Black & Orange

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  “Yes, I know,” he said lowly.

  “Has he called in from upstairs?”

  The acolyte shrugged. Several oblong holes opened the stitching of his t-shirt. Cole saw a pimple on the shoulder peering up through the cut like an angry eye. These people did not belong under a Bishop of Midnight. It showed how little Quintana cared for the title. It made Cole’s hand itch for his gun again, but he ate the pain of it.

  “We knocked on the Priestess’s door last night,” said the acolyte. “Vince went this morning. We didn’t get an answer. Her bodyguard wasn’t outside neither.” Realization brought down the sky-high gaze. “You think it was the Heralding?”

  “No,” Cole put simply. The man blinked. By his demeanor, it was obvious he and the others figured something fatal and nasty had happened to Paul—it didn’t break them up too much, but that wasn’t a surprise.

  “Vince has been taking care of everything. But Bishop Quintana gave him instructions if we couldn’t get in touch. We’re pretty worried.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Bishop?”

  Cole turned to walk back down the hall and sensed the door start to close. Now it all came down. He wheeled around and the man blinked again, askance. “Oh, yes,” Cole said. “I forgot. If I want to call back later and check in with you guys, is your cell number 5612?”

  The guy rubbed his crusted eye with his shoulder. “Yeah, that’s Vince’s.”

  Cole’s .45 swung out. The first silenced slug collapsed the man’s right cheek, a surprisingly dry cave-in; the second darted through his gaping mouth and smacked the door behind him, sending it flying against the stopper. A tooth fragment split the skin near Cole’s left eye socket. He waited a moment in the hallway, to listen for any sudden movements in any other room, or any doors flying open. A minute went by. He fanned the air for the gunsmoke smell.

  Cole stepped over the acolyte’s body. With his foot he pushed the mushy head to the side and shut the door. The layout of the room was similar to his, except there were only two bedrooms and the kitchenette was half as large. The corpse’s room was ajar. Pungent marijuana smoke drifted out the threshold. Cole went farther into the living room, knowing the flow of murder had only just trickled in the mighty river to come.

  The other bedroom door came open. Vince Stogin padded out with a bowl of cereal held close to his crunching jaws. His long hair was up in a ballerina bun with a florescent orange hair clip biting into it. Through slurps and crunches, “Hey fool, wanna see that thing with the Bishop one more time—?”

  When their eyes met, the bowl dropped. Soggy golden squares scattered over Vince’s flip-flops. His hands went up so high his knuckles smacked the doorframe. “I just did as Bishop Quintana told me. Please don’t kill me. Oh fuck! I’m so sorry. Please. It’s Paul’s fault. He made the fucking thing!”

  Cole lowered the barrel a hair. Red thoughts still burned in the forefront. His ears drowned in hysteria.

  Vince laughed nervously. “It’s no big deal—right? You weren’t with her then—a lot of people do this kinky shit. Don’t get carried away.”

  The next moment Vince’s brains strafed over the ceiling in a stunning orange detonation.

  ~ * ~

  Melissa watched the pixilated penis slop out. Naked male bodies thronged around her. Her mouth ran with syrupy white strands. Paul’s puppet strings. Astonished wasn’t the word for how she felt. After I stole those damned seeds too!

  The video played ten times before she deleted the file. The video had also been forwarded to Cole. That aspect hadn’t really settled yet. Cole had left their room early, in good spirits, to track down Paul. That had been about fifteen minutes before this thing infected her phone. Maybe someone killed Paul last night and that’s why his acolytes sent this—one last fuck-you.

  She hoped the bastard was dead, or at least suffering somewhere. Wishful thinking. This shouldn’t have happened. Melissa should have been more firm with Paul. In some way she didn’t think he’d really follow through. There could be some hope though. It was possible Cole wouldn’t check the phone. He hated technology most times and refused to learn anything new about cell phones other than how to send and receive a call. He even remembered most phone numbers rather than build a contact list.

  Oh Cole! This is so fucked. She couldn’t take this back, not after lying. All she could do was try to make him understand that she hadn’t wanted to lie. The truth was too much. Maybe if he overlooked the message, she could delete the video. As Cole often liked to quote the Tomes: You will set yourself free, no one but you.

  Melissa gripped the comforter until her knuckles cracked. The room had become frigid. The rain was hissing outside. She had to entertain a bitter prospect: Cole knew. Avoiding that as a possible outcome could prove fatal. Could he really do that? He loved her so goddamn much. Too much, yes? He wouldn’t do anything. Would he? Wouldn’t lay a hand on her. Don’t be naïve, she told herself. She was going to die if she didn’t champion through this.

  I do love him. I do. I do love him. I do.

  It wasn’t a reassuring mantra. Her breathing matched her heartbeat. She wanted to bawl but the fear of clouding her vision burned the tears away. He forgave me the kiss. He can forgive me this. It’ll be difficult, but he’ll come around in time. He needs you.

  What if he doesn’t?

  She deserved it then. Was that it?

  Several solutions existed, even though they were painted in pessimism.

  Her phone’s alert went off and she shrieked. Main Menu. Text messages. Inbox.

  NEW MESSAGE – COLE. The sweaty pad of her thumb touched the select button and held there. She could use what Sandeus had told her to get his mind back on Halloween. It was time she told him about that anyway. But—no, it wouldn’t be as easy as changing the subject. She could beg forgiveness and try to reassure him that one encounter wasn’t important to her. Because that’s what this was really about—she was ruined when they met. This was a male thing, a pissing on a hydrant thing. If reassuring Cole wasn’t appealing, she could always drive far away and never return. But Cole wasn’t some estranged ex-boyfriend. He had those seeds growing inside, making him a surrogate denizen of the Old Domain. What if they guided him to her? What then?

  Her thumb descended on the button and she read Cole’s text message.

  VIDEO SENDER IS DEAD. JUST LIKE US.

  He’d learned his phone after all.

  Outside the raindrops fell quicker, a countdown to zero.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Paul watched Eggert grinning like a feral cat, gnashing his teeth, moaning in husky ohs and ahs, rolling his eyes to the whites. The coitus was preformed not but two feet away, which Paul figured intentional. The barrel-chested grizzly propped his bulk up with one planted arm, and pulled up his pants. He whistled a sigh of relief and his eyes lowered to Paul’s. “Excellent,” he said and cleared his throat. “I was hoping you’d wake soon. You missed everything that went on before. I’ll have to go again to show you how it’s done.”

  Paul stared away. He couldn’t assemble his thoughts into anything meaningful. The only fully-realized concept took little deconstruction: this was a bad situation and this man would probably kill him soon. Paul’s body twisted at the notion. Threads of fire stringed into every nerve and his wrists throbbed where the zip tie cut into them. Sweat stung his flesh.

  The Priestess lay there, eyes up and out, a pool of honey hair around her precious, empty face. He saw her breasts rise and fall, lifting gently with the expanse of her lungs. Paul wanted to weep. Her body was keeping alive somehow—maybe a part of her still lived deep inside? After he quit the throes of self-admonishment, Paul cupped through the muck layering his own consciousness. The room cleared and images redefined. Had to get rid of Eggert. Had to bring her back. Had to.

  Eggert set a pillow from the divan on the floor.

  Paul refused to show an emotion. When Eggert sat on the pillow, he saw two other things he’d brought over: a full bot
tle of Everclear grain alcohol and a hunting knife that could have once belonged to a Mongol warrior. The big man dissected him with crocodile eyes. Paul tried to will himself into passing out again. Eggert’s voice crept through the darkness of his mind. “You don’t understand a thing about us.”

  Through the hum of his swollen lips, Paul said, “Is this where you give me a lesson?”

  His head cranked to the side and a million starbeams snapped in half and collided. Eggert had struck him with something short and blunt. The impact had broken a piece of tooth and drove it into Paul’s gum line. He felt the blood dam up behind his bottom lip and rush over the side.

  “I won’t waste my time educating you,” Eggert replied a moment later, with not so much as a deep breath. He was holding the butt of his knife up and tapping his chin with it. “But you do need to know what you took from me, what you took from our land, from the Ekki fields.”

  “What did I take?”

  Eggert’s lower lip trembled as though he’d been the one popped in the face. “We’ve sent many of our own through the gateway. The Archbishops use Ekkians for personal guards—” The word didn’t fit well on Eggert’s lips. “Mere sentries guarding the vanity of power stricken fools? We do not complain. Though our blades lust for the Hunt, we are made to govern hallways.”

  “What the fuck does this have to do with—”

  Paul flinched as the knife rose in the air. Eggert thought a moment and lowered it. “You’ve taken my only reason for coming here.”

  Paul opened his eyes slow, like movie curtains. “If you would just—”

  Eggert’s laugh was a hound’s cry. It made Paul wince. Eggert twisted the jagged blade in the air. Dull, rainy light from the windows patterned the silver surface. His nostrils flared. “Only the Nomads could undo what you’ve done.”

  “Let’s find them, now, tonight. Untie me—”

  “Stop talking! Stop your foolish throat!”

  “You don’t want to save her?” Paul demanded.

  Eggert pointed at the Priestess’s inert body. “She’s already dead. All that remains, I will enjoy.”

  “Her heart still beats. We have a chance.”

  Silence filled the space between and sucked the oxygen from the room. Paul glanced to the Priestess, then at the shattered cell phone near the wall. His acolytes would be looking for him. Where the hell were Melissa’s people? They were supposed to be keeping an ear to the ground too. Oh but wait, thought Paul. Oh shit—there was more to this now. He hoped those assholes hadn’t finally followed through with one of his orders.

  Eggert ripped through Paul’s right pectoral. The incision didn’t hurt at first. He was still partially numb. But the cut flared in the seconds following. It flared and then raged. Paul screeched. A trickling flow from the chest wound went down his stomach and into his thicket of pubic hair. He spit at Eggert, but the bloody wad did not find its intended home. “The hotel will come, you know. You can’t cut me to pieces without them sending someone up here.”

  Another wildcat grin. “They’ve grown accustomed to screaming in this room. They’ve been paid to ignore it, in fact, and the other adjoining rooms are inhabited by Church members who know the Priestess’s tastes. So you tell me, will the magistrate really send soldiers here?”

  Paul just wanted to fold into himself and die. The cut didn’t hurt as much now, but it bled steadily. Not gushing though; Eggert would torture wisely.

  Then Paul’s voice hit a note he’d no idea he was capable of hitting. The grain alcohol boiled in his wound. Through his tears he saw Eggert take a swig of the pure alcohol as though soda pop. He brushed some droplets away from his beard and breathed out through his teeth. “The only libation here that comes close to Ekkian mead. It will empower me for all the pleasure to come.” Then he raised the knife.

  ~ * ~

  There were seven cuts Paul remembered. Despite the lyrics of that popular song, the first, then the third and then the sixth were the deepest (in that order), and consequently these cuts were also the most brutal coupled with the Everclear. Piss-ass drunk, Eggert became sloppy with the knife around the sixth cut, although the seventh, not deep, was a nasty drag from armpit to hip. It marked the skin like a red highway. Eggert took a minute-long swig and his eyes bloomed with the taste. He’d already thrown up on Paul two times. Laughed about it the first time. Laughed through it the second. Then went on cutting. Eggert’s eyes had become pasty and self-aware of his drunkenness. Through the careless torment, Paul’s eyes roamed to the Priestess, just to see, to be sure he hadn’t lost her. She still breathed.

  The big man pulled his pillow closer. The smell of the alcohol had the intense quality of nail polish remover and the leftover vomit hit Paul’s nostrils with a caustic tang. Eggert scooted a bit more, careful not to get within touching distance—he might have been drunk, but he knew the power Paul possessed and wouldn’t risk a fate worse than the Priestess’s. Paul couldn’t have done anything though. His pain muddled everything. He’d tried to dissolve the zip ties several times but couldn’t break through the anguish. In the beginning he might have had a chance if Eggert hadn’t beat him unconscious. Since then the voice of the marrow blossoms had gone mute.

  “You not blee-ding,” Eggert slurred, “enough. Enough. Enough.” His bushy head rolled to the Priestess as though it might fall off his shoulders. He whimpered at the sight of her and his swollen, blood-flecked fist clenched the knife so tight it looked like a speckled dinosaur egg. “Sho beautiful. Wanted her sho badly, sho long. Followed her to this land. Now shuy’s gone home. Lef-me. I want t’feel the knives o’ her voice… just one mores time.”

  Eggert’s crying eyes turned. His arm went up. The knife point sailed high with a perfect trajectory for Paul’s throat.

  This was the end. Paul’s eyes clamped shut. And for three terrifying seconds nothing happened. He waited there, wondered, Eggert’s dried vomit sticking to his lap. Paul had looked down at it only once before. Half-digested flies and cockroaches and bones of unusual shape and sharpness matted the sludge. It had made him dry heave before, but now, carefully, his eyelids peeled back and focused on the mess. It might be the last thing he saw... his head lifted slightly, carefully—fuck, you need to be slower— and finally he got another view of his torturer.

  Eggert leaned sideways now, knife across his lap. His strength had waned; his skin had turned the color of pus. He swiped up the alcohol and fumbled. Both paws battled the bottle for a moment before he found balance. When he did, his lips flickered with a stillborn smile. The bottle flew up. Clear, burning fluid splashed through the brown beard. The last ounce disappeared and the bottle fell hollow on the carpet. Eggert put his wide hands over his face and raked up and down, side to side, giggling silently. Paul swallowed. Waited some more. The hands came away, crimson fingernails. Eggert’s blighted eyes stared back through the crosshatches he’d created. The eyes were more determined than ever. So Paul knew how this would all end.

  Eggert fit the knife in the crook of Paul’s neck and shoulder. The blade stung as it sawed the soft flesh away and took a downward course. Paul tried to savor his last bit of blood-free air, right before the final slash. Something loud and visceral was spilling down. His ears picked up on it: the noise was his body being unfastened in such a way that he could actually hear the division.

  But that was terror-induced hallucination. Paul’s body wasn’t the one coming apart. Eggert was vomiting again, although this time hearty blasts of orange bile fell out of the beard. He was on all fours, knife still in hand but pinned to the carpet. His body rocked side to side and the beard swayed like soggy brown moss. Paul watched in some bleary-eyed satisfaction as the man rolled into the fetal position and convulsed.

  After a few minutes Paul rose up, baby-naked, bloody, covered in puke. He hopped for the kitchen. His penis bounced as he went and even in the moment this seemed really funny. Laughter wasn’t really possible though; each hop created an impact that sent shocks of raw pain through
the zip ties on his ankles.

  Eggert shot up behind him. More vomit exploded over his face and choked him. He circled around and pressed his forehead against the carpet to contain the release. The big man concentrated on his body’s slow death again.

  “Motherfucker.” Paul spat but nothing came out.

  When he got to the phone in the adjoining room Paul felt near to blacking out. He knocked the phone off the cradle. Blood sprayed over the tile counter in bright wisps. He dialed Vince’s number from behind his back, leaned over and pressed his ear onto the headset. The phone rang several times before picking up. It wasn’t Vince.

  “Who’s this?”

  The voice went high pitched. “Susan McDonald. It’s great to hear from you, Bishop Quintana! Some of us thought something bad had happened.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I used to be pledged to Melissa Patterson. She sent our pledges to you—”

  “Where’s Vince?”

  She paused. “Dead, Bishop.”

  “The Nomads?” he asked, almost hopefully.

  “This morning Bishop Szerszen shot him through the eye—we believe the Bishop responsible because of the phone… message that went out.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Vince forwarded me.”

  “Asshole,” said Paul, shaking his head. He did have to wonder what this girl thought about the video. Paul decided to ask her sometime.

  “We came to clean up the room,” she went. “We’ve been holed up here for some time, actually. Nobody seems to know and we were just about to send word to the Archbishop. We were hoping you would call and let us know how to proceed.”

  He was glad he’d acquired some of Melissa’s people. They were already paying off. “Good girl. Let’s not bring Sandeus into this.”

  “But the Archbishop—”

  “Trust me.”

  “Yes, Bishop Quintana. But do you think Bishop Szerszen will come after any of us like he did Vince?”