See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

THE CLIMAX OF ACT ONE.  I’m never getting through this thing, am I?  Anyway, content warnings for edgy, edgy sex stuff.  Avoid if botherable.  I can’t make the time to get more specific right this moment.

–

Noise walked behind Josefina sullenly, a new cigarette in her mouth.  She’d fished out her pack and a lighter, but Josie hadn’t given her time to put the pants on before walking away.  Noise didn’t want to be left behind, and the khakis were over her shoulder.

Josefina led them down a ramping hall with a weirdly soft floor.  Felt over concrete?  There was a room ahead with one cold fluorescent light, some people within doing unknown things.  No door to conceal them, just the dim light and inscrutable nature of everything.

A child suddenly came out of the room, and walked past the women at a brisk pace.  It was a little girl, of no more than eleven years, but with eyes wrinkled from weariness, a strangely adult expression.  She said, “It’s almost time.  I’m coming for you.”

They came into the little room.  It was plain concrete, the wall-mounted fluorescent light leaving the felt-covered floor mysterious in darkness, and Peace stood in the middle of it all.  There were a few white people operating office equipment.  One – a man whose only visible features resembled the VIP – took a flash picture of Peace with a little silver plastic digital camera, and then walked to a computer station, with two outdated printers and a fax machine plugged in.  At another computer, a nerd in headphones was editing a trap remix of Limp Bizkit’s Faith.

Peace shook off the daze and welcomed his friends with open arms.  “Girls, I’m sorry.  I got lost.”

After the group hug, Josefina said, “We should leave, dude.  This trip is just bad news.”

“no shit,” Noise said with a voice quieter than the chug of the printer.

“But now you have both of us together, Josie,” he said.  “We can help you get through it.  A sip?”

She took a slug off his water bottle.  “Why is it so cold down here?  We’re half naked.”

“You’re this close to the bottom of it, Josie.  Come on.  I need to show you something.  Both of you.”

Josie rudely grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt and leaned close.  “I’m only doing this for you, then  we’re gone.”

He shook his head sadly, but led them on.  They were in darkness again, until they emerged in a theater lit by an old-time film reel that was playing on the big screen.  It was like a bootleg Betty Boop cartoon up there, in glorious limited color.  They took seats in the middle of the theater, no one else to consider, tall or small.

Josefina was in the middle, Peace left, and Noise right.  Noise was the last to sit down, awkwardly pulling her pants on first.  “What’s up with that?,” Peace asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Josefina said.  She wasn’t paying attention to the cartoon, leaning over to embrace Peace.  “Sorry, I have to do it,” she said, rubbing his chest.  “I have to know you’re real. Nothing feels real anymore unless I touch it, or smell it.”  She breathed deeply on his shoulder – slightly stale laundry, shampoo, dry sweat, the dust of the huge empty theater.  The ecstasy blended it all into a heady potpourri, a tingling over her skin.

He picked up her hand and kissed it, before pushing it back into her lap.  “You got to pay attention, wild girl.  This is all about you.”  He pointed to the screen.

At this, her blood ran cold.  Why would she be in a movie?  There was nobody else in the seats, but who else could be watching?

A cigarette burn flashed and film scratches let them know it was time for a new scene.  A clapperboard clicked, scrawled with the title Pony Up in Here, and hands pulled it away, revealing a film of the peep show runway they had just left behind.  Only this time, Josefina was alone there.

“Where am I?  Where?”  Noise nervously hotboxed her cigarette, leaning forward in her seat.  “Oh no, oh no.”

Josefina was arrested, barely breathing.  On the screen, she was dancing to Ginuwine, kicking off her shoes.  Muffled voices may have been yelling “faster baby,” “take it off,” but were a little too quiet to hear, even at theater volume.

“I didn’t strip,” she said.  “I didn’t.”

Screen Josefina shook her hips as she dropped trou, and stepped out of the mounded cloth – now wearing nothing but her bikini and little black socks with pink hearts.  She quickly switched to more provocative moves, dry-humping one window, slapping her ass on another, twirling and bouncing her tits.

She looked so human, so ordinary.  There was no screen magic, not even to the level seen in cheap porn.  It was point and shoot, at a gangly young woman shaking her unthrilling baby chub, prematurely aged eyes drifting between closed and barely open.  Was she dreaming?

“It was you, Josie,” said Peace.  “You were exposed.”

Noise gripped Josefina from the other side, body rocking in terror, cigarette bouncing dangerously near her face.  “You were right!  I was wrong to make you dance, Josie.  It was always wrong!”

Josefina slapped her cigarette and it flew off, rolling under the seats.  That snapped noise her out of fear, for the moment, and she returned to rocking in her seat, debating internally whether to go crawling after it.  “Why’d you do that?  Why?”

Screen Josefina slid her bikini top to the side, letting tiny breasts out to wobble side-to-side, so boring they may as well have stayed concealed.  Was one of the muffled voices booing her?  It was either dog braying or jeers, and she couldn’t tell at all.

“It was Noise who was naked.  Not me.”

Screen version put a leg up on one of the windows and pulled on the straps of her bottom, sliding it back and forth through the crack, exposing herself.  The Josefina in the seats gasped and shuddered.  “Wasn’t me.”

The muffled voices from behind the windows were definitely jeering.  Snippets of phrases could be gleaned.  “ugly ass” “don’t wanna see that” “ugly ass” “put it back on”  Trays started sliding out from the booths, holding brass knuckles, knives, chains, and crudely scrawled death threats.  Screen girl looked like she was getting off on it, or in spite of it, sliding against the glass, bumping on it, pleasuring herself obscenely.

“It was you,” Peace said.  But his voice was too close, too small.  Josefina felt a thrashing at her chest and looked down.  She was holding two babies – one who was Peace, with improbably long hair for an infant; the other was wriggling and fussy Noise, with pink face and the tiniest eyes – a sliver of a drop of shine the only hint they were open at all.  “It was me!,” Noise cried, begging to exist.

Josefina looked up at the screen again, as Peace said, “Don’t look away.”  She obeyed as a dracula victim, transfixed, needing to die.

Cigarette burn, scratch, a new reel.  No board, just a title screen, of elaborate motion graphics – the sign appearing from baroque gold foliage between two marble pillars, “The Perils of Brujeria – an Infallible Transmission.”

A character appeared, and it was apparent that she was not a real human being – a cartoon contrivance, of extreme graphic fidelity.  Her skin was luminous, her hair glossy, her eyes reflecting every phantom light in the most aesthetically precise way regardless of which direction she glanced.  The doll’s costume was like a nun reimagined by Coco Chanel and Hugo Boss, in black pink and white.  Her name wrote itself in gold vines and then erased itself in the same movement, Donatella Cheri.

She said, “Blessed are we in harmonious purpose to serve to the Lord, our God.  Today the Office of Holy See has released a dire admonition indeed, that we should all take upon our hearts.  In Heaven we will never have to witness such things as this, but in the fallen world of the material, it is vital that we know the adversary – that we recognize sin, that we may rebuke and revile it.”  Each syllable bounced the pink-blonde curls, each fleeting breath was a chance taken to convey the sensual energy of this intensely false creation.  It felt, to Josefina, like an artifact of Japanese pop culture.

What was Japan?  The concept surfaced and disappeared, like everything else she had known at the beginning of the night.

The “woman” was replaced by a serious “man,” with profound voice.  “An agent of the Inquisition uncovered video of a witch engaged in congress with unreconstructed spirits – bestial servants of Hell.  The pontiff would have us all look upon this misbegotten creature and ask ourselves, could any temptation ever be worth this?”

He slid away from the screen to reveal mobile phone footage of a forest glade, the floor broken with mossy stones, and upon those stones a wild sexual orgy – with Josefina in the center.

Josefina watched herself.  Baby Peace said, “You were exposed for who you are, for what you love, and the world has vomited you out.  They hate you, Josefina.  Everyone in the world considers you to be the lowest of the low.”

She felt for him in the darkness, not looking down, unable to look away from herself.  But the babies were gone, leaving only moist creatures on her shoulders like fat amphibians.  Frog Noise said, “It is the worst!  The most terrible thing ever!  We should never have done this!”

Shafts of magic light came and went like ghost images on the scene.  Screen Josefina was being vaginally penetrated by a man that looked like Jesus Christ, bits of the cross still nailed to his feet and hands.  She strained hungrily to lap at the labia of a tattooed and pierced woman whose midriff had somehow been replaced with a giant chain link.  That woman was stroking the cock of a skeletal being in flamenco garb, and skull face.  A plump androgyne with little brown bird wings rubbed their micropenis on her belly and mashed her tits.  A goat-headed and goat-legged woman slid a huge dildo in and out of herself, while balancing Josefina’s ass on her thigh.

The man’s stentorian voice resumed, laid over the scene.  “We remind you that these creatures have minds like animals.  This is like having intercourse with hounds and cattle.  Look upon her hideous flesh and despair.”

She looked upon her flesh and felt something else.  She remembered them: The Libertines.  Their minds were not as deep as those of humans, but they were intelligent creatures, with agency and desire, and so much charm.  Spirits of nature incarnate.  They were her friends.  The contrast between living bodies and the Holy See’s fascist dolls had long been used to make the despised look ugly.  To Josefina, the feeling was inverted.

Frog Peace asked, “All the Stars of Weal have seen your true self and found you to be vile.  The expression of this hatred is shame, shame to isolate you from them, to feel like they are safe from ever being like you, in any way.  The gentlest of their number see this shame as a tool of pedagogy, a mirror they can hold to you, help you see that you must change.  Become like them.”

“How can this be real?  It’s impossible for anyone to be hated like this.  Isn’t it?”

The dapper cartoon characters receded in a flourish of gold vines, replaced by a video of the pope.  His features had been run through digital filters to look more clean, unblemished, more kindly – elderly in the only ways that could be accepted by masses swimming in illusion.

And yet his tall hat – his papal crown – was in flames, and his heart was marked out on the cassock with a brutally carved X, leaking blood with every word he spoke.  “This is what awaits the so-called intuitive, the witch.  To rut like a dog, to offend the eye of god, to make filthy his creation.  In the place in your mind where you keep knowledge of all terrible things, seal this experience away.  When this transmission ends,” his head lolled sharply and then snapped back upright, “Pray that your understanding of God’s Will remain strong,” his neck bent as if broken and his eyes rolled up, “That you may live in chaste serenity.”  His tongue fell past his teeth and lips, distended to unnatural lengths.  “God bless you all, and good night.”  His body fell away, and the celluloid melted away to a blank screen and a flickering sound.

“You are the most hated person who has ever lived.”  Was it Peace?  Noise?  Her own voice?

“No,” she replied to herself.  “Now I know who is.”

The projection died and Josefina remained floating in darkness.

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

Somehow they had slipped all notice of security forces at the Wall of Ice, through judicious switching between long space and the astrocielo.  But Ombunculita had begun to cry inconsolably, near silently.  She didn’t seem to have a tongue, but that wouldn’t prevent a nonverbal wail, would it?  Blasfemia held her close and cradled her head, fingers carefully run between the thorns.

“Ombona~ombona~ombona, what’s the matter you little freak?  Why did Cora make you come with us?  You don’t belong here.  This is so fucking stupid, I’m sorry.  Ombonculita, you need to take it easy.  You’ll get all gross.  Come on.”

“God, is this what Dio 6 looks like now?”

Blasfemia grew concerned they’d somehow got switched around, headed to the last place she’d ever want to be.  She stood from the bench, homunculus still in her arms, and walked to the front of the ship.  There was no proper division of a cockpit, just a wide open dashboard with one swiveling chair floor-mounted in front of it, off center toward the left.  That made plenty of room to stand on the right, to take in the view.

They were in the astrocielo around – presumably – Borland 1.  It was a largely frozen planet, and looked as such even in the spirit world.  But the spirit world had a few dramatic features lacking in the material realm.  One was that its small moon looked like luminous furry insect.

And two, there was an incredibly vast skeleton slouched over the world like a man over an exercise ball, pinned to the planet by a giant sword that ran all the way into the crust itself – possibly out the other side.  They couldn’t see that much from their angle of approach.

“Is the planet cold because the spirit is dead, or is the spirit dead because the planet is cold?,” the corsario wondered aloud.

“Why couldn’t I see one of these things with its flesh on?  Like when we stowed away to Dio 6, there were no windows on our hideout.  It would just be fun to see a ding-dong as big as the ocean.  You’ve probably seen that, huh?”

“Oh yes.  It is fun.  But I think it’ll be safer to fly in long space on this deal.  There could be a lot of tough guys living on what’s left of that thing.  Borland 1 doesn’t have the resources for space defense.”

“Yeah, yeah.  Cool.  Do it.”  She could only ignore the silent wailing for so long.  “Ombonculita, come on!”

The corsario hated how long it took to get through an atmosphere in long space, but it would be worth it.  The Leveret descended in an easy, long, time-consuming arc toward her destination.  Cora had given them the coordinates to the Torre Alucine – another witch tower.  Like hers, it was in a fairly remote place, but this one was on a mountain range.  It was less parking than perching, but that’s what legs are for, and the Leveret had ’em.

They were navigating by lights and sensors, coming upon the tower at night.  There was a chance the landing could set off an avalanche.  The ancient structure would be safe, but the astronave and her riders, not so much.  The corsario was as skilled as could be – not a move out of place – but perfection was impossible, and disaster the opposite.

With disconcerting rumbles and several minutes of settling and adjusting, they secured a grip on the mountainside.  Was it close enough to the tower?  They’d find out in the morning.  The only cold weather garments they had were shawls from Cora – and Blasfemia’s clean loan clothes had been a full length midnight blue satin dress and emerald green canvas sneakers, courtesy of Josefina, age seventeen.  The back barely zipped and would break under the most trivial exercise.  Best to do everything when it was easiest.

But was she in the tower?  It looked even more ancient and desolate than Cora’s home.  Blasfemia did her best to care for Ombunculita, but had to give up on giving her a proper bath.  It just wasn’t going to happen.  She slept in a hammock, with the grubby little monster close to her heart.

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

CONTENT WARNING:  This gets a little sexual assault -esque?  Depending on how broadly you draw that?  Best avoided if you’re at all sensitive to that.  Also may remind one of being physically bullied or sexually shamed by a girl?  I can’t really do full CWs and write this fast at the same time.  Watch yourself, buddies.

–

Josefina held arms across her chest, holding down her long hair, for whatever warmth it could provide.  At least she still had her pants.  Why was there a walk-in freezer in the sub-sub-basement of Razzmatazz?  She could no longer ask herself because she couldn’t remember anything in the world except for the ecstasy – which reminded her of itself with every stray sensation, and her friends – Peace for being the object of her hunt, and Noise for being the nuisance along the way.

The freezer was very simple in design – almost more like another length of hallway, lined shelves holding frozen appetizers destined for a deep fryer.  There was a door at the hobo end, and a door up ahead.  She recognized the way they work, from her own menial jobs.  Outside the door would have a flexible latch, inside it used a push knob, like something stolen from a foosball table.  She punched the knob and walked through, Noise chattering away behind her.

The next room was barely less cold than the freezer.  What kind of room was it?  There was one door, locked from the other side, and what looked like a short runway of grooved stainless steel, like the kind they use on escalators.  It was surrounded on all sides by plexiglass walls that sloped out – one could lean on them, from this side.  There were metal roll-down curtains on the other side of the glass.  in all, there were two windows on the left, three on the right, and one at the end of the little hall.

Noise said, “Seems like a dead end.  Let’s go–  Huh.”

Josefina turned around.  The freezer door did not, in fact, have a handle on this side.

Music began to play.  Some extra bassy trap remix of Pony by Ginuwine.  A voice came on the speakers, tinny.

“Gentlemen of the club, behold.  Who just fell to Earth tonight?  Some heavenly bodies indeed.  What are your names, little girls?”

The roll-down curtains began to open, but the lights over the walkway turned them into mirrors, where all the women could see was themselves.

“Ah shit,” Noise said.  “Wrong kind of club, haha!”  She spoke up, for the audience.  “I’m Noise, and this is Josie!  We’re hot to trot!  Woo!”  She did not look hot, cold sweat shining on her nose, ringing the cheeks under her tiny eyes.  Her t-shirt was clinging to her chubby body.  Her grease-stained khakis were in extra dumpy mode, her slip-proof black sneakers encrusted with bits of fast food detritus.  Normally, Noise was pretty shy about dancing, but she must have felt obligated.  You step onto the strip, you entertain the paying customers, right?

Josie felt no such obligation.  She went to the window at the end of the hall, presuming it was the VIP booth.  “Hey!  Hey!”  She beat on the window, unfortunately aware from the reflections of how that made her little titties bounce.  “This ain’t the champagne room!  Let us out!”

There was a little sliding tray at the base of the window, she hadn’t noticed until it was pushed in from the other side.  Other trays began to open, all containing crumpled bills and other unsavory things.  Josefina spat on the glass and shoved the tray back through the wall.  “I don’t want your money!  I’m not stripping, culo!”

“Hey, nice!,” Noise said.  “They don’t even let us get tips at work.  Yes, and thank you, sir.  What should I take off?”

“Nosy and Josie, two smokin’ chiquitas, ready to mount up!  That pony, girls!  Ride it!  You’re horny!”

Josie wheeled to look at Noise.  “What the fuck is this?  What do we do?”

Noise had stopped dancing, seemingly more disturbed by this turn of events than she had let on.  “I mean, I guess we could take it all off.  Not like we hafta get AIDS off any of these jokers.  I could use a couple bucks, ya know?”  The cigarette bounced, slowly filling the narrow hall like a smoke machine.

The DJ kept trying to prod them.  “Go cowgirls!  It’s your birthday!”

Noise noticed something behind Josefina, Josefina noticed her noticing, and she spun around.  The man inside the box was turning the light on and off, revealing and concealing himself, until he knew he had Josefina’s attention.  He was holding a hand-written sign over his face.

TAKE IT OFF
JOSEFINA

She shook her head and kicked the fake glass, which barely rattled in its frame.  The man turned the light off, then turned it back on, holding a different sign over his face.

I CAN GIVE YOU
WHAT YOU WANT

“Bullshit!”

The light went off and stayed off.  The DJ said, “Anytime now.  Gonna get.  Spicy?”  The track segued into a trap remix of Nelly’s Hot in Herre.  The DJ said, “With a little bit of hot-uh-hot!”

The tray was pushed out again, with a rumpled picture.  It looked like a cheap color printer reproduction of a cheap digital photograph, of Peace!  He was in a plain concrete room, looking disturbed, with red eyeshine.  The flash was directly in front of him, his head haloed by his own stark shadow.

Somehow, boos and complaints reached them through the glass.  Not completely soundproof.  Mostly, the men expressed a predictable desire to see tits and ass.

Noise asked Josefina, “What is it?  What did you get?”

She banged on the darkened window again.  “Where is he?  How did you get this?”

The light came back on, with a new handwritten sign over the man’s face.

TITS AND
ASS NOW

It went out and stayed out.  Nelly rhymed “seasons” with “heathens.”

So that’s the deal.  Strip to find out where Peace is.

The DJ said, “Is this it?  Is it going to happen?  It is pretty hot in here.  Humid, even.  Nudity: The remedy.”

Josefina slumped so hard that Noise was able to reach her face over her shoulder, pushing the cigarette through her hair.  A whiff of burning hair joined the stifling stench of the cigarette.  Noise said, “Cheer up, girl.  Let’s dance for these dudes.”

It was true.  She had come to dance.  Josefina pulled herself up to her full height, jerking with the rhythm.  The muffled voices became so many dogs and apes.

“Yeah!,” said Noise.

“Yeah!,” said the DJ.

Josefina did a dance.  She wasn’t an amazing dancer, but that was hardly necessary.  Pulse your body on the beats, one way or another.  Slide your body between the pulses in alluring ways.  A little hand jive to make them think of medieval enchantresses.

Noise always loved to see it.  Why?  Because she couldn’t get the same attention if she did it, and something in Josie’s quiet demeanor made a non-entity of her, a body that easily facilitated a vicarious thrill?  She was at it again, no mind to the circumstances.

It was offensive.  Josefina hated it.  Noise did her usual lazy move, resting a hand on her hips or ass, waving the other hand in the air as if she was riding a pony – but without any of the other motions that sell the routine.  Then she thought of something.

“He just said tits and ass now, not whose tits and ass they had to be.”

“Huh?  Can’t hear you, girl!”

Josefina hadn’t taken her pants off yet, hadn’t stripped anything for these dogs.  But she started to strip Noise, pulling her nasty T-shirt up at the waist.

“What the fuck?”  Noise stopped moving, more still even than during her lazy dance.

“What’s this?,” the DJ asked, “A little girl-on-girl?  Hey-Ohh!”

“Time for you to dance, Noise!”  She heard it that time.  Josefina didn’t quite get the shirt off, but it was going to happen.  She grabbed and pushed at Noise, rocking her this way and that.  “To the rhythm!  Come on!”

The cigarette dropped from her lips and rolled into one of the grooves on the floor.  She had a strange expression, like a lost little girl – completely uncharacteristic.  But the crass blonde let herself be coaxed into dancing.  “Is this what you want?  Want us to be even?”

She took off her shirt, with a perfunctory effort at strip-tease style, and flicked it away with a snap.  It landed on one of the windows and slid down.  The unseen weirdo caught it in his tray and pulled it back into his booth.

Now both women were in pants, but with a revealing scrap of a garment on top.  Josie kept Noise dancing.  She leaned in close and whispered to Noise, “That’s not the deal.”  She spun them together, and left Noise twirling in front of the VIP booth.  She kept Noise’s body rocking side-to side, while reaching around to unbuckle her belt.

“Oh my God, Josie!  You’re so fucking crazy!  Hah!”

“Josie loves Nosy,” said the DJ, “Just look at her go!”

Josefina pulled Noise’s pants down in one dramatic motion, making the blonde stumble awkwardly out of her shoes.  She’d barely managed to keep her underwear on, and fell forward, palms catching herself on the VIP window.

The Latina straddled Noise’s back and pulled her bra up by the straps, freeing her breasts in front of the VIP.  She pointed at the dark mirror with a long finger.  “Just for you, pendejo!”

Noise pulled her bra back down and stood up angrily.  “Josie!”

Josefina looked genuinely sad, but also resigned.  “He said ass, too.”  She tugged down Noise’s panties and pushed her back onto the plexiglass.

Suddenly the lights went out, the speakers died, and a soft click sounded from behind them in the little hall.  Noise was initially too shocked to react, but started squalling and cursing like Lucy van Pelt.

“Hush hush hush,” Josefina said, trailing off and drifting away.  She lit the way with her cellphone and tried the side door.  It was unlocked.

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

The sky had mostly stopped burning.  The cries and moans of the astrocielo diminished to a dull roar in the back of Michael’s mind, and he found it much easier to feel out the measure of his power in the physical world.  No more accidental lobotomies, or subjects so fear-wracked they tinged the air with urine.  Those were a result of barely controlled psychic energy.  He could reel it all in now, or roll it out slow, one wavelength at a time.

So great was his control that he had found the assassins.  It was just a matter of time before they were brought to heel.  He tapped the bravest and holiest of the papal guard to be his escorts, and had the Tiemplo Santo Pietro cleaned and blessed – reconsecrated by no less  than the gathered cardinals.

The putti had settled down again for the night, clustered for warmth atop the all the buildings of the Walled City.  They would wake sometime after dawn, letting early birds fight for the scraps.  Considering they ate angelfly larvae to survive, they would have some rough times soon, but for now it was a big relief from the horror of the assassination.

A few thousand people had gathered outside the temple, waiting for some official word, something to tell them what to do.  Michael was still too disconnected from mortal affairs to process that, but he was beginning to feel a sense of peace, and let that radiate from within.  The crowd would remain civil.

A papal robe had been tailored to fit the great angel, embroidered also with violet marks of regency, carefully designed openings allowed for his wings.  No more nudity, which he had come to understand was part of what rendered him so terrifying to behold, in this pure-hearted society.

Michael knew he’d need to assume the papal palazzo, teach himself how to eat, sleep, and drink, but there was one thing that kept him in suspense.  One buzzing that he couldn’t quell – a burr in his psychic equilibrium.

The crowd outside parted peacefully for the guards, who carried four glass-topped coffins up the steps, into the great temple.  They stood them upright before the pontiff-regent.  Each contained a captured assassin, beaten and stripped to their undergarments.  The stands secured in place, each guard prostrated himself on the marble tiles, awaiting their orders.

“Well done, well done.  But this was not the death of that ancient emperor, the work of so many knives.  Who plunged their dagger into his pontiff’s sweet heart?  Whose most singular act of depravity has brought an angel’s feet to walk this earth?”

Michael walked down from the throne and looked over their bodies.  What a sight!  Nothing had ever looked quite like this to him before.  He was becoming fast acquainted with human frailty, with biological realities.  It was endlessly fascinating.  The angel pawed at the glass like a monkey, or a child in a candy store.

These were youths, far from the time when their bodies would sag, when everything they were would be rewritten in shorthand, scratchier strokes, again and again, until they were no more.  Did they think it better to die young?  If so, then why did they flee arrest?

He could see the potential in each of their bodies, every nascent polyp or cyst, every developmental pathway that would change their body, if they had a future.  He could see every wound they’d sustained in their struggles, imagine every possible way any given one of them could spiral beyond repair, crippling or killing.  They were clay, they were water, they were a moment in time that had not been before and would never be again.

But this was his power talking – his angelic birthright.  His eyes were now human enough.  Rein in the psychic power, feel the moment as it was for them.  It was only fair, and the only way to understand them, on their own level.

On closing his mind’s eye, they looked so different.  Man, woman, woman, man.  The two on the left were shorter and thicker, the man fully bearded, both soft and vulnerable – saved from utter ruin only by the resilience of youth.  The two on the right weren’t as strong, but blessed with a natural conformation that would lead to fewer injuries and illnesses in life.  Slim, broad-shouldered, a natural athleticism to them.  This man had a much shorter beard than the other – just a few days of growth.  This woman had drained the color from her hair with foul chemicals, and painted her face – the paint now smeared and ruined.  She wore no bra, her pert breasts were as bruised and flecked with blood as any part of her body.  But what was this injury?

He looked closer, hypnotized by the canvas of all their exposed skin, but particularly the tips of her breasts.  They had metal bars crossed through them.  It could be no accident.  Had someone begun to torture them already?

Michael called his holiest guard to stand beside him.  “Who did this to her breasts?  Their punishments should be more carefully considered, not so strange and … indecent.”

“I believe she did it to herself, pontiff-regent.  It is a habit of uh… shameless people.  Some of them like to pierce their bodies.  I don’t know why.”

The angel shook his head.  The feathers of his wings flattened, and has he turned to examine her again, they rose – puffing up like an excited dove.  “It is said a fallen angel taught man to paint himself.  Only this one has taken that lesson…  It is her, isn’t it?  The one I sensed!  The one who designed to kill God Himself!”

He stepped back a pace, drawing up an arm in fright, his wings flapping nervously.  His guard hustled back to the ranks.  The angel’s agitation raised a wave of nervousness in all present, though not as bad as on his first arrival.

Michael calmed himself, straightening his cassock.  “She is the one who hates God the most.  The one so fallen that there is no innocence left in her heart.  She must have slain the pontiff.”  He gestured to his bravest guard.  The man came to his left side.

“Yes, pontiff-regent?”

“Who are they?  And most importantly, who is she?”

“They are college students from a world called Corazon 2.  They were suspected in helping another violent radical escape incarceration there.  Names,” he pulled out his mobile, “Jorge Lactoque Salas, Xihuani Omerta, Zochino Olivares Tavernetti, and, most importantly, Christina Violeta Chaco Mondragon.”

“Christina.  The anointed one.”

They all lay there, slumped against the backs of their coffins, beaten insensate.  The angel resumed his throne and looked across the assassins, and across his people.  “I will know all there is to know about them, before I decide their ultimate fate.  That they may experience it in full awareness and understanding, I would have them healed of these injuries.  But remember what they have done, and leave not the slightest chance that they may try to escape again.”

The guards rose, taking down the coffin stands, and readying themselves to carry the heavy burdens away.

Michael said, “They shall be the Seal of Murder.  None shall dare to design death for another, when they reflect on what has befallen these four.  It is not for man to kill man.  That is the Will of God.”

He said these things, but his heart was racing.  What was this feeling?

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

They had to get out of there.  They’d both been burned by the witch.  But they couldn’t make themselves leave just yet.  They had to clear the air.  Blasfemia and the corsario glared at each other, slumped against the walls of the Leveret.  At least they had gotten a change of clothing for Blasfemia, so the ship could be cleaner – at least, until the homunculus needed its diaper changed.

The little creature sat in nearly the same position as Blasfemia, back against the wall, but it was looking back and forth between its two new giants.  Cora hadn’t been lying that it was her most perfect creation.  The thing barely looked deformed at all.  Inhumanly proportioned, like some aesthetically pleasing large-headed doll, with cornsilk hair neatly combed away and cloched with a net of pearls.  Her moony silver eyes were the very image of Cora’s own, but the strawberry blonde lashes were thicker and longer, almost cameline.  Her most unnatural trait were the several small horns protruding from her skull, shaped like larger rose thorns.

Neither of the giants regarded her at all, piercing each other with savage hatred.  At last, Blasfemia lost the staring contest, and opened fire.

“You little bitch!  What did you do to us?  I was going to take this nasty little thing to my sister, no question.  No fucking question.  I didn’t need a motherfucking hex.”

“She called it a geas.  Isn’t it enough that I got one too?  Why do we need to fight about it?  This just gives us more of an impetus to get the job done and part ways.”

“I’ll give you a fucking impetus, you ugly-ass kitty cat duende motherfucker.  As soon as we’re done I’m gonna pop your big eye like a grape.”

“Thanks for that.  Thanks a lot, you unthinkable bastard.  Now I’ve got pain if I don’t serve your venal whims, and mutilation or death to look forward to as my only reward.  This is going to be so much fun.  What a way to go.  What a way.”

“What do you expect of me?  You rat me out to the witch queen and get me fucking geesed on, and I’m just gonna say ‘bygones, bygones’?  But I feel ya.  I never wanted to kill nobody that wasn’t mean to my sister, so it’d be pretty fucked up if I kill you.  I’m heated, alright?  I’m fucking heated.”

The duende motherfucker covered its face with its paws and let out a deep sigh.  Suddenly the hands dropped to its stomach, and it lurched at the waist.  “Oh no.  It’s starting.  I feel sick because I’m not getting you there fast enough.  This is terrible.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, alright.  I’m sorry I took you captive.  Here.”  She helped it up from the floor, and took it to the pilot seat.  “You get us off Corazon 2 and I’ll make sure Ombunculita doesn’t bust open her weird head.”

The corsario nodded, glad they’d cleared that up, but more glad the illness subsided as soon as it touched the Leveret’s controls.  The astronave clambered upright, dropped its wings, and kicked off into the sky.

Blasfemia held the little shitter in her own approximation of Cora’s technique, but with all arms folded under the seatbelts.  She called out to the pilot, “At least when we get outside the ice, the Church won’t have the balls to hunt us down.”

“You’re probably right.  Hell, maybe I’ll like it out there.  Did I tell you, the astrocielo around Dio 6 was my home?  I had a nice little house on Michael’s heel.”

“No shit.  Well, if I’d known you then, maybe I’d kill the pope nice and easy, like in his sleep or something.  Prob’ly woulda been less raw for the big man.”

“Still would’ve done it, then…  Does that mean the pontiff was personally cruel to your sister?  To Josefina?”

“I’m not gonna talk about it, but yes it does.  Are you starting to put it together?  Remembering the right news shows?”

“I don’t watch tele.”

“That’s a good fucking idea.”

They spent almost all of their flight time in astrocielo, far now from the disaster she’d made of Dio 6.  Changing diapers wasn’t any worse than the last time she’d done it, and mercifully the creature she’d dubbed “Ombunculita” had a much smaller and slower digestive system than a human infant of the same length – her body was proportioned a bit more like that of an adult.

Out of morbid curiosity, she gave the thing soft little squeezes and pokes to feel out its anatomy.  She looked well-formed enough at a glance, but the joints in the leg were very soft.  Any structure must have come from cartilage too flimsy to support her weight.  Still, she could crawl with her arms.  Maybe she could be potty trained, and Cora was just too much of a light touch to make that work?

When Blasfemia squeezed Ombunculita’s little body, she smiled and made coy looks, like “oh no, don’t tickle me.”  Blasfemia tried to minimize the creature’s stimulation, but at the height of her excitement, she almost looked like she was laughing, and made a creepy wet noise in her throat.

Still too disgusting.  Blasfemia felt ill.

The corsario was alone with its thoughts, leaning back in the pilot seat, wondering at what would come next.  Cora has said Josefina was outside the Wall of Ice.  Never had the spirit imagined it would try to fly through that particular stretch of space.  Unbelievable.  It could already see hints of the thing, past the nearest string of stars, reflecting their lights with glint and sparkle.

In some barely comprehensible epoch of the past, when the Stars of Weal were being consolidated under the Church, the Wall of Ice had been created.  Nobody could imagine how, so they waved away the question as “the Will of God.’  The corsario had its doubts.

The Wall of Ice was a feature of the astrocielo – an absolute impossibility in long space.  It was an orb of ice, incredibly thick but hollow in the middle, that held all of the Stars of Weal, and many uninhabited planets and stars besides.  Outside the Wall, the nearest inhabited worlds were considered “heathen,” with a reputation for irreligion, heresy, and misfortune.  It was taken as the Will of God that the Stars of Weal were all so pleasant to live around.  Heathen worlds were too cold or too hot or radioactive – never quite right.

As such a construction was impossible in long space, one had only to travel in that realm to bypass it – as if it was nothing at all.  But the long space corresponding to the thickness of the wall took nearly a year to travel at the best subluminal speed – impossible without a ship large enough to hold vast resources.  Some centuries ago, a few heathen worlds had tried to wage that war, to no avail.  There were too many ways to intercept and destroy them, for a side backed by the Celestial Hierarchy itself.

On the other hand, it was much easier to get out than to get back in – presumably what Josefina had somehow achieved.  The Stars of Weal only cared about keeping heathens out, so they focused monitoring efforts on the outside of the wall.  If you could find a weak enough area – one with hollows in the ice – you could get through a lot faster by slipping in and out of long space along the way.

Unsanctioned traders and radicals had developed a map of such routes, updated whenever possible, as the geography of the unstable substance was subject to change.  Did the corsario have a copy of the map?  Of course it did.

Any given route was possibly outdated, no longer good, due to cryological or astronomical events, or shifting security activity on the outside of the wall, where one had to emerge.  In judging the best one, you had to consider how likely it was to be outdated, and how dangerous that would be if it turned out to be true.

Well, it thought, if we run out of food, Blasfemia can eat the homunculus and I.  Maybe drink her own pee for a few months.  It laughed darkly.

“What’s up, Capitan?”

“We’re close.  This passing isn’t close to stars that might melt the ice, change its shape – but also not too far from Borland 1.  Downside, proximity to a Heathen World means security.  They have dogs.

“I never thought about the Wall of Ice much.  If the Church really made it, I’d sure like to break it.”

“As you will.  I think the Leveret is small enough to slip notice.  Based on the alternatives, I’m betting this is the route Josefina took.  Improves our odds of not getting stranded ’til we die.  Are you ready?”

“Yes I am.”

“¿Y Ombunculita también?”

“Sì.”

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

Astronaves are spirit creatures re-fashioned to function as spacecraft.  Angels are spirits re-fashioned to replace their individuality with conformity to the Celestial Hierarchy.  The astronaves of the Church suffer from both of these fates.  If the spirit is too large to be made into a Bishop Class Freighter, you cut it down to size.  A shipwright’s work is cruel.

That conformity allows them to use standardized technology and replacement parts, but its all an iron maiden for a space whale.  The revolutionaries had gotten themselves onboard a standard freighter, stowed away in sealed utility space that would seldom see used on a short run between worlds.  As long as they timed the exit right, they wouldn’t even get drowned in grain, end up dead in some griddle cakes.

But the ship wouldn’t move.  They’d been there over a day, unable to see the light that would mark that time, just running mobiles on efficiency mode, sleeping on bare metal, and defecating in a box.  As the unexpected nature of their attack helped them execute the plan, would it also help them execute the escape route?  Would the strangely apocalyptic fallout of that assassination serve as a distraction?  Or would it inspire them to implement much better security protocols in a short time, and lead to capture?

Xihuani and Jorge were practical lovers, which helped.  In the dire situation, sweet emotions were unavailable, but a practical lover didn’t need such motives to engage in a needful embrace.  The held each other, which took some edge off the fear.  Zochino wished Christina was like that, but respected her enough to not even suggest it.  She was clearly not into him.  They slept apart.

Whenever they were awake, they would hold hushed conversations that ran around the circle like clock hands – repetitious.  Affirmation of principles, questioning principles, affirming them again.  Planning their next move as if they could hope to survive, wistfully pondering what they would like the world to know about them, as if they were going to have any control over how history would see them.

In the peace of dark black sleep, the ideology and the years all stripped away, lolling mindlessly in a stew of images and sensations, telenovelas and commercials and cartoons, a vague light poured through the minds of everyone within the walled city.  It coalesced in each mind as a vision of God, in His perfect beauty and love.  Rendered innocent as children by the depth of slumber, most would behold this vision as they had at their first communion, and weep in simple joy.  Jorge and Zochino’s inner children were as peaceful as any in the land.

Xihuani felt a sour taste in her mouth that she could not place, the beautiful vision ached like a commercial for a product you could never buy.  But this was not so different from any good worshiper, of the kind troubled by doubt.  The mist paid this no attention.

In Christina’s mind, the beautiful vision reminded her too well of a recent experience from real life, and lofted her out of the reverie of deepest black.  She swam toward a light above – a heaven on fire – and the joy in her heart was of anger satisfied, of bloody triumph.  She felt the passion of hatred, and reached out to put her hands around God’s throat.

Her fingers burned away and she cried out in terror, waking in a cold sweat, gripping her hands over and over again, feeling for fingers, afraid this was the dream and that nightmare was real.  Then she fell back to her bed of steel, and moaned.

“Tina,” Zochino said, “that was a pretty bad nightmare.  Are you alright?”

She choked to clear her throat.  “Yeah.  Thanks, Chino.  God damn.”

Jorge said, “Am I still dreaming?  What’s going on?”

Zochino said, “We should try to go back to sleep.  Tina just had a…  Christina, do you see that?”

“I don’t see anything.  It’s all fuzzy in here, like night vision.  Like it’s made out of ashes.”

“The light,” he said.

Jorge sat up abruptly, shaking the sleep out of his head.  “You can see it too, Zochino?”

Everyone was sitting up.  Christina asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”

She had a wisp of light trailing from her head to the ceiling.

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

The cardinals returned to the throne room behind the hushed and disturbed whispers of a hundred papal guards.  A medical scientist sat over the pontiff’s corpse, brushing his face with light strokes of the hand, lost in a little song – mind broken.  An angel had assumed the throne, and taken the Mandate of Heaven.  The men were utterly shaken.

Michael had to measure his words carefully.  He had let the medical scientist into the temple to attend the fallen pontiff, but something in his voice or his presence had burned the woman’s mind.  He couldn’t afford to lose the use of valuable intermediaries to mankind.  “Approach me, my cardinals, yet not too close.”

“Yes my lord,” one breathed, eyes bulging.  His brothers followed, not quite as disturbed in aspect, and all knelt in a piteous heap at the further reaches of the room.

“We must all take care in how we speak.  You know by now that I am the angel of your world, and to see that world set right, I have come to restore the Mandate of Heaven.  It belongs on the brow of a man, and to that end, I will entrust its care – ultimately – to one of your number.  But first there are things that must be set in order…”

The chapel was a shambles, cracked and scorched from gun battles and celestial chaos.  The pontiff remained there, hideously dead and attended by a febrile woman.  All of the soldiers were white in the face, wracked with sweaty terror, staring at the ground to avoid losing their own precious minds.  The cardinals cowered like children who had been found guilty of murder.

But at the heart of this horror, a greater one sat in triumph.  The beautiful man with his glossy black hair, well over two meters tall, the wings of a colossal eagle folded awkwardly at the sides of the throne.  His full nudity was that of an Olympian, with birth-moistened skin of rosy marble.  What need did an angel have for a belly button?  For male genitals?  For nipples?  Michael was the manifestation of all that made no sense in scripture.  He claimed to have come to restore the Mandate of Heaven, but that papal crown sat upon his head wreathed in ghostly white flames.  Might he actually destroy it?

“…First, do not call me ‘lord’.  Our only lord is our God.  You shall address me as Pontiff-Regent Michael del Cielo”

“Yes, Pontiff-Regent!,” they cried.

“Most people are quite good and holy, striving to live in grace and light.  Would you not agree?”

“Yes, Pontiff-Regent!”

“But even these good people have forgotten that the Will of God is a living thing, to which all must pay proper respect.  We will teach them, and this begins with finding the ones who struck down your true pontiff – and making them to know.”

“Yes, Pontiff-Regent!”  One cardinal crawled free of the others and flattened himself to the ground, held both hands over his head to avert any possible wrath.  “But forgive us please, oh angel, for matters of violence have become strange to us!  We know not how to find these murderers, to our very great shame!  Please!”

“Rise, good fathers.  Come not near to me now, for I am not yet accustomed to this earthly form, and you may be harmed by it.  But for this one prohibition, do not fear me.”

They looked at each other in hope, still heavily laced with terror, then rose on shaking legs.

Michael continued, “You have the divine science of your forefathers.  Use this above all other methods.  For my part, I will attempt to find them with my own powers.  Ten thousand years I have not had need of such devices, and so much as using my voice can do you grievous harm in my present state.  This is to say, I will help you find them.  I will help you punish them.  But you should take your dead and your living from this temple, before I begin.”

He stood up and everybody quailed away instinctively – even the babbling doctor.  His nudity shone magnificently, but the power inside him was too terrible to admit any possibility of lust.  Then the mortals set themselves in motion, knowing again the living Will of God.

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

Astrocielo is an idea of space, a spirit pantomime of the real thing, which is why distances within it are so much shorter than in long space.  If no person can truly conceive of astronomical units, then they simply don’t exist in the spirit world.  That makes routing through the astrocielo the best option for faster than light travel.

Everybody knows that the astrocielo is “short space,” though only scholars have a handle on the reason why.  Blasfemia was far from a scholar, but she appreciated the time saved.  You could see it.  In long space, the stars never seemed to change position, no matter how long you flew.  In the astrocielo, strange lights, spirits, and astronaves swam through the cosmos like fish in an aquarium – making it a lot easier to get a sense of progress.

She let the scene wash over her, until she got annoyed with the lack of a copilot chair.  “Why you only have one seat, Corsario?  There’s room for two up here.”

“There’s only one of me.”  There was a double meaning in this.  Spirits only came together as couples or groups if their ideals told them to do so, or if a new ideal formed between them.  In a sense, only spirits who are couples would be couples.

“I’m here now.”

“Won’t be there tomorrow.  Use the bench.”

“You use the bench.  I like the view.”

“You like this view, huh?  I hate it, but I need to be able to see.  You see those lights over there?  The ships down there?  The dragon over there?  They aren’t normally on this route.  Probably refugees from the shitshow at Dio 6.  I need to be able to see them, in case they become a problem – or any of a thousand other things.  Leave me be.”

Blasfemia gave up and went to lay down.

Time passed.  Sleeping in outer space is an uneasy thing, for creatures of the worlds.  A planet’s gravity provides a wonderful sense of stability and security.  The artificial gravity of astronaves could never compete.  Its weaknesses suggest to even the unconscious mind that one is just a mote of dust in a shaft of light, spinning wildly until the day it slips into darkness, and is gone forever.  Blasfemia slept lightly, until the feeling of real gravity returned, and she fell deeper into that gentle darkness.

But the corsario was impatient, and roused her with little slaps on the cheek, like she had once used to prolong the suffering of a dying priest.  “It’s time to see Josefina’s abuelita, little killer.  Rise and shine.”  Its paw was something between cat and human, hard fingernails threatening to raise welts.

She shoved it away.  “God, you know what you look like, right?  Last thing I need to see when I’m first wakin’ up.”

It smiled with little cat teeth.  “I’ll bury myself in the dirt, just for you.”

She sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, then she glared at her captive.  “No cozy dirt naps for you.  You have to come with me.”

It rolled its eye.  “How about I just give you some essential part of the Leveret, so you know I won’t fly away?”

“How the fuck would I know what’s essential on this thing?”

It nodded, and went to retrieve its tool belt.  Blasfemia patted herself down to make sure she still had her own tools.  She remembered herself, and what she was about to do.  It might not be well received, approaching an old woman loaded for bear.  But it couldn’t be helped; she had no idea what to expect in her tower.

The corsario went out the hatch first, and came up with a curved rod-like tool in hand.  That must be the gun, Blasfemia thought.  “Put that thing away.  Prob’ly we don’t see nothin’ but a little old bruja.”

It clicked the tool back in place at its belt, and scanned the scene for trouble.  The sky was dull white along the sunward horizon, dark enough to see stars on the other.  A stiff and endless breeze blew in one direction, unimpeded by hills or mountains, which at least made it easy to shield one’s face from a direct blast.  Neither of the travelers had cold weather clothing, so they didn’t hesitate long before approaching the tower.

Some people had intuitive powers, that flowed from the ideals in their minds.  It was more common in worlds with thin borders between the astral and physical worlds.  Corazon 2 was not such a place, and so intuitives like Josefina and her abuela were rare indeed.  Blood was a factor in the gift; Blasfemia’s natural exorcism was her manifestation of the power.  Education could constrain intuitive gifts to socially acceptable forms, such as the sciences and the priesthood.  But wilder traditions remained, with some number of brujas found on every world.

Which comes around to the tower again.  For reasons long forgotten, brujas love towers.  Some took modern constructions, like abandoned buildings or scientific facilities, but some took ancient towers left over from witches past.  This was one such tower.  It looked like a turret from the corner of a church survived the crumbling of the rest of the building, topped as it was with a spiraling minaret.  The carved calligraphy and symbols on the face had long ago eroded into illegibility, and there was only one door that hadn’t been cemented shut.

Without a moat, and with miles of wide open astronave parking, it was an easy walk.  Good, because Blasfemia would die of cold if she remained in that weather another hour.

She checked the handle on the door.  Unlocked.  Would a hex strike them blind if they went in uninvited?  Blasfemia wasn’t about waiting around anymore.  She went inside, whistling.  “Is there anybody here?”  She remembered her circumstance and shot a quick look back at the captive.  It was standing at the door, seeming ready to sprint away at any moment.  She waved it in.

Some towers are wide open in the middle, with a shaft admitting light from on high.  This one was not, though the bottom floor was fairly tall.  Above their heads hung strange skulls and body parts and jars on strings.  Every wall that wasn’t taken up with the spiraling staircase was instead covered with standard witching fare, illuminated by green and violet orb-shaped lamps on the cluttered workbenches in the middle of the room.  The air smelled like rotting vegetables and wet dirt.

“Have you never been here before?,” the corsario asked, mildly alarmed.

“No.  Never seen the witch, neither.  If Josefina liked her, she’d gotta be alright.”

“You said Josefina came here, and by the fact you’re looking for her, I can surmise you never saw her come back, yes?”

“What you mean, duende?”

“Is she in these jars now?”

Blasfemia drew a tool without thinking and pointed it at the furry black creature.  The metal shaped itself instantly into a wickedly sharp and curved blade.  “Don’t even say that, motherfucker.”

It showed her the bean-like pads at the bottom of its shaggy hands.  “Say no more.”

“Light,” a small voice said, from somewhere on the staircase.  They swung to stare in that direction, but their three eyes still could make out little more than a lump, like a discarded garment.  The lump moved, and said its word again.  “Light.”

Blasfemia picked up a lamp from one of the tables and brought it closer to the stairs.  “You need light?,” she asked.

They regretted taking a closer look.  The thing was wearing a ragged charcoal grey dress with a ruffled collar, but the outline of its body was so irregular that it must be terribly misshapen within.  That would match its head – baby-like, but with some incongruous details of age.  The features on the left including the ear looked as if they’d been pulled like melted wax to the side and twisted.  Hard round nodules of flesh sprang from its bald head like ball mushrooms, at regular intervals – an intentional style?

The corsario shuddered.  “This thing is no duende!  What the hell is it?”

“A duendelina?,” Blasfemia suggested.  A Duende was a spirit incarnate; duendelinas were supposedly possible hybrids between human and spirit.  The word was more often used as an insult for intuitives.

“No, not at all.  I don’t like it, Blasfemia.”

“Shit, what am I supposed to do about it?”

“Light,” the creature suggested.  Blasfemia brought the light closer and it recoiled in alarm.

“OK, it’s just saying the word, not asking for light.  What do you think we should do?”

“I’m a corsario.  You’re the one who knows about witches.”

Blasfemia wished that was true.  It was part of her sister’s life of which she understood very little.  Reluctantly, she pocketed the knife and picked up the creature like a sick animal – cradled, but held slightly away from the body.  Even if it was completely germ-free, it was hard not to think of its deformities as contagious.

“You go ahead,” she commanded.

The corsario was stone-faced, but it complied, mounting the stairs with intense trepidation.

Blasfemia was disgusted as the creature embraced her arm for better support.  Its limbs weren’t attached right.  And yet, it must be very used to getting carried like that.  Somebody kept strange pets.

The pilot tapped at the walls as it passed, and called out to avoid surprising anyone that could turn it into a frog.  “Anyone home?  We found your ‘Light’.  Hello?”

The stairs had doors at irregular intervals to different rooms, but all seemed to have nobody home.  They figured to reduce surprises, get the top and work their way down.  Yet before they reached the summit of the tower, someone responded to the knock.

“Hello?”

The corsario stepped away from the door in shock, as if it had accidentally touched something living and slimy.  Blasfemia got close.  “I’m here for my sister, Josefina.  May I come in?”

“You may.”  The voice was muffled by the door, but high pitched.

Blasfemia worked a hand free from her bundle of joy, and opened the door.  She gestured for pilot to go in first.

The corsario saw the abuela there, sitting in a rocking chair, surrounded by over a dozen creatures like Light.  One sat on her lap like a tiny child, others sprawled on the floor like infants that didn’t know what to do with themselves.  Others were at least well-formed enough to groom each other.

They’d all been murmuring whatever sounds they could manage, but stopped at the sight of the new strangers.  There was a single canopy bed in the room, and Blasfemia eagerly set Light down upon it.

“Are you..?”  The corsario was confused.  The abuela’s face bore none of the signs of age.

“I am Cora Vittoria Calumnia, an abuela to Josefina Teresa Contreras Ortiz.”  Her head was as those of the little creatures – infant-like, but far too large.  Her voice was that of an elderly woman.  She played orchestral music almost too softly to hear, from an unseen computer.

The corsario bowed uncomfortably, not sure of the etiquette for greeting a witch.  “I am–”

Blasfemia cut it off.  “Pleased to meet you.”  She walked over and reached out a hand.  “I’m Blasfemia now.”

The strange woman stopped petting her malformed clone-thing long enough to take Blasfemia’s hand.  The fingers there were entirely wrinkled and withered, showing her age.  “I remember your name, I think.”

The corsario asked, “Should we call you Cora?  Doña?  Abuela?”

“Cora would please me.”

“You don’t call her nothing, duende.  I’ll do the talking.”

It shrugged and turned away.

“But don’t you dare leave my sight!”

It flipped her the bird and went to lean against a bookshelf, comfortably far from the nearest tiny creature.

Cora said, “You should not be cruel to those who help you.”

“I’m not here for abuela advice.”

“You’re here for Josefina.  What would you do if you found her?”

Blasfemia’s face went dead for a moment.  An eye twitched.  Something inside of her wanted to cry, was so close to escaping, so suddenly.  She put it away and smiled, big and phony.  “I’d just give her a big old hug.  I would.”  That much was true, however false her cheer was.

“Why are you Blasfemia now?  What does it mean to you?”

“I wanna destroy the Church.  It’s all I’m living for, lately.  Ximura was a country bumpkin, hunting boogums for chump change.”  She searched herself for a more meaningful way to put it, holding up a hand to stay anyone from interrupting her train of thought until she found it.  “I’ve been killing priests, OK?  Nothing in my life has ever felt more right.  When I see their fancy little smocks burned or bloody.  When I feel them die in my hands.  It is.  All I’m living for, Cora.”

“That’s not what Josefina needs.”

Blasfemia snapped, lunging in and gripping the arms of the old lady’s chair, breathing hate into her face.  “You don’t get to tell me what she needs.  She learned to play with spirits, and the Church made her into the laughingstock of the whole fucking Universe.  She learned that shit from you, witch.  Now I’m setting it right.  I cut out the pope’s heart.  I made the angel Michael fall.”

Finally she let go, crossing her arms to rein herself in.  “That is the truth.”

Cora’s eyes had gone wide in alarm, but at Blasfemia’s renewed restraint, they calmed once more into a bizarre serenity.  The creature on her lap was much less calm, however, and the old woman had to hold it in place with both arms.  She spoke, “Josefina does need you, but not a life of hatred and death.  Just, find something else to live for, please?”

She twitched.  “Like what?  Having kids?”  Blasfemia sneered at the strange creatures.

Cora squeezed her eyes shut, batting away unpleasant memories.  “These are homunculi, made of my flesh.”

The Corsario perked up at the explanation, one it had not expected to be forthcoming.  “Wow.”

Blasfemia shushed him with a hiss.  “OK then.  Should I grow home-buncul-eyes?”

“I shouldn’t have grown homunculi.  I just couldn’t resist.  Something about them appeals to me so…”  She looked at the one in her lap, and shed a single large tear.  It looked back at her, searching for meaning it would never find.

Blasfemia finally looked fully upon the little old lady again.  “Is this a confession?”

“Yes.  No.  It is… an explanation.  I will let you know where to find Josefina, but you must promise to take unto her a little piece of me.”

Blasfemia rolled her eyes.  “Do we gotta?”

“Yes,” said Cora.  “It may be the last thing she ever sees of me.  And they have something of my powers.  I won’t lie to say it is worth the burden of caring for them, but it may prove useful, in some way.”

“God.”

“You say that a lot, for a blasphemer.”

“It don’t mean nothing.”

Cora presented the homunculus on her lap.  “This is my most successful homunculus.  She cannot speak or walk, but she can crawl.  And she understands some words; I know not which ones, or how well they are understood.”

“Please tell me it can use the bathroom by itself.”

“That would be a lie.”

“God damn it.”

“Blasfemia, this is something Josefina would want.  She would love this.  Keep my little homunculus nourished, clean, and safe – and then give it to your sister.”

“I have no choice.  Yes, I will.  Where the hell is Josefina?”

The corsario said, “Don’t trust her Cora.”

Blasfemia cornered it at the bookshelf, a knife to its throat.  “What did I tell you?’

“Temper temper.  The Leveret won’t fly for you, murderer.”

“Where does your fur end and your skin begin?”  She teased apart the fur of its throat with her blade.

Cora simply said, “Hey,” and a sound blared in Blasfemia’s head, like a horn.  She felt a light from inside her skull, that blinded her, sent lances of heat into her body at random, and staggered away from the corsario.

It said to her, “She won’t trust me not to flee at the first chance.  How could you trust her to care for your little clone?  As soon as you’re out of sight, well, I hate to think what could happen.”

“Agh!,” Blasfemia called out, swinging at the air like a drunkard.

“People can be made to keep their vows.  Free will does not mean freedom from consequences.”

“What do you mean, Cora?”  The corsario was amused by the thought of Blasfemia living under a hex.  His amusement was about to end.

Cora stared at the two, and began to speak – each word landing like a cold iron piston into their brains.  “You will both keep your promises.  The pilot will fly Blasfemia to her sister, and Blasfemia will care for my homunculus with her life, until such time as this gift has been given to its intended.  Should either of you break these vows, you will feel the pain of it.”

By the time the old woman had finished her speech, they had both been hammered to the floor – blood flowing from their mouths and ears.  She smiled wanly and tried to comfort her little self one last time.

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

The ecstasy must have been spiked with LSD.  It would explain the bad trip, but also the change.  As Josefina descended beneath the nightclub, the world was receding.  Del Taco, Walmart, Dos Equis, Snuggle Fabric Softener – they were all falling away, as if they had never been.

But Noise was still there, the Del Taco logo on her shirt more meaningless by the second.  She had to speed-walk to keep up with the frenzied drug girl.  “Josie!  Calm down, please!”

Josefina spun to face her, hair sliding around bare shoulders, over her breasts.  Noise was momentarily hushed by the little moment of beauty, more than by Josie’s anger.  The Latina said, “How are you, of all people, going to ask me to be calm?  You’re always pushing me to go crazy.”

“I know.  But you can’t go proper loco if you’re all scared ‘n’ shit.  You came here to have fun, right?  Fun Josie?  Remember her?”  Noise easily caved to addiction when frustrated, and moved the cigarette from behind the ear to her lips in one deft move.  The lighter was sparking before Josefina could inhale to speak again.

“You’re right, but sometimes it’s a good idea to be scared.  To stop having fun.”

“Never.”  The blonde shook her head solemnly.

“If we don’t find Peace down here I’m gonna teach you to be scared.”  Josie scowled and resumed her search.

The sub-basement was too long.  It must have extended below more than one building on the same block.  Or maybe Razzmatazz was disappearing along with their employers, families, and obligations.  Cool fluorescent lights buzzed at the frequency of insect wings now, a more organic sound than before.  The light itself did not reach far beyond the fixtures, like the bioluminescence in deep sea footage.  An empty can fell off a shelf along the side of the hall and rolled sideways across the floor, revealing subtle flaws in the leveling.  A rat hopped down from the shelf where the can had been, regarded the women, and shuffled along its way unperturbed.

“Niiice,” said Noise.  “What a fun new place you’ve turned up.’

“Peace said he found it, just took me along.”  She didn’t bother turning to face Noise as they walked, letting her trail behind.  She could hear other rats squeaking in the corners.  The bass from the club was distant thunder at best, a lone heartbeat in quieter moments.

The hall came to corner where they only way forward was to the right.  Turning, they came upon another open room, where a band of strange characters were making merry around a trash fire.  Somehow, the roof wasn’t going up in flames yet.

An Asian guy with spiky black hair and a pink eye patch blinked at the women.  “Well hello there.  Welcome to the party.”  His friends were a guy in a white rubber horse mask with a bunny ear headband, and a white boy in his late teens with shaggy hair and crossed band-aids on his forehead.

The teen said, “We’re roasting weenies.  When we’re done with dinner, we’re gonna roast marshmallows.”  His smile was just the wrong side of salacious, but quietly so.

“I’m just looking for my friend.  Big Native guy, long hair?”

“You’re on molly, aren’t you?,” asked eye patch.  “I can see it in your eyes.”

The teen said, “I bet roast weenies taste amaaazing on molly.”

Noise said, “Food makes her puke when she’s on E.  But I could go for a weenie.”

“Leave that kid alone,” Josefina said.

“Shit, Josie,” the cigarette bounced around her thin lips, “Age ain’t nothin’ but a number.”

The boy made a bashful expression, but seemed immune to blush in the firelight.

The horse bunny withdrew his weenie from the fire – an entire kielbasa sausage skewered on a ski pole.  The basket had melted, leaving strings of blue plastic drizzled over the meat.  He waved it in front of his horse mask in a pantomime of eating, then waved it in front of eye patch’s mouth until he took a bite, then the boy.

Noise came up beside Josefina and rested a hand on her ass.  “Hey if V shapes ain’t your thing right now, these guys look like they know how to have a good time.”  Horse bunny reached through the flames to offer the weenie to them.  Noise held her cig daintily so she could take a disgusting chomp, grease running down the chin.  Has she eaten some of the plastic?

“Where is Peace?,” Josefina demanded.

Eye patch said, “Baby girl, Peace ain’t the only thing you’re missing.”  He was loading Vienna sausages onto an unraveled coat hanger like a cowboy putting bullets in his gun.

“I’d love to see you eat a weenie,” Noise told the teen.

“Is that a euphemism?,” he gulped.

“A euphe-what-now?”

Horse bunny whipped out another kielbasa, luridly wobbling it in the air before sliding it onto the ski pole.

Josefina kicked the can, and the trash fire dangerously flared, spilling sparks on horse bunny.  His rubber mask drooped.  Then she grabbed eye patch’s coathanger and wound it around his throat like a garotte, smashing little sausages against his skin.  Soft chunks rolled down his sweater.  “Where is Peace, you fucking freaks?”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her accusingly.  Noise said, “You used to love freaks, Josefina.  What’s the matter with you?”

The teen said, “Don’t be a fascist, Josefina.”

Horse bunny just held his meat in silence.

Josefina leaned next to eye patch’s ear.  “Please!  I just need to know.”

“Went through the walk-in freezer.  There’s another club on the other side.”

Josie dropped the wire and walked to the freezer without a word.

“you used to love freaks,” Noise mumbled.

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

The Leveret rose into a haunted sky, her pilot more confident in its understanding of the astrocielo than Jorge had been.  The corsario unfolded her wings and soared through the turbulent atmosphere adroitly.  Blasfemia took what she could of the front port view from her position – not much.  Just flashes of the light show.

“Is this the astrocielo?”

“Hoho, I’m not touching that until we get a good damn distance from the planet.  It might take hours.”

“Why so damn slow?”

“Ever wanted to see a burning angel the size of a small planet?  Dodge a random twitch of its hand?  I don’t even want to contemplate how many people are dying right now.  I was born in the astrocielo, but sometimes the physical world looks like paradise by comparison.”

“Long space is some bullshit, bro.  Are you sure?”

“I don’t even want to risk taking a peek, thank you.”  The corsario tried to relax, and spun the seat to face its captor.  “Try to relax.  This turbulence could last a few hours.”

Blasfemia did her best to ride it out.  In a way, it was soothing.  The rattle of the hull shook the tension out of her muscles, and she almost passed out.  And when the rattling stopped – when the atmosphere was breached – she did.

To her surprise, on waking, she hadn’t been jettisoned as so much space trash.  The corsario walked back to her, no need for safety belts then, and handed her a brown wooden ball.  It stood close by, one hand on the low ceiling.  “Show me where you want to go.”

She examined it.  A globe of Corazon 2, of course.  Beneath its smooth translucent lacquer, the world map had been burned into the wood.  “Easy.  North pole.”  She pushed the globe back into its hand.  “Josefina went to her abuela.”

“Am I better off not knowing?”

“Not a real abuela.  The crone taught her how to be a witch.  It’s the only place she felt safe…  Say, you really don’t recognize me?”

“No.”

“They had me on the tele when I … did my rampage.  I called myself Blasfemia, and the Church loved it.  I was the anti-poster girl for their whole shit.”

“Maybe it was just global news.”  It pressed the ball into the compartment and slunk to the front of the ship.

Blasfemia unbelted herself and followed the duende this time, getting a good view of the stars.  “It doesn’t look fucked up anymore.  You wanna go astrocielo yet?”

“Looks are deceiving.  We’re still in Dio 6’s gravity.  I don’t care how weak it is at this range; still closer than I want to be to that whole situation.”  It sat down and spun in its seat to regard her.  She found it strange, making eye contact with a cyclops.  “So I drop you off at the north pole of Corazon 2, fuel up, and I’m free, right?  No more you?”

“Unless Josefina is on another world.  Then I’m still gonna need a ride.”

The corsario pressed a paw into its forehead.  “Maybe we should be discussing recompense, Blasfemia.”

She patted it on the arm, with a mostly clean hand.  “It’s OK, Corsario.  This is what you were made for.”

The corsario considered the comment.  “Might be…”  It trailed away in reflection.  Life as a spirit was confusing.  This isn’t a problem for most of their number, as they are not very introspective.  The more familiar one becomes with humanity, however, the more one can see of one’s self.  That self, especially for incorporeal spirits, was very subject to change.

Ectons and ectonic energy took forms that reflected ideals – not ideals in a wholly abstract sense, but the mysterious patterns that caused ectonic aggregation in the first place.  No scientist had yet isolated the physical form of those ideals, but the most learned agreed they must exist.  The ideal or ideals that initially form a spirit can be altered, added to, or lost, which results in an alteration of the spirit itself.  And when the incorporeal mind alters, so do memories, personalities – from the spirit’s perspective, entire life histories.

The corsario’s mind had become corporeal, when it chose to pilot the Leveret into long space, and in so doing, its sense of self had resolved – become less subject to change.  But its memories before that time were awash in contradiction.  The most clear vision of its early life was the cartoon image of fuzzy black goblin lassoing a wild machine spirit in the silver void, and taming it like a horse.  The space vaquero, as she had said.

But had that all been rewritten to craft the ideal of a corsario?  Which came first, the pilot or the Leveret?  The creature regretted the curiosity that had made self-awareness into part of its being.

The stars of long space were so steady, so firm, suspended in nigh-infinite darkness.  That appearance of steadiness was an artifact of time; a sufficiently long view of the fourth dimension would show an exploding mess made of exploding messes, racing toward its own extinction.  But the corsario found its own narrow view of space-time to be soothing, and it admired the stillness with its huge pink eye.

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