RBVS 31
The Cure for Cancer
Chapter One
"Good evening." The woman paused three feet into the lecture hall and looked at the assembly of expectant faces.
They were seminary students from Georgetown University, each of them ostensibly invited to attend a private lecture on Comparative Theology. The actual subject to be discussed, and their reason for being there, was something else entirely. And they were so young, the woman thought as she stepped onto the dais, just children really. So she'd prepared a lesson for children, something simple and easily understood and not entirely accurate, or necessarily complete.
"I'm Sister Ellen and this…" she found a marker and began drawing on the large whiteboard on the stage, "…this is a glass."
She drew a wavy, horizontal line across it, filling in the lower half with rapid, slanting lines. Her artistry complete, the nun stepped back and to the side, admiring it along with some sixty students.
"Now some people will look at this and say…" she held out her hand, "...What?"
"The glass is half-full," someone offered.
"Good. Let's write that down. The glass…is…half-full," Ellen said, as her blue marker squeaked softly.
"It's half-empty, Sister," another voice suggested and she nodded.
"Right, option B…" she wrote quickly to the right side, "…half-empty. So we have positive and negative. Pessimism versus optimism. Ying and Yang. Alpha and Omega…"
"Dogs and cats," a young man said to general laughter and again Sister Ellen was remarked by their innocence.
"Love and Hate," someone suggested and she was nodding, letting them go. "Life and Death…Heaven and Hell, Sister."
"Yeah, you guys get it," Ellen said. "Life. Death. Heaven and hell in a glass. You look at it and see a system of philosophy, yes? Someone says it's half-full and he's proud of that. It's the summation of his belief, of his faith that the universe is good, that God is benign and all will be right in the end."
She smiled and her audience of first and second year seminary students was quiet now. "We're all optimists in this room, right?"
There was nervous laughter and murmurs and Ellen continued, "Others, even some of you perhaps, will take the opposing point of view. The cynical opinion that the world is not a benevolent place. The end is coming and soon; a bitter end to all that we cherish. The glass is half-empty. Time is running out and we can't stop it."
The nun paused, looking at those beautiful faces in front of her and she wished to cut through the simplicity of deception. Black and white was a myth, little more than a pretty theory without application, and that was the lesson of the glass: The grey truth which every living thing understands instinctively, that good and evil are one and the same and opposed only by perception.
"But there's a third choice," she said slowly. "Do you know what it is?"
Sister Ellen waited, giving them a full minute.
"Some of us, a few of us, look at the glass and we say, where the fuck is the rest of my water?" She smiled at the shocked looks on their faces. "Any questions? No? Let's continue…"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Did you enjoy yourself?" Cardinal Beschi asked Ellen later and she smiled self-consciously.
"I'd forgotten how much I miss teaching," she said and the nun's spirits had been lifted noticeably.
"How many do you think?"
"One or two, no more than that," she said. "America isn't the best place for this, Eminence."
Ellen stood in flickering shadows near the bookcase in the Cardinal's private study, watching as the old man set his generous bulk into an overstuffed chair. The fireplace was lit and its flames offered the only light in the room.
"Perhaps," Beschi folded his hands in his lap. "Field officers are never easy to come by," he said. "Intelligent ones anyway. The modern world has not been good to us."
"I know," Ellen said, removing the silver crucifix around her neck and kissing it. She found a place for it on a nearby bookshelf.
"It makes you all the more valuable," the Cardinal stared into the hearth. He had heavy brows and jowls and fire gave his face an animation he otherwise lacked.
"You're wondering if I'm recovered," Ellen said after several minutes spent removing her shoes and the man nodded. "You needn't worry, Eminence. I'm ready."
"You almost died, Ellen."
"I was overconfident. I imagined myself…" the nun exhaled, "…invincible."
"And now?"
"Pride is a sin. You're my confessor, what do you think?" Ellen pushed herself away from the wall, approaching the Cardinal and kneeling at the old man's feet.
Beschi moved his hand, touching the nun's hair. She wore it loose, in a black cascade around her pale face, and he stroked it slowly, allowing himself the barest smile when Ellen tilted her cheek into his palm. She closed her blue eyes momentarily and when she opened them again they were red and hot like the fire. Her mouth opened as well, ripe lips giving way to razor fangs and the Cardinal did smile then, playing his thumb across her tongue and teeth, feeling them sharp and cutting. He was bleeding and the vampire shivered at the taste of it. Ellen closed her lips around Beschi's thumb, nursing on it while he watched her and it was a pleasure for both of them.
"Let me see you," Beschi said softly and Ellen sat back, her eyes fixed on his while she lifted her habit, the distinctive red and white gown common to the sisters of her order.
The garment came free easily over the nun's head and she tossed it aside. Ellen wore nothing beneath it and her body was flawless in form, but marred with faint scars across her abdomen and hips. Her breasts as well, and the left in particular seemed stained in the firelight. Ellen had suffered grievous injuries at the hands of another vampire, wounds which would have quickly killed a human. It had taken several months for the worst of them to heal completely and nearly a year later there were still questions about her emotional recovery. Ellen had killed the vampire, that was true, but neither she nor her master considered it a victory.
They'd both expected better from her.
"Will you feed tonight?" Beschi wondered, rubbing his bloody thumb with his fingers.
"Yes," Ellen said. "Do you wish to see it?"
"The same girl?"
"Sister Lauren, yes," she said. "Shall I call her to us?"
Beschi nodded and the man looked for some sign on his servant's face, but Ellen merely smiled and moved her body close to the Cardinal. She curled her right arm over his right leg, her elbow between his knees. The nun's left hand tugged at the hem of Beschi's velvet robe, pulling it open beneath the knotted belt at his waist. He wore only boxers and a t-shirt beneath and she found his thigh with her fingers, the nails longer now and sharp like her teeth. They were weapons and with the slightest pressure Ellen could flay the old man's flesh from the bone beneath.
"She's coming," the nun whispered, kissing his flesh.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
In the cellars of the Old Rectory, a building dating back to the American Revolution, Sister Lauren was waking. She slept in Ellen's bed and had been the vampire's companion for six months after a brief lifetime spent searching for the woman. There was no ready explanation for this, but the fact remained that Lauren had always known she was incomplete. Upon graduating her unhappy childhood, she'd turned to religion in the hopes of filling the void inside her.
That Lauren had found herself assigned to the Papal Mission in Washington seemed less coincidence than fate. Sister Ellen was already living in nearby Georgetown and within days of her arrival, Lauren had presented herself awkwardly and without understanding to her new Mistress. There was an instant of recognition between the two women from first sight and after that meeting they were only rarely apart. A vampire often requires a mortal to serve and protect her, to act on her behalf in the mundane world of human necessity, and now Ellen had Lauren.
Sister Lauren donned her own habit quickly, a black gown with a white wimple which she carefully fitted over her head of short blonde hair. Like her Mistress, the girl wore nothing beneath her robes, but the slippers on her feet. The nun dressed only for the benefit of others who might see her, the uninformed students and faculty who couldn't know of such things. Lauren walked quickly, leaving the rectory in the chill autumn night and moving towards the Cardinal's apartments which were nearby in any case. She did not ring the bell, but let herself in through the kitchens using her own key, and no one saw her.
"Mistress?" Lauren opened the door to the study slowly, dropping her eyes and feeling her heart seem to swell as it always did in Ellen's presence. "I'm here."
"Come inside. Close the door," Ellen said. "Join us here, by the fire and I'll warm you."
"Good evening, Eminence." Lauren dropped to her knees and before allowing herself the pleasure of Ellen's attentions, kissed the Cardinal's ring.
"Sister Lauren," Beschi smiled, watching as Ellen took the girl into her arms for kisses and more.
Not for the first time the old man almost regretted his vows of celibacy and while Ellen fed on crimson milk from Lauren's breast, the Cardinal stroked his erection slowly. The vampire wouldn't kill her servant, but only used Lauren to take the edge off her hunger and more importantly to please her Master. Later, Ellen knew, she would feed more fully on the young man Lauren had brought to their apartments at the rectory. He was of no importance and like so many before him, the boy's passing would go unnoticed by the world outside.
"We're not alone," Ellen lifted her mouth from Lauren's flesh and the girl moaned softly at the interruption. "Shhh…" Ellen put a finger to Lauren's lips and looked to her Master. "He's here, Eminence."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"I was there. I saw it," the shadow insisted, pacing nervously on spindly legs, its arms lifting and falling, beating the air like scrawny wings. "I saw her."
"Her?" Cardinal Beschi drew a breath. "Lazarus, you mean?"
"Noooo," the shadow hissed. "Not Lazarus. I told you, this was a woman."
"An ordinary mortal?" a third person spoke up, an old priest with white hair cropped close to his tapering skull.
"Ordinary," spat the shadow and its single eye turned to the Cardinal's desk where the priest sat taking notes. "We paid her no mind, none of us there. We thought she was with the vampire. A toy. Pretty to look at, yes? Pretty to the touch."
The Jesuit looked back down, his pen scratching the paper. Father Perron served as the Cardinal's secretary and it wasn't unusual for him to be woken in the middle of the night. He was Beschi's right hand in all such matters.
"She passed the Prophet," the shadow made a sound like laughter. "He didn't see her. None of us did."
"So you said." The Cardinal adjusted his bathrobe. "A woman that nobody knows, nobody has ever seen before, just walks in…"
"A person like that does not pass this world unknown, Eminence," this from the woman, standing silent in the farthest corner until then. "Unseen perhaps, but not unknown."
"You know her?" Beschi turned his head, but he was quite unable to see the nun.
"Not yet, but I will," Ellen said.
"How?" the Cardinal asked.
"The girl. The vampire, Lisa, she's hunting me," the nun answered as she stepped from the shadows. "I'll let Lisa find me and introduce me to her new friend."
The old priest's pen stopped as he caught sight of vampire's naked form. Perron swallowed hard, feeling lust rise like bile in his throat. She'd always been attractive, but after Michel had Turned her, Ellen had become truly beautiful. That she shared private intimacies with Cardinal Beschi was another matter, or perhaps the same, Perron couldn't always tell. If he was the Cardinal's right hand, Ellen was surely Beschi's left, and they shared an uneasy alliance in the man's service.
"Her friend killed a six hundred year old vampire," Beschi said. "The vampire who made you, Ellen."
"I know, Eminence. I felt his pain, believe me," she replied.
The nun touched her side and there was an ache there, like a memory burned into her flesh. She'd known exactly when and how Michel had died, even across the three thousand miles that had separated them.
"I told you, I'm ready," Ellen said. "I've learned my lesson."
"Have you?" Perron spoke up. "Have you considered that the vampire…" he looked at his notes, "…Lisa…Might belong to this woman and not vice versa?"
"Vampires do not belong to mortals," Ellen narrowed her eyes.
"Oh?" The priest looked to the Cardinal with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Enough. The question is why. Do you know the reason she killed him?" Beschi asked the shadow. "What's her purpose?"
"What they spoke of, none can say," it answered. "Anger, revenge, perhaps it was an accident."
"An accident?" Beschi nodded, finding something agreeable with that thought.
"She seemed…unhappy with his death…" the shadow began to quickly fade. The powers sustaining it grew weak with the approaching dawn and it left them without another word.
"Did you believe him?" Perron asked the Cardinal after several minutes had passed. "This story about a woman?"
"He's an imp. A liar and a thief," Ellen decided. "Send me to San Francisco, Eminence. I'll find the truth."
"What did he say about the sword?" Beschi stood up, pulling his bathrobe around him.
"That it appeared out of thin air," Perron looked at his notes, flipping pages.
"He called it a thing, didn't he?" the Cardinal turned to look at his secretary. "A curious word to use."
"The thing appeared out of nothing," Perron quoted the shadow. "We all saw it, he said."
"The thing out of nothing." Beschi picked up a poker and prodded the dying fire to spark and sputter. "They saw the sword, but not the woman...Why?"
"Eminence…" Ellen stepped forward and soon she would have to depart for her lair in the rectory cellars, but she wanted a decision first.
"No. I can't risk you," Beschi said. "Not until we know more. That damnable business in Sacramento…"
Sister Ellen looked down and this was as close to a recrimination as she'd heard from her Master. It had been a mistake to test herself against another vampire so soon after her Turning. She'd been rash and full of herself and as if to punish her for those sins, this new mystery had arisen. Investigating Michel's death was a task to which Ellen was singularly suited, but no longer, not so long as the killer was allied with Lisa. It seemed an irony to Ellen and she found the Cardinal's decision disappointing.
"I understand," she said reluctantly.
"Begin a file on this woman," Beschi told Perron. "Find out what assets we have in San Francisco. Get some research going, you know what to do. Prepare a brief for Rome, we'll send it in the diplomatic pouch."
"Yes, Eminence," the Jesuit replied.
"Something vague. Non-threatening." Beschi said, making sure his secretary understood clearly. "We don't need a committee on this."
"Of course," Perron nodded and he understood that his Master wasn't entirely happy with the new Bishop of Rome.
"What of me?" Ellen asked and she'd been joined by a fully dressed Sister Lauren. The younger nun held the vampire's habit in her hands.
"You'll stay here for the time being, close to me," Beschi replied.
"Recruiting," she lowered her gaze.
"One or two of those boys will be interested," the Cardinal nodded. "You said so yourself. They'll require your attention."
"Yes, Eminence," Ellen said and then dressed without another word, letting Lauren assist her until they could depart together across the predawn campus.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"I should be going to California," Sister Ellen said. "He doesn't trust me. Whoever that woman is, she killed Michel and so he thinks she'll kill me too."
Lauren didn't speak, but walked silently beside her Mistress. She knew Ellen didn't expect or desire a response, not yet anyway. It was enough that the younger woman was there to listen and they walked quickly beneath a brightening sky. Unlike some vampires, for they are all different in their strengths and weaknesses, Ellen couldn't withstand even brief exposure to direct sunlight and so it was Lauren's task to hurry her preoccupied Mistress towards the Old Rectory and the safety of the cellars there.
"The other one is nothing to fear," Ellen said, turning her eyes to catch Lauren's. "Lisa. She's a child. I held a gun to her head. I could have killed her anytime I wanted to."
"Yes, Mistress," Lauren agreed, "I'm sure his Eminence understands that. He just doesn't want to risk…"
"Losing me, I know." Ellen's red eyes smoldered and she'd let her discipline slip, her true nature revealed for half a minute while she considered what Beschi had said.
"We need to get inside, Mistress." Lauren actually tugged at Ellen's red habit. "You need to feed and sleep. You'll think better tonight."
"Yes, yes…" Ellen sighed and quickened her pace to match Lauren's, so that they looked like two nuns late for Matins, the morning prayers held at sunrise.
The cellars of the Old Rectory were large, extending far beyond the actual building and its limestone foundations. There were catacombs down there, as well as a wine cellar which had been used during the civil war to house runaway slaves. Much more recently a portion had been renovated in secret, so far as such a thing was possible, at the behest of Cardinal Beschi and resembled the antique interior so common to the Victorian houses in Georgetown. Only the notable lack of windows gave proof to the fact that the apartments were indeed buried deep in the earth.
"You're uncomfortable," Ellen said gently to the young man bound on her bed. "There's no need for this. No, don't struggle. I'm here to free you now."
She was using the vampiric thrall, a trick of the mind like hypnosis, and it was very effective on someone already frightened and confused. The boy, who appeared to be sixteen or barely seventeen, felt Ellen's voice as much as he heard it, soothing and calming him after spending the long night cold and alone in the dark. Her presence came as a relief and even before he'd been loosed completely from the cords that Lauren had used to bind him, the boy clung to Ellen as his savior.
There was only a small part of him that would resist and understand that he was doomed, but it wouldn't help him. He'd been lost from the moment Ellen began to speak and even when he felt the woman's teeth opening his throat, piercing his carotid artery with well-practiced ease, he made no effort to escape or dissuade his impending death.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
He didn't look up immediately, but when he did the man's eyes grew large for a second and then narrowed.
"Wrong floor, honey," Guy Torrance said without smiling. "Casting is downstairs."
"Mr. Torrance?" The woman cocked her head slightly so that her auburn hair fell across her face. She pulled it back with annoyance as she spoke quickly, "I'm here about my screenplay? Your secretary…"
"Screenplay?" Torrance did smile then, a small chuckle born of confusion escaping his lips. "You're Max Murphy?"
"Yeah," she said with a nod. "It took me three weeks to get on your calendar." The woman paused and felt her face flush slightly as Torrance looked her up and down slowly. "Can I come in?"
"What? Of course. Please…" Torrance nodded and half rose from behind his desk, gesturing towards a leather chair. "I'm sorry, I just…Are you sure you're not here for an audition or…"
"No," Max shook her head and entered the spacious office, conscious of the man's eyes on her body.
"Would you like some coffee, um…tea? Water?" Torrance sat back down in his own chair as the woman sat carefully, crossing her long legs and tugging a modest blue skirt into place.
"I'm fine. Thank you," Max said, opening her purse which was a large one, more like a beach bag than anything else. It was pink with baby blue palm trees embroidered on the sides, and it looked oddly out of place with the rest of her.
Murphy was a beautiful woman, even by the lofty standards of Hollywood. Tall and tanned with a body her modest business suit couldn't hope to hide, she was hardly anyone's idea of a Hollywood screenwriter. And Max? What kind of name was that, Torrance wondered briefly. Short for Maxine? Or maybe she'd decided she needed something quick and catchy to help sell whatever it was she was offering. It wouldn't be the first time and the movie business, far more than most, was full of flakes.
"I, uh…I have this…" Max had removed a thick sheaf of printed paper, a few hundred pages at least, held together with a bulldog clip at the top. She held it for a second and then thrust it towards the man.
"Oh, okay…" Torrance nodded, looking at the papers without reaching for them. "How did you get in here?"
"What?" Max blinked at him, feeling nervous and now awkward with her arm outstretched like it was.
"This appointment," Torrance said. "You've never done this before, have you?"
"No," Max swallowed hard. "I have a friend, uh…Mindy Nichols?"
"Okay…" he lifted his hands inviting Max to continue. "Who's she?"
"She's a production assistant? Um…She knows Jack Carter, I think, and he said…"
"And he was one of my PA's on Martian Chronicles," Torrance nodded. "Small world."
"Yeah," Max agreed and she pulled her screenplay reluctantly back into her lap, playing her thumb along the pages.
"Okay, Miss Murphy…"
"Max."
"Max," Torrance smiled. "Here's the deal, I don't look at unsolicited screenplays. Take it to Paramount or Fox, get a studio to look at it and…"
"I've been there," Max cleared her throat and looked down. "To Paramount and Fox and SKG…" She looked up suddenly, giving the man her blue eyes. "If you could just read it…"
Torrance sighed and shook his head.
"…I've been everywhere else, Mr. Torrance. Please?" She lifted the papers again, but only slightly.
"What's it about?" he asked, looking pointedly at his watch. "I'll give you five minutes to sell it."
"Vampires," Max said with a quick nod. "Here in California. In Sacramento."
"Vampires in Sacramento?" the man chuckled. "Nobody's doing vampires anymore."
"It's a true story…"
"Okay, I think…"
"…I was there," Maxine rushed over his interruption. "I was working at channel seven and I saw the reports. The government knows and…"
"You're a reporter?"
"What? No. I was, um…I was the weather girl," Max frowned slightly. "But I started investigating and I got everything! I know who they are and what they were doing and…"
"And you wrote a screenplay?" Torrance shook his head doubtfully.
"I tried to report it," Max said. "I mean, I wrote news stories and showed them to the news editor, but they got to him. They got to everybody. Television, the newspapers…"
"Who?" Torrance was smiling as much at the woman's apparent desperation as what she was saying.
"The government. The vampires. I don't know," Max admitted. "The church maybe. Somebody."
"The church?"
"The Catholics," she nodded. "The Vatican, the Pope? He knows. They all do."
"Right," Torrance cleared his throat. "Did you, uh…call the police?"
"The police. The FBI," Max stared at him. "They didn't take me seriously."
"Well, uh..."
"Nobody believes me, but if you can make a movie," Max said, leaning forward. "If you say it's based on true events, we can make the public aware of it. People will have to listen. They won't…"
"I see…"
"…be able to ignore it," Max said. "They won't be able to cover it up anymore."
"Well, it sounds…interesting." Torrance looked at his watch and started standing up. "If you'll just leave your screenplay with my secretary…"
"But…" Max looked up at him. "That's it?"
"…I'll get back to you and we'll see what happens, okay?"
"See what happens?" Max blinked and Torrance was stepping around his desk.
"I'm running late for another appointment, so…"
"But…"
"Thanks for coming by and I promise I'll give it a serious look." The man held out his hand and Max frowned as she stood up slowly.
"You don't believe me either," she said. "Do you?"
"Me?" Torrance gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm a movie producer. I'll believe anything. Just leave your number, okay? That's how it works in this town."
Max left the office without bothering to leave her manuscript or her phone number.
"Vampires," Torrance sighed as he sat down once more behind his desk. "God help us."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Stupid, stupid, stupid…" Max berated herself as she walked towards the garage where her car was parked. She hadn't planned on talking about conspiracies or cover-ups. She knew better than that, but for some reason it had all come out. Again. The man probably thought she was crazy and who would blame him?
"Maybe I am crazy," she said aloud and the parking attendant gave her a curious smile. "Oh…" Max opened her bag and then her wallet, finding the ticket for her car.
Talking to herself, that was a bad sign, Max thought. Pretty soon she'd have to find a shopping cart to push around. It was bad enough that she'd lost her job, lost her boyfriend, her little condo in Sacramento…And for what? So she could play the girl who cried wolf? No, not even that, she had to admit. At least they'd believed him at first, but nobody had ever believed her.
Max waited patiently just inside the cool shadows of the garage while the attendant walked away to retrieve her car. Maybe she could make some more appointments. There were a lot of producers, a lot of people making movies. Next time she wouldn't say anything about the truth. She'd pretend it was all fiction, all make believe and let the story sell itself. She had to be smarter, that's all.
A vehicle pulled into the garage, an old Buick with rust around the doors and a dent near the front. It approached the booth where the attendant would normally be, the motor throbbing loudly and kicking out a thin stream of blue exhaust. A woman was driving and Max caught her gaze for a second through the windshield before the shadows swallowed it.
Max stepped back a few steps, frowning and trying to ignore the machine's unpleasant arrival. She looked into the depths of the grey garage, the oil stained concrete sloping upward and disappearing around a curve and wishing the man would hurry with her own car. Whoever was driving the Buick gave the accelerator a squeeze and for a brief moment there was a dull roar and a cloud of exhaust.
"Wha…" Max stumbled backwards, almost keeping her balance, but then her long legs gave way as if they'd been broken.
The woman fell heavily against the cracked and dusty wall behind her and sat down with a jolt. Max felt little pain, just a cramp it seemed, a dull ache in her chest and she stared dumbly at her blouse as it turned crimson with blood. There was something unreal about it. What did it mean? What was wrong with her?
"Shhhh…" a whisper barely heard above the Buick drew Maxine's heavy gaze and her lips trembled, but no words would emerge.
A woman stood close to her now. She seemed older, not as young as Max had first thought. Even so, she was blonde and beautiful and holding something. A gun. The barrel seemed much too long and she realized it was a silencer, a long tube with a black, sightless eye staring into her own. When it blinked at her, Max saw a flash and nothing more.
"Good girl," the assassin breathed, reaching down for the beach bag and pulling it from the woman's lifeless fingers.
The sound of rubber tires squealing on glassy cement was lost beneath the Buick as it backed out of the garage entrance, blocking traffic for a few seconds and drawing the predictable honking of several annoyed LA motorists. It drove away otherwise unnoticed and unremarked, leaving behind a frightened young man who would dial 911 and spend three minutes on hold.
"That was a shitty job."
"I know," Sanderson said as soon as he was comfortable in the passenger seat of the Buick. "Is this it?"
"That's the last," the blonde woman agreed, pulling away from the curb and entering the heavy traffic of Sunset Boulevard.
"Good." The man flipped through the screenplay slowly, skimming the words and already knowing what they said. "When are you leaving for San Francisco?"
"Tonight," the woman replied. "I want to talk to her first."
"Do you think that's wise?" Sanderson turned his head, looking at her through his sunglasses. He was nearing sixty, but still fit and trim and with a shock of thick black hair turning silver at his temples.
"You don't trust me?" the woman glanced at him and allowed herself a smile.
"She was your daughter," the man said. "I don't like it."
"She was much more than that," she laughed lightly. "Don't worry. I won't change my mind."
"What if she suspects something?"
"Of course she'll suspect something."
"So…"
"I have to know," the woman shrugged and nodded to herself.
"Use the rifle," Sanderson suggested. "I have a team in place. There's no reason to get close to her."
"You're not listening," she said. "I have to face her. I have to see the look in her eyes."
"It's too dangerous, Maggie," Sanderson shook his head. "There's too much at stake here."
"Then you should have hired someone else," she said. "Oh! Wait…There is no one else, is there? I guess you're stuck with me."
"Maggie…"
"Just have my money ready," the woman said. "I think I'm going to retire after this one."
"Retire?"
"After killing the Witch…" she smiled to herself, "…what else is there?"
Sanderson had no answer for that.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The underground shows at the Palais de Sade were among the most popular and notorious in all of Rio de Janeiro. Jenny moved off stage as her bedroom was taken away, replaced with the set for a short play entitled Les Noces. She would walk the crowd, filled with the distinguished of South American nobility. Businessmen, cabinet ministers, diplomats and their wives and mistresses; all of them came desperate to experience the sensation of life and witness death's terrible despondence.
Jenny felt nothing but contempt for them. Their eager eyes drinking in the blood as they held their collective breath, like children at a masque, affecting boredom or delight as it might impress their peers. They were mere poseurs of the worst sort, standing at the edge of the human condition and afraid to take that final step.
She wore her blood and nothing else, moving through the dark passages behind the private boxes far above the common gallery below. Voices whispered low and secretive, laughter was cut short with a gasp or groan, and slow or frantic movement was caught in flickering candlelight and just as suddenly lost once more.
"Appropiare!" a male voice whispered urgently and a hand appeared through a sliver of burgundy cloth. Jenny let the hand take hers and pull her inside the dimly lit alcove.
"Good evening, sir," she breathed, standing with her hand still raised, held by the well-dressed man in front of her.
On the stage below a new bride was being whipped by her husband and her screams echoed throughout the theater. She had confessed upon their nuptial kiss that she was not a virgin, but rather had been an infamous whore from Minaus. She was bound to the altar and beyond them the wedding party watched, dressed as harlequins and whores, engaging in vulgar sexual delights as they cheered and clapped and affected the young groom to extremes of cruelty.
"English?" the man asked, sitting down in his high-backed chair. To his left sat a dignified woman, leaning only slightly forward as she watched the performance. Her lips parted with pleasure so that the tip of her tongue was visible between them.
"American," Jenny replied, licking her lips as the man had exposed his penis.
"Take me in your mouth," he said simply.
The young woman did as he instructed, kneeling on the stone floor and encircling his stiff member with her moist, red lips. She suckled him as an expert, teasing briefly with her tongue and then giving him the depths of her mouth. He rested his hand on Jenny's head, occasionally stroking her long blonde hair, but making no attempt to control or influence her efforts.
He moaned softly as on stage the husband grew tired of whipping the bride. He'd not removed her gown and the tattered remains of her lace and satin wedding dress hung over the altar like a large serviette, stained red with the savagery of his whip. The groom sodomized her then, exclaiming for the audience that a marriage to such a bestial whore could only be consummated in her anus.
As the vengeful groom entered his new bride's asshole, the man in Jenny's mouth whispered to his companion that he was near orgasm. The woman assumed an austere countenance, pushing Jenny aside and replacing the young woman's mouth with her own. The man ejaculated forcefully, pushing her head down and arching his back while she swallowed him. Jenny sat on her heels, watching until they were finished.
The man stared at Jenny as the woman lifted her head. She licked her lips and wiped them like a beggar at a soup kitchen, with the back of her black satin glove. She caught Jenny's eyes on her and she began to flush, looking up at the man and seeing his eyes on the girl. The woman's left cheek and chin were smeared with lipstick and semen, and jealousy stained her eyes with tears.
"Roue!" she spat at him and sat back in her chair, looking pointedly away.
The man shrugged and gave Jenny a smile, then waved his hand dismissively. "Que sera sera," he sighed and returned his attentions to the stage.
There was intermission before the final act of The Wedding. A young man was being crucified by two older men. They were large and powerful and hammered long thin spikes into his wrists and feet. The cross was angled somewhat, not vertical, and this made the task a simple one.
Jenny stood slowly, exiting from the alcove through the heavy brocade. She passed the next and the one after that, until another voice bid her enter, soft and tender. He was alone and pulled the drapes closed behind the woman, and immediately began running his hands over her body.
He was a dandy, dressed in dark alpaca trousers and a crepe blouse in keeping with the modern fashion fetishist.
"I smell you," he reported to his young catch, speaking with the affectation of a lisp. "I smell your shit and I wonder…" He walked around the girl, who stood with her head bowed, basking red within the flickering light. "Does your ass bleed also? Or do you feign that dirty hole a paramour of virtue?"
On the stage the men had left, having finished their task, and the Christ remained upon the stage, bound to his cross with iron through his flesh. Now there were three women, two of them sisters, twins of ethereal beauty and they carried around them the awful silence of the crowd. To their backs were harnessed small wings of gold and silver. One of them carried a whip and the other was leading a younger woman, possessed of transcendent form, but whose face bore the mask of simplicity. While her body had grown to sublime womanhood, her mind would forever be that of a child.
The crucified man, bathed in sweat and stained with blood at his feet and hands, had been aroused previously and perhaps he was still. His penis was large and painfully erect, and bound by a tight leather collar at its base. It was swollen and dark and the angel with the girl mocked him for it, slapping at the turgid flesh and taunting him verbally. She offered Christ the young woman she cradled to her breasts, promising him her virgin blood, her virgin love, even…she smiled at the audience…her virgin soul. All the man need do was ask, and this play was called The Last Temptation.
"Bend over now, mademoiselle, and we shall see," the dandy breathed. He'd removed a stylet from his pocket and he extracted a long, thin blade from the handle, pushing Jenny to lean against the railing, looking down upon the play.
The other angel snapped her wrist and the whip cracked loudly over the man's head. She promised him only pain. She stroked his flesh with the sharp barbed tip, pricking his chest and thighs. The whip would bring him clarity, she promised, awareness and understanding. The pain was wisdom. The whip, she told the man sweetly, would free his soul. It required only his wish to receive it.
"Ah, perfection lies greatest when dreamt unseen," the dandy sighed as he brought his hand to the girl's buttocks, probing Jenny with his fingers, finding the small tight sphincter of her anus. He rubbed it slowly and felt there the humidity of her perspiration, the sticky warmth of her arousal as it had seeped lower from her sex.
On the stage below, the crucified man had made his choice and the angel with her whip had brought him to the very brink of death. He lay on his cross now, sobbing weakly while at his feet sat the angel, holding the simple innocent to her breasts, caressing her as they watched.
"Such dramatics are overdone, I fear," Jenny heard the humor in the dandy's voice and rocked her hips against his fingers inside her ass. "You are not a virgin, I can tell. I have some experience in these matters."
The angel with the whip paced the stage now; her hips thrust forward, her hard rouged nipples pointed at the ceiling, she dragged her whip behind her, leaving a wet, red trail across the blonde parquet.
"Do you still love me?" she cried, speaking to the Christ without looking, but instead smiling at the audience. His penis was still hard, still trapped by the leather band so that it seemed to swell twice what a normal man should possess. He could not speak, and so a moment later the woman turned to crowd.
"I beg thee, kind jurists, what shall be his fate? Must I set him free?"
The crowd shouted, "No! No!" and applauded loudly as the angel cocked her head, coiling the red stained lash with nimble fingers.
"Then you are damned!" she smiled sadly at them and threw down her whip. A young man appeared, carrying a translucent bowl of water and the angel pushed her hands into it, washing them so that the water became pink and cloudy with blood.
The dandy pulled his fingers free of Jenny's ass and she felt them replaced with the blunt head of his erection. She shivered, but made no move to escape as he thrust into her violently. The pain was sharp and immediate, a burning sensation as her rectum protested. Jenny's body stiffened and her fingers gripped the marble rail so tightly that the color drained from them. Her face tilted upward and her throat seemed to swell with grace. A sharp cry, causing some few heads to turn briefly, issued from the girl's trembling lips. It echoed briefly and was just as quickly forgotten while the man continued his eager rape.
"Oh! Bitch! Whore!" he gasped loudly as the dandy quickly found his orgasm deep in Jenny's trembling body.
The girl's rectum seemed suddenly full of semen, perhaps some blood as well, and her bowels loosened so that she feared rudely for her pride. The experience was excruciating and her teeth were clenched as if to bar any screams from boorish exhibition. The man fell to his knees behind Jenny, dropping his knife to the floor and pressing his mouth to her raw flesh. He spread her cheeks with his thumbs and fingers, probing her anus with his excited tongue.
"Give me your ass!" his desperate voice was muffled. "Give me your blood and shit, you worthless whore!"
The man sucked at her without tenderness or effort to ease her suffering, but with an indifference to any but his own perverse desires. His own orgasm, stained pink with blood, filled his mouth to overflowing and his efforts to swallow spilled the fluids from his lips so that it ran down his neck and painted his fine silk shirt.
"Oh you bitch! You witless cow!" he groaned, stabbing a finger inside her asshole and then another as he licked his lips.
Jenny's guttural cries were lost to the collective throng below. They were cheering as the innocent was finally given to the crucified figure on stage. Her angel was joined by the other and they forced the young woman to perch her sex upon his jutting member with a fool's smile playing upon her parted lips. The young girl faced the audience, pulled against the man until her smooth back pressed upon the blood sodden remains of his torso. Black cloaked stage hands moved to bind her at the shoulders and wrists so that she presented the Christ's cruciate form.
That she was virginal was soon apparent as the two angels lifted and pushed and prodded the girl into the correct position, feeding their victim's swollen cock to her small, hairless and pink vagina. The guardian angel wrapped her hands around the girl's small waist finally, with only the cockhead penetrating, and pulled her down so that the penis ripped into the girl, bringing forth an agonized and sharp scream of painful surprise.
Between her legs, Jenny felt the young man feasting on every bit of her ass and bowels he could reach with his mouth and fingers. Her senses were dulled and she no longer suffered the acute lance of pain, but rather a general malaise as if her body, weakened from exertion, was sated and contented with its suffering. Jenny felt the desire to leave this man now, to find her small room beneath the stage and rest, to enjoy the slow process of healing so that she might perform another night. But the dandy wanted her again and he'd coaxed his prick once more to aching attention.
Jenny bore his penetration with lidded eyes, whimpering her acceptance of his ruthless coupling. He slapped at her flesh and fucked his prick into her torn ass, complimenting and berating her at turns, as though to torture himself for enjoying such filthy sport. His dirty hands, coarse with their offal, clung to her hips and pulled the girl recklessly onto him. When he felt his orgasm rising, the dandy jammed himself deeply and held her, laughing so that his spittle rained on Jenny's back.
On the stage below, the final act of The Wedding was being performed. The wife, now an admitted whore and libertine of the worst sort, was being raped by the members of the wedding party while her husband looked on. Very soon, after the sobbing and pitiably beaten woman had been used a dozen times over, her husband would regain his honor as she was slowly impaled on a large wooden spike, fashioned in the form of a great penis.
"Bless me, Father…" a voice whispered and the dandy jerked upright, "…for I have sinned."
"Wha..." Jenny gasped as she was pushed rudely forward, very nearly over the balustrade and onto the spectators below.
The dandy had pushed her away and jerked himself free of her. He twisted his head and searched the gloomy alcove with furtive eyes, holding up his hands as if to ward the whispers away.
"Umphh!" the air was kicked from his lungs when the dandy's body hit the stone wall just left of the brocade covered exit.
A hand gripped him tightly by the throat, a small and altogether too delicate and female hand by appearance. The fingers were curled inward, like the woman's thumb, and she was very close to crushing the dandy's windpipe. But she merely held him several inches off the floor, peering into his wide, frightened eyes for any sign of recognition.
"Vampire?" a young girl's voice asked, light and playful as Jenny was caught and turned on her heels.
"P-Please…" Jenny tried to focus her eyes.
"No…only human," the voice sighed and something long and dark caressed the young woman's skin like a serpent's tongue. "Run along, girl. Back to your mirrors. Back to your cage..."
The hand let her go and Jenny stumbled away, passing through the curtain quickly. Her heart stammered as the whore dared a glance over her shoulder. There was little to be seen but shadows however, and she felt relief in that small mercy.
"L-Lazarus?" the dandy gasped, struggling to push the word up his throat and between the woman's fingers.
"Bingo," she smiled. "I thought you'd forgotten all about me."
"Noooo..." he shook his head slightly, so much as he was able, and his struggles were short and futile. He kicked his feet, pointing downward with his toes, but felt nothing there.
"Christ!" Lazarus made a face, turning away for a moment. "Your breath smells like shit, Padre. What have you been eating?"
"W-What?" He caught some movement in the corner of his eye and then he saw Uziel licking her fingers and smiling at him. The young priest swallowed hard and tore his eyes away painfully, which was quite a feat, all things considered, and it made Lazarus smile.
"You have it on you," she said. "Don't you?"
"It won't do you any good," the priest breathed, choking vaguely as Lazarus tilted her head. "It can't be broken..."
"Where is it?" Lazarus asked softly, leaning close despite the stench of the dandy's breath. The audience had grown loud by then, enjoying the climax of the evening's production.
"...not even by you!" he finished with a glimmer of triumph in his watery eyes.
"Around his neck," Uzi nodded. "That's where I'd keep it."
"Or up his ass," Lazarus giggled. "Maybe I should look there first, eh, priest? Or would you like that too much?"
"Fuck you!" The dandy spit weakly into the woman's face.
"A man of the cloth," Lazarus said wryly and her friend shrugged, tossing her milky hair towards the stage below.
"The show's almost over," Uzi observed. "We missed the best part."
"No, we haven't," Lazarus said, gripping the man's shirt near his throat and tearing the silk away. In the flickering candlelight she could see an amulet hanging by a leather cord around the priest's neck. It was fashioned from clay and as old as humanity itself.
"See?" Uzi grinned. "I get so tired of being right all the time."
"It's not...for...you," the dandy gasped and his face had turned scarlet, the woman's grip becoming stronger with her excitement. "Only an...angel..."
"I know something you don't know," Lazarus sang softly and then changed her tone to something colder. "Save your breath, Father, I hear it's hot in hell."
"Not much to look at, is it?" Uziel stood closer, examining the amulet as it lay against the man's florid chest.
"Take it," Lazarus said. "My arm's getting tired."
"Hmmm..." Uzi took the amulet in her fingers and it was neither hot nor cold, not even especially heavy as some ancient texts had reported. The soft clay had turned to stone over the long millennia, rock imprinted with Word of God, and she gave it a tug, snapping the leather and holding the crude thin disk in her small fist for Lazarus to see.
"Good," Lazarus smiled and let go of the priest unexpectedly, so that he fell into an awkward heap at her feet.
The dandy twisted his head, working his jaw slowly and drinking cool air into his lungs. He hadn't been breathing at all for nearly a minute and he wasn't used to such exertions. He pulled himself up slowly, leaning against the thick stone wall behind him.
"Now what?" the priest rasped and he chuckled weakly. "It does you no good. See? You plan to sell it? We'll get it back, Lazarus. We always do."
"Not this time," the woman said.
"Ready?" Uziel wondered and the man looked between them, his confidence struggling against reason.
"Go ahead," Lazarus said, speaking to the girl and ignoring the priest.
Uziel looked all of fifteen perhaps, if even that old, with long milk-white hair and soft golden eyes. Her beauty was remarkable and captivating, but her aspect changed quickly.
"Who is she?" he asked, widening his eyes with sudden fear.
The girl's eyes grew bright and took on a crimson hue, glowing even as her pale skin became iridescent, the candlelight slipping from her form so that she took upon her the aura of shadows. Her nails grew into talons, long and red like her eyes. Leathery wings sprouted from her back, like those of a bat, long and stilted and hanging from bleached white bones, barbed at the joints which formed their apex. Uziel's tail coiled around her waist like a serpent, very much resembling the bullwhip so recently witnessed upon the stage. It too was barbed and dripping with demonic blood, a poison that burned with murderous lust.
"Am I supposed to say anything?" Uziel wondered and her voice was that of a million children screaming in terror.
In the theater below and in the crowded streets outside, where Carnival was unending; throughout the city and for many miles in the steaming predawn streets and alleys of Rio, every person who had a breath in their body recoiled in fear and pain. They clamped their hands to their ears and some fell prostrate to the ground. Others bled from their eyes and some died outright, their hearts bursting in their chests. The priest himself was maddened by the sight alone and Uziel's true voice had brought the man mercy, thrusting his broken body deep into the stone upon which he'd rested so that it cracked and crumbled around him.
"I don't think so," Lazarus shrugged.
"We're gonna be in so much trouble, Laz," the Demonic Angel of Blood giggled and stuck out her tongue playfully.
And in the theatre and throughout the city, when they heard her laughter, every living thing that walks and crawls upon the earth; every bird of the air, and even those creatures that exist beneath the waters, fell into throes of agony; their blood curdling thick and hot, becoming polluted with the unclean spoils of temptation. More died in that instant, as would the many thousands who fell upon each other with unquenchable bloodlust in the hours and days to come. This was Uziel's power and her voice was the trumpet of doom, prophesied on the Plain of Sorrows a thousand centuries before.
"It's what I do," Lazarus smiled. "Anything for love, right?"
"I love you," the Angelic Demon of Blood whispered, crushing the First Seal easily in her fist, grinding the fragments into a fine dust that sifted through her fingers.
There was silence then and Lazarus looked around, narrowing her eyes. Uziel did that same and then they looked at each other and laughed. The apprehension that they'd felt, but refused to profess aloud, fell away from their hearts. Lazarus took Uziel in her arms, embracing the angel and finding her lips soft and willing.
They kissed for a long minute, while around them the finest men and women, the wealthy and respected and privileged elite, raped and murdered each other in their madness. Blood ran through the aisles and all manner of grotesque and cruel afflictions were visited upon friends and loved ones. This was the Apocalypse and fitting that it should begin in a theatre of the macabre, Lazarus thought. Humanity at least deserved the irony.
"Let's get out of here," Lazarus said. "They'll be looking for us now."
"I thought they already were?" Uzi grinned.
She'd changed into her more normal disguise, fifteen and innocent, a lovely young girl to compliment the mature grace of Lazarus. The Last Miracle of Christ had been a woman for two millennia already, and Lazarus wore her charms with little attention, but even so her beauty was undeniable.
"Yeah, but God will be looking now," Lazarus shrugged. "Personally."
"Lucifer too," Uziel agreed. "So where are we going?"
"The last place anyone would ever think of looking for us," Lazarus said, dipping her finger into the blood which had pooled around the dead priest.
"Uganda?" Uziel suggested.
"Okay," Lazarus giggled as she began drawing a circle with her wet fingernail, kicking a chair out of the way. "The second to last place then."
"Where's that?" Uziel asked loudly above the screams coming from below.
"New Orleans!"
"Humph," Uziel brushed her white hair back, looking down on the violent orgy she'd inspired. Fires had broken out; a large one burned especially high behind the stage, and the building itself was shaking on its foundations, threatening to come down soon.
"Ready?" Lazarus held out her hand and took Uziel's delicate fingers, pulling the girl behind her as a silvery portal opened.
They walked through it, feeling the ether like a tempest, pulling at their hair and clothing first, then their skin and the flesh beneath it. Finally their bones, drawn inexorably towards the darkness at the end of a long tunnel. This was the Walk of Prophets and a very old spell, useful as well, although it required freshly spilled blood from a holy man to work. In Lazarus' experience there was only rarely a dead priest around when you needed one. But it did happen, she reminded herself, from time to time.
It was black.
"And God said, et lumiere!" Lazarus uttered the simple incantation and a pale glow grew out of the air around them.
"A crypt?" Uziel frowned. "This was the best you could do? Next time I'm driving!"
"No, this is perfect," the other woman decided with a smile. "Over here, help me with this."
"What?" the angel sighed, knowing it was pointless to ask too many questions. "Well, who's in here anyway?"
"This is the tomb of Paul Morphy," Lazarus said, the two girls leaning their weight against the granite lid of his sarcophagus.
"Who the fuck is Paul Morphy?" Uziel asked, just before the slab of stone fell to the floor with a resounding crash.
"My old boyfriend," Lazarus breathed. "Fuck. Stupid flood."
"Ewww," Uziel made a face. "That's just ill, Laz."
Lazarus took off her denim jacket, handing it to her friend, and pulled her long black hair into a ponytail and tied it out of the way. The coffin itself had been eaten away and the sarcophagus filled with mud and debris, all of it congealed now into a stinking morass covered with tiny mushrooms and moss, and insects, worms, and God only knew what else.
She took a deep breath and plunged her hands into the swampy mess, feeling around blindly as the wet mélange seemed to suckle eagerly upon that undesirable penetration.
"What are you looking for?" Uziel finally asked after several minutes of impatient waiting.
"Uh…Ah! Got it!" Lazarus grinned at the girl and pulled her hands free with a loud, wet sucking sound. "This!"
"The hell's that?" Uziel asked suspiciously. "The world's smallest butt plug?"
"Heh!" Lazarus narrowed her eyes and mocked the angel's suspicion, "How did you know where I put it?"
"Yeah right!" Uziel rolled her eyes.
"It's a pawn, see?" Lazarus was cleaning it off with a ragged piece of cloth, the remains of a flour sack perhaps, that some rats had used to build a nest. She wiped her hands and arms clean of mud as well, although the stench remained.
"A pawn?" Uzi shrugged. "So what?"
"So…" Lazarus smiled. "It's special. So long as Paul played chess with this piece on the board, he couldn't lose."
"You gave him a magic pawn?" Uziel frowned. "Why didn't you just have his fucking baby too? God! You never gave me anything!"
"Uzi," Lazarus gave her a patient smile, "I didn't give it to him. I just…let him borrow it for awhile. That's not the point anyway."
"Humph," the demon sniffed unhappily.
"Don't be jealous," Lazarus said, taking her jacket back. "We're going dancing, remember? I need a fuckin' drink too."
"You promise?" Uziel looked up and Lazarus laughed at her.
"Course I do!" the woman said. "It's New Orleans, come on! Besides, this end of the world shit is hard work. We deserve a little fun."
"Okay," Uziel agreed. "But no jukebox this time! I want some real music, right?"
"Right…" Lazarus tried the heavy door to the crypt and heard a chain rattle on the opposite side. "You mind?"
"Nope." Uziel kicked the door with her bare left foot and it exploded off its hinges with a sound much like thunder.
"Nice," Lazarus shook her head slowly. The iron door had flown some thirty feet, destroying three grave markers in the process, and decapitating a marble angel who looked like Cupid as much as anyone else.
"What?" Uziel giggled self-consciously and then she looked down. "I need some shoes."
"Where's your shoes?" Lazarus looked at the angel's feet. "You always lose your shoes! I swear, Uzi…"
"Shut-up!" The angel took the woman by the hand, pulling her out of the crypt and into the gray light of the approaching dawn. "Take me dancing, Laz."