by Scott Hale
“It’s not what it looks like,” Edgar whispered.
Felix said, “What the hell is it?”
“Necessary.” Edgar sank into his seat. “And whatever we want to say it was in the morning.”
They’re flesh fiends. Felix shook his head. Math may not have been his strong suit, but even he should’ve been able to put two and two together. He’d heard about the Cult of the Worm near Angheuawl and the flesh fiends there. He’d seen that servant… thing… Ezra in the attic with Joy during the meeting. There’d been whispers, too, around Ghostgrave about creatures in the dungeon. God, how could he be so stupid? Better yet, how could Edgar and Audra be so stupid? Why were they letting this happen?
Then again, what was happening? Joy was being a homicidal freak, which wasn’t all that surprising, but the Choir, her flesh fiends, they weren’t actually… doing anything. They weren’t… killing or raping or… eating people. They were just standing there. Things like that weren’t supposed to be just standing there, let alone wearing clothes. Either all the stories about flesh fiends had been a lie, or Joy had figured something out no one else had. Is that why she was here, right now, upstaging history? Edgar didn’t seem cool with it, but he wasn’t stopping it, either.
Is this a test? Immediately, he looked at Justine, who tested him constantly. And for the first time since they’d sat down, her gaze met his. It’s a test. This is my religion now. We’re not doing this. He took a (un)healthy gulp of wine and scooted his chair out as he stood. I’m not a statue.
Felix hurried past Valac, who reached out for him, but missed. Vision blurring, and unsteady, he went slowly down the steps. Commander Millicent said, “Your Holiness, wait…” but he didn’t. Down another tier, he noticed Isla. Her lips were stained, and her teeth were stained, and the armpits of her dress were soaked in sweat. She had a knife between her legs.
He wasn’t drunk enough to claim he didn’t know what he was doing, but all the same, Felix didn’t know what he was doing. He staggered onto the ballroom floor. For the moment, he went unnoticed by most, as many had crowded around Joy and her Choir, but with every second that passed, another head was turned and finger pointed, and talk of killing gave way to childish glee.
Felix smoothed out his robes as his guards, undoubtedly signaled by Commander Millicent, shoved their way through the crowd towards him. He took a deep breath. Anxiety was building inside him. It felt like he had a cushion around his heart, and every time it beat, it never could as hard as it should’ve. Stop, or go backwards, but never forwards, because you’ve been hurt, and you could hurt more. That’s what the anxiety always told him. That’s what the cuts on his thighs were for. If he hurt himself, no one else could. And for so long, no one had stopped him, even though they knew, so didn’t that mean he was right to do it? He took another deep breath. Tons of people were staring at him now, salivating praise. He was God’s Speaker. Like Justine said, Heaven was what they made it. All these adults didn’t know how to make things. They just built on things, or tore them apart. He knew what Heaven was supposed to look like. He’d dreamed about it so many times. Heaven was… It was… Well, he knew what it was. And it wasn’t about to be this.
The flies had found him. Carrying their drinks and hors d’oeuvre, Edgar’s esteemed guests drew nearer. Joy, still left with a degenerate audience of fifteen, pretended not to care that she was no longer the flavor-of-the-hour and encouraged her new friends to touch the Choir members. “Feel their muscles. Touch their teeth. They won’t bite… you. They are good stock. No, no… don’t lift the hoods. Some things are better left to imagination.”
A well-dressed man puffing out clouds of tobacco was the first to address Felix. “Your Holiness… it is…” He went to his knees. “It is an honor to be in your presence.”
“Rise,” Felix said. “How can I Speak for others, if I were to think myself above them?”
“Very good,” the man said, standing up into a bowing position. “Very good. If I—”
A woman in a flowing skirt with tattoos on her hand got pinned between two guards. Felix ordered them to step aside.
“Thank you, your Holiness.” She squinted at the guards. “I just want to say—”
More guests crowded around Felix, each of them fighting to talk over the other. He tried to get them to calm down, and for a moment they did, but not long after, they were back at it again.
“Your Holiness!” a man with feminine features cried. “See my devotion!”
The man tore open his shirt. Beneath his small breasts, where skin should’ve been was a patch of wriggling vermillion veins, like a pile of fat, juicy earthworms. Felix’s guards screamed in the man’s face to get back. But it was too late. Dicks were out.
An obese preacher with two chins too many rolled up his sleeve. Springing from his artery was a vermillion vein like a snake. It lashed and hissed, and he laughed.
A dwarf with a beard to his britches took off his hat. Vermillion veins like a bird’s nest sat atop his head, threaded into his skull.
From Felix’s left, two women approached, conjoined at the hips by their vermillion mutations. They rubbed the red, muscly bridge; stroked it, lustfully.
From his right, six foot of muscle opened his mouth and in place of a tongue, a trunk of vermillion veins lolled out. He said, “You Speak for me. I swear to you, I Speak for you.”
The guards closed ranks closer to Felix, but that didn’t stop Edgar’s guests from this grotesque show-and-tell. There vermillion veins in necks, in hands; some coming out of people’s shins, and other people were infested in one of their eyeballs. It wasn’t until a hairy twenty-something pulled down his pants, turned around, and started spreading that Felix had to look away.
Holy fucking Child, he thought. They’re all mutated. Chancing a glance, he looked back. Thankfully, the guy with his bare ass out was gone, but the creepshow was still just getting started. Between every person here, every body part had been afflicted by the vermillion veins. And they were proud of it. Excited to show it off. Think they’ve been chosen. Just another form of Corruption. He thought about Lotus, how the cabalists and Compellers had been infecting the food supplies in the Heartland with seeds of heaven. They were killing people, but… were they always trying to? Or were they just trying to level the playing field? He stared at King Edgar. Is that what pissed you off?
“Let’s give the Speaker some space,” he heard Joy say.
She cut through the crowd, Choir in tow, and charmed her way past his guards. Felix started up the steps, to rejoin the others, but he stopped himself and stood his ground. Bad as it might’ve felt, it felt good, too.
Joy got up on him and said, as they both stared out at the ballroom, “I have to thank you.”
“For… what?”
“All of this,” she said, arms out. “My sister and I used to draw crowds like this, but it has been difficult lately. What do you think of my children?”
He stared at the Choir in their eerie, stark white robes.
“Do you know why they don’t attack?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t want to take any credit away from Deimos. He did train them well. But… we are what we are. They are what they are. Maybe they won’t be in a few decades or centuries… You ever strapped down a cock before?” She laughed. “Anyway, those robes come from this.” She held the sides of her white satin dress. “I’ve killed so many, many, many things over the years. I’ve collected so much blood in it. Think of their robes as feedbags. They’re stuffing their mouths as we speak. All flowers need nutrients to grow, and once you’ve got a taste, you’ve got a taste. The Night Terrors tried to tell themselves otherwise, and look what happened to them.
“I’m getting off track.” Joy crouched down, so that they were eye-level with one another. “I was going to kill you.”
Every ounce of alcohol evaporated inside him.
“But not anymore. Not for now, at least.” She smiled her pearly whites. “Enjoy the
party, Felix. I know I will. And don’t think I don’t know what you all—”
Felix was hanging on Joy’s every word, but the slack had run out, and now he was fumbling for something as she was crouched there, staring at him, her eyes glazed over, her fingers twitching. Behind her, the Choir became agitated. They were pulling at their robes, and making animalistic sounds. Edgar’s guests, still in various states of undress, started to take notice, but given that most of them were trashed, and far too comfortable around monsters at this point, didn’t run but giggle and laugh instead.
Uh oh, Felix thought, backing away from Joy. There was merit in standing your ground, as long as there was ground under you. And he had a feeling the witch was about to pull the rug out from under them all.
Joy stood, her eyes the color of the Void, and stared directly at Isla. Clenching her teeth, balling her fists, she shook her head violently. “No,” she said. “Not possible.”
Isla pulled the knife out from in between her legs and held it shakily.
Huffing, Joy stepped backwards into the ballroom, rejoining the Choir. Shadows filled her face as she smiled manically and said to King Edgar, “I’ll forgive you when I’m through.”
Slamming her hands together, a heavy, clammy wind swept through the ballroom, extinguishing almost every one of the hundreds of candles lighting it. Edgar’s guests buttoned up their shirts and threw down the skirts, hiding their vermillion treasures, and screamed. Felix’s guards, eager to do battle, abandoned him for the witch, swords drawn.
The witch levitated off the ground and grabbed onto the chandeliers. Rocking them like a madwoman, slinging light and shadow across the panicking ballroom, she screamed, “You knew I knew and you did it, anyway, Nephew!”
King Edgar backed out of his chair.
The Choir swarmed the ballroom. They ripped off their robes, revealing their naked, aroused, scarified bodies beneath. Snarling, drooling, they threw themselves at the rich, tore into them. Garments as expensive as the lives they trampled on were shredded. Strips of flesh slapped on the marble floor; fistfuls of organs crushed and flung at those trying to flee, blinding them. Glass was shattered. Tables flipped. Steel sang as it hit the ground, and guards were overwhelmed, their faces buried in God’s children’s pumping pelvises.
Felix lost his balance, his sense of direction. Joy on the chandelier, swinging it back and forth, was making it too hard to tell what was going on, where he should go. He cried, “Justine!” and thought he saw her, but she never came. He fell down on all fours, climbed up the stairs. His hand pressed down on something slippery, and when the light swung back his way, found himself palming a severed ear.
He screamed, shot up to his feet. Something smashed into the tables. The light came back around. Where Isla had been sitting was a body. Not hers, but one of Felix’s guards. A flesh fiend that looked like a five-year-old in a grown man’s body was fisting the guard’s mouth.
“Felix!”
A hand grabbed his. He jerked away. The light swept over them. It was Valac. Not the person he wanted to see, but a person all the same. One he knew. Better than nothing.
“This way,” he said, grabbing his hand again.
Felix’s stomach turned, but he ignored it, and let Valac lead him through the dark. Maybe the freak’s eyes were better than his. He couldn’t say. But he helped Felix down the stairs. And then Joy, laugh-screaming, swung the light over their way, and he saw a door at the back of the ballroom. A way out. Thank God, a way out.
“She’s… insane,” Valac shouted over the horrifying sounds.
Felix tugged on his grip. “Where’s Justine?”
“Edgar got her out.” A door opened in the dark. “Here…”
Felix moved forward, and then he was flying forward. Valac had grabbed him and flung him through the doorway. The light came back, shone on Valac, archetype of betrayal. Smiling, he slammed the door behind them, locked it.
“No, no, no.” Felix hurried to his feet. He spun around, ran, but hit a wall. This wasn’t a way out, but some kind of storage closet. “No, get away,” he cried, blind in this dark. “No, fucking… Don’t!”
Valac grabbed Felix by his collar and threw him to the ground. A sharp pain shot up his back, and his elbow went numb. It was pitch-black in the closet, but he could see what he felt. And he felt everything.
The Anointed One lay on top of him. Felix tried to buck him off, but Valac was stronger, heavier. He grabbed Felix’s neck, pressed his thumb into his esophagus.
“Stop…” Felix wheezed. He punched Valac’s sides, kneed him. “S-Stop.”
Valac slapped him. Felix stopped fighting. Tears welled up in his eyes, dribbled down the sides of his face.
“We are creatures of imitations,” Valac said. He dropped down on top of Felix’s legs, and grabbed both his arms. “We both know you won’t be Speaking for God. Ever since I met Edgar in the Nameless Forest, he’s been trying to have it his way. That’s not how this works. I am the Harbinger. I say what goes.”
Felix was half-listening. Gone were the sounds of the flesh fiends feasting. They’d been replaced by rain dribbling on a thatch roof, and the wind moving through trees. Gone was Joy’s laughing. It was Samuel Turov coughing, instead. Valac’s weight on his limbs, that melted away, too. Now, his arms were free, and his legs were free, and he was naked under a scratchy blanket, waiting.
“It won’t hurt,” Valac said in Samuel Turov’s voice.
Darkness, then a red light. It started small at first, stretching like a tendon in that tenebrous haze, and grew larger, more intense. The glow spilled over features, until Felix realized it was coming from Valac’s gullet. His jaw had dislocated, and out of it, a second mouth emerged. It was filled with hundreds of vermillion veins pulled taut and beaded with phosphorescent pustules.
“I’ve been watching you. I know everything there is to know about you. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re not that remarkable, all things considered.” Valac scratched his second mouth open even further, revealing a tunnel of Corruption-colored light at the top of his throat. “I promise I will do your name justice.”
Valac bore down on Felix’s mouth. Lip to lip, tens of vermillion veins began to snake into Felix’s mouth, down his throat. He grabbed the Anointed One by his pudgy arms, sank his nails until they were wet with blood, but it didn’t matter. In a frenzy, he tore through Felix’s clothes, ripping off his underwear. The Anointed One widened its mouth and clamped down on his belly. He wasn’t going to stop.
Except, he did.
The vermillion veins were torn violently out of Felix’s throat. He gasped, spit up blood from where they’d cut his tongue. He scooted backwards, until his back slammed against the wall. Valac was on his knees, his glowing mouth pulsating, unraveling, as he grabbed desperately at something behind him. Felix heard a slice, a stab; and then saw a geyser of hot red blood shoot out and douse the walls.
Valac fell face first onto the ground, severely wounded but not dead. Over him Isla stood, the same knife she’d had between her legs now in her hands, dripping with the Anointed One’s unholy blood.
“Get up,” Isla cried.
Felix got up, but he didn’t move. Valac was still alive, clawing for him.
Isla screamed and dropped onto him. She rammed the knife into the child’s spinal cord. Vermillion veins shout out of the wound, wrapped around the blade. They tried to wrench it free from her hands, and when they couldn’t, they slipped back inside and rapidly repaired the damage. Isla was faster, though. In a blur of flesh and blood, she hacked and slashed and sawed at Valac’s body, mutilating him with such ferocity that Felix found himself, for a moment, more afraid of her than the flesh fiends outside.
Panting, Isla took the knife in both hands and drove it into Valac’s face. It went straight through his skull. The blade hit the ground, broke off. The vermillion veins inside his human husk stopped moving. He was dead. She punched him. Hard. Again and again.
Isla stepped over his corpse an
d lifted Felix into her shaking arms. She pressed her face hard into his and screamed at him, “Never again!”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Say it,” she cried, crying.
He opened them, met hers. “Never again.”
She smiled, and instead of setting him down, carried him in her arms out of the dark.
CHAPTER XLVIII
“We’re running out of time,” Audra cried to Deimos, as they hurried with several soldiers towards the dungeon. “Joy’s almost at the celebration.”
It was that, and it was something else, too. Ever since Audra had agreed to become Speaker for the Disciples, she’d had a migraine that sounded and felt as if someone were literally knocking on the side of her skull. It hurt so bad, she couldn’t keep down anything she’d eaten. The good thing about this very bad thing was that she knew what it was. She’d consented, and now God had come a-calling. Who knew how long the doors in her mind would hold until Heaven had them off their hinges. But if she could just see this through, then that was all that mattered. They’d taken a risk, putting hundreds of lives at stake for the sake of stroking Joy’s ego until she was good and drowsy. She had to do this. For once in her life, her powers had to be put to good use, because God knows if God would ever let that happen again once It got ahold of her.
“This will be a fight like no other,” Deimos warned the soldiers. There were twelve of them in all. They were Edgar’s finest. Commander Yelena led them. “Be ready to die.”
Audra might’ve snorted at that before, but he was right. No one was getting out of this unscathed.
They hurried down the stairs to the bowels of Ghostgrave. The dungeon wasn’t far now. The final report she’d received from her snitch was that Joy had packed the dungeons full of cabalists, and that Joseph Cleon was amongst them. Audra was surprised just as much as she wasn’t that Isla had given him up.
“Are you okay?” Deimos asked, drawing his sword.
