by Athanasios
Note: Patient talks to himself sometimes in the third person and a mixture of third and first. Odd that one of his split personalities is himself.
“What do you think the dream means?” Dr. Phoggel makes his first cast. There’s no bait on this one, so Broken Adam doesn’t take it. There’ll be better fishing another time.
Time: February 28th, 1975, Hôtel Beau-Rivage, Geneva, Switzerland.
Multitasking was a word yet to be coined, yet it was how Melusine Rothschild had always lived her millennia. The world was catching up to her frenetic thoughts but wouldn’t until well into the twenty-first century. She was content to stay in the background of everything and manipulate world events without direct involvement.
Despite her carefully fostered anonymity, an upstart celebrity magazine had recently been calling her to do an article on her humanitarian efforts. Melusine had given money to surviving families from the previous year’s airplane crashes. Turkish Airlines and TWA had both leaked details of her aid, and it had been a devil of a time keeping it out of People magazine’s first issue. Mia Farrow was finally on the cover and that was just fine with Melusine. She tossed the magazine in a wastebasket by her desk and breathed in the marigold arrangement in the corners of her cavernous office.
She had waited years for it to be perfect and didn’t spend more than a few minutes in it until it was. Repeated revisions had finally ended with this colossal room that took up the top floor of Beau-Rivage, the oldest hotel in Geneva. There were six fireplaces that always blazed bright, three on each side and on opposite walls. Her rich desk was in front of the far wall away from the two small doors at each corner of the first wall where a dazzling fresco dominated the view. It was a depiction of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Gabriel was showing Adam and Eve out of the only home they had ever known for seeking knowledge. How preposterous. Children grow and if they don’t learn for themselves they’ll never think for themselves. Independent thought created everything of value in the world.
She had commissioned it lifetimes ago. No one artist had his own stamp on it because Melusine had directed them herself. She had wanted to have it before her always so she would not be without its memory. Michelangelo had chaffed under her direction and cursed her worse than Innocent had cursed him. Da Vinci had proven a much more amiable collaborator, but his constant distraction to his wayward thoughts and short attention made this just one more unfinished work. Caravaggio was the only true professional. He did not agree with Melusine’s direction, but he complied and also imbued the work with the luminescence and captured moment of time. No art historian would’ve been able to describe or name the work’s artist or author, but this had never been for anybody else.
It existed perfectly in this perfect hall. Along the walls ranging up to Melusine’s desk were arranged chairs, couches and clusters of small and large seats for those who waited their turn to speak to Mother Rothschild. Today was not a hectic day, and as such fewer than two hundred, some executives, clergymen, politicians, generals, and officers looked fearfully and expectantly at the far, far desk. Those that had requested her time were expectant and those that had been told to come before her were fearful.
The center of the space also had a long row of clustered seats but was occupied with none of the kind that waited their turn. These were permanent residents who were there to do whatever their Mother needed done. Some were hard men who had no emotion in their stare and less in their hands and hearts. Others were Melusine’s kindred who were obedient of the head of their clan and first in their kinship. Their loyalty was instant and resolute. They had done exactly as they were told every time, without hesitation.
Everyone’s attention was at the single spare woman at the top of the cavernous space who ruled without borders. She had survived more in her lifetime than entire nations could muster.
Byzantium, Prussia, Italy, Germany, France, and Great Britain all rose, fell or waned as she watched and did her part in their fate. She was a slight woman of tall proportions who had a perfect grace. Her hair was lustrous black and her eyes were never the same color but faded from emerald, sapphire, amber, and violet.
Throughout her millennia, she had adapted to the fashions and couture of the times and today wore a light grey dress with bright neck kerchief. Her manner now was slightly irritated because she was faced with three out-of-place men who were sadly lacking in courtier skills. They would’ve been poisoned or stilettoed in first breath in the Medici halls.
She listened with half an ear to three posturing fools prattle on about their efforts to reach the Redeemer. These were pale remnants of true fiends who once had made the world tremble. Her mind wandered to China where the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang was discovered at Xi’an province. Were they to uncover his nearby tomb, the world would again know true wonder that hadn’t been seen since the pharaohs or the first emperor. In this modern world, they would have to be content with the antics of insects when compared to the earlier giants. In the Watergate scandal the gnat, U.S. President Nixon, resigned in disgrace. Debasing his office with the cowardice of surrender. Better to have fought and faced the impeachment than leave with tail between his legs.
She thought on this for a bare instant. A needed distraction if she was to hold her patience and Mother Rothschild was a patient woman. She was willing to wait for exactly what she wanted. She would accept nothing else because she knew how rare perfection was. Her past husbands had all been perfect. They were all of the right blood and breeding, and they all accepted her word as law. She fought and clawed through the world all day she did not need a sparring partner at home.
Each had given her perfect children who had gone on to be perfect adults. Currently she had no young ones so she had taken on an orphan who was adrift on the seas of fate. He had jumped overboard from his destined vessel and swam against unforgiving currents. Her heart went out to him mostly because his father just didn’t understand him. She did not reach him directly that would be crude and heavy handed. No, she was very patient; so that when she went to him it would indeed be perfect.
They were telling her of their work at giving the Redeemer tribute. Coercing some addled brains into killing a few people did not a tribute make. One could not just think this would do. She told these misguided fellows that they needed to listen carefully if they were to survive their already almost disastrous attempts.
Xar-eel didn’t want to be petitioning this crafty cunt. They had deduced that the difficulties they were having with The One were her doing. There was little honor among thieves and less among demons, but he still held loyalty in heart for his God. This hopeful usurper had none.
“It’s getting quite crowded on this piece of mud, gentlemen.” Melusine broke the nologue that held for the previous ten minutes. Uncomfortable coughs and loud swallowing punctuated her contemplation of each of them. She stared intently at each forever before she spoke. Each had felt her probes into their minds and the weighing of their hearts. The bodies they were clothed in did not even notice the spirits; their souls measured and held up to the light of her shinning gaze.
“Many more than ever before have come out of Hell to see their fortune and try their hands here.” She stated the obvious and waited for them to add their own voice to what she had known was in their skins.
“The Storm has given us the reasons we need, My Lady,” Belial answered. He was their doorway to her sanctum. Few had even been allowed here without an appointment or summons. He even was almost turned away but was quickly ushered to her presence when The One was mentioned. He was felt all over them, their clothes, pores, and coursing in their veins. Their eyes still held remnants of his visage, alone in a padded room, wrapped in protective canvas.
Melusine took her time moments earlier because she savored all these glimpses and connections to the poor boy. He was perfect; a perfect vessel to mold. The little waif only wanted to have fun and enjoy himself. He needed direction, guidance. The three morons confronting her wanted to use
him in their designs. She wanted him to go home and rule their fatherland and leave her to hers. She had no designs on Hell, she had this world, it didn’t matter what these no-nothings thought. She didn’t waste her time setting them straight. There would be time enough for that if the situation needed it.
“When were you last in Kolasi?” she said off handedly. “How has it gone down?”
“It is still the capital of all unholy, mistress,” Xar-eel answered indignantly.
“So why are you here?” she retorted. “Stay in the capital. Leave us to our world.”
“Why shouldn’t we have what’s been promised? Hell is nearly full. There is little left to go around.”
“There are plenty of sinners thrown at you,” she interrupted. “If it is full, how can there be little left to go around?” A gust of force picked Xar-eel up and lifted him to within three feet of the twenty-foot ceiling in a blink of an eye. Mother Rothschild’s eyes darted up lazily and looked at the bulgy eyed imp. She willed him to float closer and to the shock of a few others in the hall he hung suspended a foot above her seated head.
“Little fiend. There is only one thing that still infuriates me, and that is a terrible liar. You are Hell-spawned, and you contradict yourself in the same sentence. You’re a complete waste of time. You are still alive because your companion is known to me.” She dropped him at the feet of his friends, who stepped back, recoiling at the possible touch of someone out of favor.
“Insolence is not a problem,” she continued. “Say whatever you will. They are but words. I’ve grown immune to their barbs in my time here on earth. The problem I have is your atrocious lack of skill in our own bailiwick. How dare you offend me with such awful lies?” She was beside herself. “Is this how low Kolasi has fallen? To have an immigrant here not able to utter a simple untruth with any conviction?” She stopped and raised a hand to stop the many men and kin who were coming to take the now ashen-faced possessed. Her eyes had snapped to furious red, and the room had grown darker with her indignation. All about her grew black tendrils of sentient smoke, going forward and lacerating the retreating Xar-eel. He began to plead for her to stop, but Melusine did not even notice the Darkness setting upon the cringing and crying man. Her face at once began to soften and grow less hard. The light grew brighter and the black tendrils of smoke went back and disappeared around behind her. Few had seen the black living light that was Mother Rothschild’s Darkness and lived to describe it. Of those in her office fewer still would ever go out and tell anyone.
Everyone who came to see her never remembered her until she was brought up again. She remained beneath notice until she was present. As one of the oldest, if not the oldest, noblewoman she knew how to not stand out even as she couldn’t be ignored. A trait only the highest Rex Deus had. Every high predator also had his or her own Darkness. Many had resemblances with horned and cloven-hoofed pagan gods but others had older and purer faces. Melusine’s was the black of void—the total obsidian between stars that filled chaos and terrified history. The black always around her wasn’t smoke at all but black light that absorbed life, absorbed light. Black, tendril hair that took the soul, took the light and was never satiated. It was a Darkness that had only weak description, pathetic understanding.
As quickly as it had come out, the Darkness returned to Melusine’s soul. It resided there still, content and at home, teased with the meager fare of a few lacerations from the shaking fiend. The terror this attack had pulled out of him tempted his companions with its deliciousness. They consumed his emotions with every sense. Their eyes drank his deep cuts and quivering skin. Their ears his halting breath and their own black hearts the ripped slivers of his soul that came away from him with each black tendril of smoke.
“I’m fed up with having to clean up stupid messes like these all over my world. You think you can come here and act like this was Hell on Earth?” She had gotten back completely under control again. “This isn’t the third ring, my immigrant friends. Every day there are more of you around searching and bumbling your way through here, and it’s getting to be re-god-damn-diculous.”
She pointed to the neatly stacked pile of newspapers on one side of her desk. “There are at least three mentions of unexplainable acts or stories of occult or arcane crimes, per paper, per day, and I want them stopped. You three are the cause of it, and you are attracting much too much attention to yourselves and to me.” She saw some small remnant of opposition in Melchom’s eyes. The still quivering, but now standing, Xar-eel was looking down and betrayed no contrary view just like Belial had always shown. She indicated Melchom and motioned for him to speak. “What do you have to say for yourself, sir? Please speak. I am not closed to discussion.”
“Why are you so opposed to our methods, mistress? The fear and abject terror we cause works to keep them unsettled. Plus it is so delicious.” A thin smile of self gratification unsettled a few of even the hardest men around Melusine’s desk but did nothing to their mistress.
“It has its uses, you’re correct, Melchom, however, right now it is misdirected. I do not require or need the rising panic that is bubbling is causing among the cattle. I need them calm if I am to reach our little orphan. He has fallen quite astray from his rightful place and I want to help him.”
“As do we mistress. We bring him tribute, yet he is displeased with even our best efforts.” A hand went up and quieted the docile Melchom.
“He is not of Hell, imp. He is of this world. He is not impressed by your tributes. He is in actuality repulsed by them.” This shocked the three demons that looked pained at the implication. “He doesn’t like all this attention. You have severely miscalculated your tactics of gaining his pleasure. We will have to fix all this growing panic if you are to calm him and gain his favor.”
“How do you know of his repulsion of our tribute?” Melcom grew bold, he knew Mother Rothschild was not closed to frank talk as long as you held your own and did not fold under her weighty presence.
“He is a thoroughly modern man. A product of this age,” she explained as she sat back. “We have become too accustomed to the slow passage of time. We have never seen acceleration of change as we have witnessed in the course of his lifetime. Evolution of ideas, progress of technology, and changing morals have left us confused. He will be our anchor to today’s age.”
She slowly glanced to her left and a gaunt, immaculately dressed manservant walked and stopped by the three fiend adventurers. He was in his mid-forties with grey on the edges of his otherwise jet hair cut and brushed in a perfect coif.
“My chamberlain will escort you to where you’ll work with my people to undo your damage, gentlemen.” Melusine was stopped short by Melchom’s interruption.
“We came here to gain an ally not to lose our task to you, Mother. We will not become subservient to your interests. Gentlemen, we’ll be off. Let Miss High and Mighty get her insights to the Redeemer elsewhere.” He turned to go but saw he was the only one who had done so. His companions chose to stay.
Melusine continued in an even tone. “Just go to where you’re told. You will not become what you strive so hard to be. We are not, and never have been, ever will be equals. I know I’m stating the obvious, but you require it. It is something I have to do upon occasion because I allow frank talk and many use that to believe we are somehow more equal. We are not.” Nobody was ever her equal. She did not go further with her explanation because she did not want to exert that effort for Melchom. None of her many husbands, her countless lovers, her children or other relatives truly believed they were ever her equal. If they showed or said it they knew it was delusion, fancy, mere fantasy.
There was one, The One, the Redeemer who could become her equal, but for now he was still a child. She would mold him and do her best to instruct him to his potential. In these confusing times he was the only one who could navigate the waters of history for the Rex Deus Families, the Black Nobility.
The past five years alone had been more trying than many
decades put together. The war in Vietnam was supposed to be an easy way to get arms selling and testing done without being seen. It had escalated to the point hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against it and made it the galvanizing subject of a generation. To make matters worse, the moron Nixon had lowered the voting age to 18.
What did these children know at 21, let alone 18? They’re awash in hormones and the need to be accepted and belong. They don’t know who to vote for and giving them that right only validated their misinformed opinion all the more. Sometimes Melusine just didn’t understand any of these cattle. She needed a fresher perspective, a keener eye to understand the world and steward their plan out of the public eye. She was still of the outdated belief that the Nobility should always stay in the shadows. Yet there were others who disagreed.
Where Satan and is deluded minions erred was in thinking that the Redeemer was lost to them. He would always be a part of their family to Melusine. He only had to be shown the proper support and allowed adequate time to see it himself. Melusine was willing to let him see how perfect everything with his family could be. Melusine had always been patient when it came to perfection.
Gloom Descending
Time: March 2nd, 1975, Danvers State Hospital, Danvers, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
I wake up on my couch. Disoriented, I look around for the television remote so that I can turn down the volume from a really loud commercial. It’s something about Julia Child’s screeching in her high-pitched voice probably crushing eardrums worldwide, ‘tard that she is. She was almost more famous than the Beatles until everybody caught on that she was just a tedious, bored housefrau who cooked.
Order out. The posters from my favorite comics and movies are still up on the walls and my shelves are spilling over with books read and reread.
With an icy chill I realize I’m not supposed to be here. How did I get back to my original life? My original life and the start of all this infinite confusion? It was the perfect existence for me living under a kindred spirit, my apartment directly below my most precious friend ‘Thanasi. We weren’t gay for each other or anybody else. We had both finally found somebody who accepted us for who we were and did not want to change each other. We saw no need. We supported any choices we made and tried to encourage our mutual aspirations.
