as he always did nowadays: content. He had always thought he understood contentment, that it rested in Corinth’s courage and love, but he now realized he’d been mistaken. It was all in Corinth’s plan, of course—that he should have been mistaken for so long. It was to show him that only by dedicating his life to Corinth, that he could finally find contentment.
And he had.
When the High Priest first decided to leave the True Faith years ago, he built multiple homes—and not just inside the One Path. He wanted to ensure that no matter what happened, he would always have somewhere to go. In the last week, he had moved, abandoning his previous home and taking up residence in another one. A much larger house. He wasn’t sure who all had uncovered his whereabouts, but he thought it safer to simply remove himself from any possible … interruptions.
The High Priest kne
w he would never go back underground. He wouldn’t return to the True Faith, and if he was honest with himself and Corinth, he wasn’t sure he would remain the High Priest for much longer. Reports came regarding the First Priest’s progress, but the High simply couldn’t bring himself to care about it at all. Everything regarding the Black and Its weapon, the rebuilding of the world; the High just found no interest in it.
And that’s why he was content.
He had everything he wanted.
Nicki Sesam.
“Nicki Sesam,” he whispered aloud. The name felt like sweet tasting honey on his tongue. It was a perfect name. Perhaps the only perfect name in the history of the world.
She had moved with him, of course. For the remainder of her life, she would be by his side. And if he died before her, he was already making arrangements that would allow her to remain next to him.
For a long time, the High Priest had lived alone—his only contact being through his nanotechnology. His old home had been little more than a single room.
Such loneliness and small space would no longer work, which was another reason for the move. The High needed both people around him, and a place for them to work. People with knowledge he didn’t possess that could do things he couldn’t.
Certain things had changed since his move, because Corinth had visited him again. He’d asked more of the High Priest.
Now, the High’s home bustled constantly with people. None dared come near his room, and that’s where he found the loneliness that he had grown to love. It was odd, stepping outside and seeing people working regardless the hour. Surely they slept, but their shifts allowed someone to always be working, creating what the High Priest now demanded to exist.
It hadn’t been done before. He knew that, but he didn’t care. Corinth had given him one last order, and if that meant creating something impossible, then he would do it. The more the High Priest thought about what was currently happening, the more he saw Corinth’s hand at work throughout his life. This home—above all the others—was massive, and almost perfectly suited for what Corinth demanded. The underbelly of the floating house contained barracks, and the High now realized he needed to fill them.
The world wouldn’t understand what he was doing here, and thus he would need to protect Corinth’s work.
Bring them to me, he told his nanotech. Shortly, a migration of Disciples would begin. They would come to his home in the sky, and defend Corinth with their life.
The High didn’t go to Nicki often, but rather stayed in his room and waited. He would sometimes walk out at night, when the moon was high and the lights were off inside his house. Whoever was working on her would leave the moment they saw him, which pleased the High Priest. He wanted to be around no one but Nicki. Forever.
He would stare at her for a time, though the High didn’t know exactly how long. Her eyes were open, and her body cast in blue light. The metal contraption that hung around her kept her in place, and she looked simply beautiful.
“Is she alive?” he had asked the first time he saw her. She hadn’t spoken, nor was she eating. She possessed no nanotech, so tubes were delivering nutrients to her, and she only stared out blankly at him.
“Yes, she is, your Holiness,” someone told him.
That was all he needed to know. As long as she wasn’t dead, the High Priest would get what he wanted. First, Corinth’s new goal, and then … her brain. That special, special brain.
The people working around the High Priest understood that he was insane. When first hearing their new assignment would be working directly under the High Priest, most had felt both nervous and excited. When they gazed upon the old man, those two emotions vanished.
Excitement simply couldn’t live next to such … a creature.
And nervousness morphed immediately into something more primal: terror, not just for their life, but perhaps for their very soul.
All who came to the High Priest’s new domain found themselves in deep prayer their first night of sleep. They prayed to Corinth and promised that whatever sins they had committed, they were sorry for, and that if they could just make it out of here alive, they would rededicate their lives to Corinth’s Proclamations.
Because, throughout the home, there was a real feeling that no one would make it out alive.
What they were doing here wasn’t just ghastly—it was wrong.
The word creature came to many of their minds when they saw him because the word human wouldn’t. As if the workers thought with a hive mind, each person simply couldn’t bring themselves to think of such a being as a person. He held the attributes of a man, but whatever filled him … it wasn’t the same as everyone else inside the house.
The High Priest rarely spoke to anyone, so it wasn’t his words that gave away the thing residing inside his body. It was his eyes. They told of two contradictory things. A depth that if one fell into, they would never escape from. They would simply drop deeper and deeper into it, falling beneath the surface; and regardless how furiously their arms and legs pumped, they would only plunge further down. The second thing they saw in his eyes—and clearly a contradiction to the first—was nothing at all. Nothing rested beyond the brown eyes that stared out at them. No depth. No personality. No nothing.
He was hollow.
And all who encountered this knew how insane it sounded, but yet none would deny it.
They didn’t whisper about him; no one said a word about what they thought to anyone else, though all thought the same things. To say it aloud was to risk everything.
They worked on a monstrosity that shouldn’t exist. Not that it shouldn’t be allowed to exist, but that it simply shouldn’t. No one—no human—would ever consider something so horrible. It was a tribute to the workers’ belief in, and love for, Corinth that they told no one. The High Priest was insane, and might no longer be part of the human species, but Corinth had appointed him and His will was to be followed at all costs.
So, they worked day and night, the insane creature remaining in his room. They worked around a young girl whose body said she still lived, but who showed no sign that she understood anything happening to her. They worked, building something terrifying.
Something that shouldn’t exist.
The apparatus Nicki hung inside wasn’t something the Catholic Church could have conceived of … at least not any longer. Perhaps when they first began their program after Rachel Veritros, but those years of technical advances were far gone. The Catholic Church, for 1,000 years, had only tried to kill those with the sight.
The High Priest, in his insanity, dreamed larger, though.
Corinth had come to him again since capturing Nicki Sesam, though only once. The High Priest hadn’t known if he was dreaming or not, but details like that didn’t matter anymore. His sanity now snapped, dreaming and waking were all the same, for he saw only the reality he wanted.
The two sat in his new home, on the floor of his bedroom. His father’s body wore Corinth’s head, and the High Priest was a younger version of himself again.
When he first sat down, he looked at Corinth expecting to see the God he’d always viewed at times like this.
Only, Corinth’s face was melting. Half of it, at least. The other half held up firm. The left side was dripping, his eyelid halfway down his face and the skin supposed to cover his jaw swinging nearly at his shoulder.
“Are you okay?” the small boy asked, his voice sounding like an elderly man 200 years older.
“What do you mean?” Corinth asked.
“Your …,” and then the High Priest wondered if he should say something at all. If Corinth didn’t know what was happening to Him, was it the High’s place to say?
“My High Priest, what is it?”
“Nothing. I’m just surprised to see you again.”
Corinth leaned forward, the flesh on the left side of his face hanging outward like drapes. The High Priest looked at the pure white bone beneath, wondering how blood wasn’t dripping off him.
>
Oh.
Blood started seeping from Corinth’s eyelid then, dripping down his sagging skin—a single red line. His wretched lips, drooping in a half frown, began next. Blood flowing over them and then to his flapping chin. The blood leaked down the front of his clothes.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” the High Priest had said, doing his best to not show the disgust he felt inside.
“You have her, I see? Nicki Sesam?”
The High Priest nodded.
“Have you extracted her brain?”
The High Priest shook his head. “No, not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I … I’ve been moving,” the High Priest said, feeling idiotic as the words passed from his lips. He hadn’t expected any of this—Corinth showing up, his bloody, drooping face, nor all these questions. Corinth had given him permission to do as he wanted, and what he wanted was to extract Nicki’s brain at his own pace, and then keep it in a jar next to him for the rest of his life.
“I didn’t want to bring this up, my High Priest, as I feel it might be a bit … uncouth. Have you noticed my face?”
The High Priest nodded slowly.
“Yes, yes. I thought you might have, but if you hadn’t, I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I’m sure you can understand. Well, it appears to be melting right off my head. Would that be your assessment?”
Another nod.
“Yes, I was afraid that would be the case as well. Tell me this, my High, what do you know about this girl? What is she capable of?”
“I … I …,” the High Priest found himself stammering as Corinth’s chin stretched far enough to actually rest on his shoulder. It was no longer swaying. The High blinked, trying to gain some measure of control. “I believe she was created to mimic what the weapon could do, at least in being able to contact the Unformed. The ….” He dropped his eyes for a second, simply unable to continue watching the bloody flesh dripping like melting plastic. “The Catholic Church was never able to make it work, though.”
