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.

–

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…

–

Something was deeply amiss with the world.  Jorge’s sense for the divine was still barely a glimmer – something to be developed over years of study to come – and yet he could see by the way his comrades moved that they did not feel what he felt.  The world around him was boiling invisibly, rocked by explosions and impacts unseen.  Some voices were screaming as they were ripped away from the firmament, others were screaming as they were thrust down upon it.  Yet it was all just a wash over his skin.  Waves of heat and sound, weak like imagination, but easily understood to not be his own constructions.  It was something outside of him.

For all its fury, it was still faint enough that he could power through the sensations, and keep up with the squad.  Xihuani clocked his unusual expression, but it must not have been so outrageous that she felt at all compelled to ask about it.

Zochino felt something was wrong as well.  The astropuerto was dead.  As a major import site for a densely populated region, there should have been operations going at all hours, day and night.  They met no one as they hustled down the corridors.  The simpler kinds of autoesclavos, in very inhuman bodies, operated to the best of their abilities – but some of them stood inert, waiting for input.  Where were the operators?

It was a blessing, whatever the reason, because it would give them time to find an astronave bound for Laia 4 and properly stow away.  The abandoned halls lent the possibility of just taking a more direct route to the landing yards, but it was best to retrace their original route, and chance nothing on the unknown.

Part of the hustle involved coming out into a public area of the astropuerto, where proper clientele or security might glimpse them.  Time to act natural.  Would it be as abandoned as the rest of the complex?  They formed up behind the little door, and Zochino quickly opened it, stepping out.

It was a transition between two concourses, marked with a huge escalator.  They were on the upper concourse, with a vast hall behind them.  Zochino said, “Security.”  They could all see the dark figures in the distance, and quickly scurried out of that line of sight.  That led them to the top of the escalator, with an eagle eye view of the concourse below.  What they could see of it looked empty, the strangely colored night sky teasing the floor with flickers of rainbow light, mostly overpowered by the artificial lights in quiet business alcoves.

As they descended the staircase, less of the ceiling would block their view of the far reaches of that concourse, so they steeled themselves for unpleasant surprises.  If anybody saw them, would it have to be another massacre?  No, Zochino figured the authorities wouldn’t question every last person in the world, and a dead body would speak much more strongly about their presence at the astropuerto than a witness to some random guys.

Nothing on the concourse below, except a much clearer view of the skylight.  They were arrested by the sight of it.

Jorge murmured, “i’m not the only one seeing this?”

Xihuani said, “No, Jorge.  You study astronomy too, right?”

“That’s no natural aurora.  The star lights, flashing in and out… The shooting stars…”

Christina hated the nun habit and wanted to rip it off.  Look what they had wrought!  God was real, and he knew they had shown him to be impotent.  Why should they have to hide, just because some fools would never recognize greatness when they saw it?

Zochino asked, “Jorge, please tell me you know what that is.”

“I’d say a planetary spirit moved.  Possibly a solar angel.  They are so huge, just rolling over in their sleep could do all of this.”

Christina said, “Wait, so the astrocielo is all fucked up?  Can we even fly through that shit?”

Zochino said, “They have no choice.  The Stars of Weal depend on trade.  Gotta keep the economy moving.  How long does the turbulence last, Jorge?”

“I don’t think we have any way of knowing.  It’s never been observed in recorded history.  But I’d guess the worst of it will be over in a few days.  That’s a pretty wild guess.”

Christina yelped like a small dog, then quickly stifled it.

Xihuani asked, “What the hell was that?”

Christina shook her head, a platinum bleached lock falling free of her cowl.  “You wouldn’t get it, Huani.”

Zochino felt the cold of his sweat again, the weakness of his body more profound than it had been all night.  What the hell had they done?

–

 

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 angel believed it was real – believed that it was holy.  It believed that it had watched over the world for ten thousand years, as it had believed of itself for hundreds of years by that time – yet the figure of ten thousand was never recalculated in its mind.  It believed the entity corresponding to the star of Dio was truly the creator of the Universe, and it believed in the infallibility of the pontiff.

But something had become different for it, and this was intolerable.  The Mandate of Heaven was shaken as it had never been before.  The Celestial Hierarchy was in peril.  For the first time in what it supposed was ten thousand years, the angel moved.  The astrocielo around Dio 6 burned with sudden disruption of ectonic energy on an unprecedented scale, rippling through the electromagnetic spectrum as well, terrifying all the creatures of the physical and spiritual realms at once.  The great astral cathedral of Usael was brushed by a wing and flames raced through it, killing nearly everything within and without, knocking the structure adrift.  Millions of spirits burned in holy flames, but were not destroyed.  Some became angels, some angels changed forms and ranks, some fell and became devils – all with the gentle sway of Michael’s vast corpus.

He did not truly understand any of that, seeing only the iconoclasts – the adversary – and their unimaginable moment of triumph over the Will of God.  He reached down, but his hand was too vast to touch a thing.  He reached, smaller still, but his hand yet larger than a continent.  He reached and reached, the concept of what he was changing, and with it the vast web of particles and energy that constituted his being.  Already every parasite and commensal organism that had dwelled in the surface of his body had been annihilated.  But the vacuum created by his descent dragged everything unfortunate enough to dwell in the astrocielo around Dio 6 together, into an impromptu asteroid field of chaos and destruction.  Thousands of astronaves were destroyed, many more were badly damaged and sent spinning, potentially still to crash and burn.  Hundreds of thousands more angels and spirits died in the celestial void he created.

And then he was a duende, mewling and scraping in his cosmic afterbirth, the chaos of his descent still burning in the skies above.  This was no ordinary elf or putti.  Michael’s incarnate form was of a man of great stature, with vast wings and white fire crowning his glossy black hair.  But the real difference between him and the swarms of angelflies lay inside his head.  Burning behind his eyes was the most energy that had ever been concentrated into single incarnate soul – a power that held unknowable potential for creation and destruction.

As he slipped his iridescent caul, he choked and lost the fluid content of his new lungs, taking in terrible burning air.  What a wretched thing, to depend upon breath of molecules and atoms.  In his pain he struck the ground, cracking the foundation of the basilica, and roared like a lion.  The flesh of every putti rippled in the wash of energy, every angelfly within a kilometer was banished to a burning spirit world, and every mortal that heard the sound was driven to the ground, mind reeling.

Michael jerked his new body upright with lurching motions, and burned the amniotic fluid from his eyes with internal flames.  His mind required some touchstone, something to ground it, or his imagination would destroy the city.  Then he saw it.

The Mandate of Heaven was a crown that existed in both the physical and spiritual realm simultaneously, but more fantastic than most of the artifacts that held that property.  Violence upon it had brought a solar angel down to Dio 6, and now it was within that creature’s grasp.  Michael stepped over the bloody x-marked corpse, took it in hand, and held it aloft.  The pontiff’s great hat.

The pope’s body had not yet completely cooled, had not been properly sequestered in the wake of the great crime, but a date was already being discussed for the convocation to replace him.  Those plans would have to change.  Michael placed the great hat upon his own head, and rested his great body upon the pontiff’s throne.

–

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…

–

A strange creature walked the streets of the city outside the Holy City.  It was a spirit creature made flesh, but it was no angel.  Black fur erupted from most of its body, less like a cat than a tarantula.  It was as narrow as the thinnest human, with shoulders just a bit more narrow than humanly possible, and a single angry pink eye dominated the void of its face.  There was no visible nose, but the spiky black fur thinned and shortened enough to make out a mouth, in the naturally down-turned expression of a cat.

Nobody stared at the creature.  They had bigger things to worry about, and the fact it was clothed spoke to its civilized nature.  It was a duende, of the kind that were commonly seen on small astronave crews that transported smaller cargo between worlds.  To say “of the kind” might suggest there were others that looked the same, and this was not at all true.  They were truly unique creatures, but the more animalistic would typically run nude, and not be seen pushing mysterious metal cylinders around urban streets with a dolly.

The duende wheeled its prize down a garbage-strewn lane, half clogged with the improvised shelters of the homeless, and into a mysterious dark clearing, deep in the heart of an ancient block of buildings.  It had once been a plaza, but was now protected by a slumlord who rented it out to small astronaves.  The Leveret was one such craft, its four legs bunched like a resting spider awaiting ecdysis.  The machine was as unique as its duende pilot, seemingly made from white metal with gilt decor, each leg’s terminal length a carousel horse’s head.  It resembled the flying cabriolets of the cardinals, but was a bit larger, with a powerful spirit capable of navigating the astrocielo.

The Leveret’s owner positioned the big cylinder below the craft, then hoisted it into one of a series of six ports on its belly.  Past a certain length, the ship took over pulling the cylinder inside with a hydraulic shunk, and the pilot closed a hatch over the port.  Each port was covered then, presumable all filled with the fuel needed for its voyages.

A voice called from the shadows.  “Heyy, corsario.”

The duende cast about for the source, and saw a filthy corazona leaning on a pile of trash.  “Yes,” it said slowly, mode switching to her language, “I am a corsario.  And you are a disgusting vagrant.  Leave me alone.”  Its voice was high, less like a woman than a teenage boy.  It would have just gotten into the craft, to demonstrate its lack of fear, but it couldn’t trust that creature with its exposed backside.  The duende rested its hand on a belt, which sported a variety of tools.  Was one of those things a gun?

“You’re all fueled up.  I’ve been watching you work,” Blasfemia said.

Its big pink eye narrowed.  “I suppose you’re wanting to steal from me?”

“No.  I just need a ride to Corazon 2.”

“You’re covered in waste.  You are not climbing into my nice clean ship.”

“You got something to clean up with?  I’ll wipe myself down before I get in.  I don’t like gettin’ all nasty any more than you.”

“Then why’d you end up like that?”

“Killed the fucking pope.  You wanna be next, duende?”

The corsario considered its weapons, and considered the woman thing before it.  If it was telling the truth, its bloody little hands had turned the Wheel of Heaven itself.  It knew for a fact that wheel had been turned, and the death of a pontifex was a possible cause.  “If I take you to Corazon 2, can I leave you behind, and never see you again?”

“Swear on a dead pope.  Gimme a wet towel, man.”  Her teeth gleamed, cleaner than anything else on the surface.

“Just a minute.”  The corsario opened another hatch and clambered inside.

Blasfemia lunged forward and quickly blocked the hatch from closing.  The duende did some quick work, then produced a hot wet towel.  She banged on the inside of the hatch with her tools.  “Come out and wait for me.  Can’t have you flying off without me, can I?”

“Coming.”  It got down to the cobblestones, and she shoved it away from the craft.  It stood nearby, sullen.

Blasfemia didn’t have any modesty for spirits.  It’s not like they were real people.  She got naked there, in the dusky alley, rubbing herself all over with the towel before reluctantly putting her filthy clothes back on.  She at least whacked the biggest clods of gore off on one of the astronave’s legs first.

“She doesn’t appreciate that,” the corsario said.

“The astronave?”

“The Leveret is a duende like me.  I wrestled her out of the astrocielo, tamed her.  Or maybe she tamed me; I don’t remember anymore.”

“You’re a space vaquero?”  She cocked her head at the strange being, still lacing her last boot.

“Try to pay attention.  I said she doesn’t like getting dirty, or having people slap her around.  Don’t get her mad.  You’re about to depend on her, for your life.”

“Alright, Capitan.  Let’s get going.”

The bizarre spirit nodded, and made all the same gestures as a human.  According to some theories, all the spirits except for angels are reflections of things in the mortal world, and this cycloptic spider-cat-pilot was surely reflecting people, in its own way.

Blasfemia went first, but had to hang there over the portal until the corsario was inside, not knowing what to do with herself in the odd little room.  Nothing looked like a seat.  The duende pulled down a bench with safety belts, that had been folded against the wall.  It wasn’t much.

“How long will it take to get to Corazon 2?”

“A hell of a lot less time than in long space, but you’ll still get your beauty sleep in.”  It rolled its eye, as it made flight preparations at the front end.

“What was that look for, duende?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get the stench out of here.  Is that what happens when you kill a human?”

“Only if you do it messy.”  It was her turn to pull a solemn face.

The corsario’s back was to her, but it sensed a mystery in the moment of silence.  “You really set this all off by murdering the pontiff?”

“Yeah, I mean.  It’s probably no big deal, right?  I heard a guy say this happened the last time a pope died in office, y’know, all the angels crying and stuff.  Before my friend Christina shot him.”

“Oh, it’s a bigger deal than that.  Something terrible is happening, and I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“You know what it means?  It’s all just … too big for me to understand.  I confess, duende.”

“You know how in astrocielo, there are angels and spirits as big as whole worlds?  They usually just float there in space, like big lumps.  Well, one of them just moved.  I’ve heard that they can, but it hasn’t happened in my lifetime – which is a lot longer than yours has been, monkey.”

She nodded to herself.  “Yeah, it figures.  I just don’t get why his old ass was so important.”

“A pontiff wears the Mandate of Heaven.  It’s the linchpin of the Celestial Hierarchy.  They become a living bridge between Heaven and Dio 6.”

“Was that angel God?”  Concern rose in her voice.

“No.  His name is Michael.  God is the thing in the astrocielo that corresponds to the star Dio itself.  I’d hate to see what happens if that moves.”

“Don’t worry.  I’m fresh out of popes to kill.”  The astronave lurched to its feet and she buckled herself to the bench.

The corsario worked the controls of the Leveret, readying her for astral flight.  It wanted to ready itself for what it would encounter in the astrocielo above Dio 6, but with Michael fallen, it had no idea what to expect.  If it survived that situation, surely things couldn’t get any weirder or worse than it already had, right?

–

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 time of Morcheeba had ended, and now it was time for all the jams au courant.  The DJ spun faster, boosted the bass.  Spines shook, muscles tensed and released and tensed again.  Josefina was already down to the bikini top and pants, twirling and bouncing to the music.  Her body was not the most exciting thing going – small breasts, a bit soft but nothing outrageous – just gentle slopes and the relatively smooth, unblemished skin of the young.

For many that was enough – a young lady showing skin – and she wasn’t unloved on the dance floor.  But still, Noise haunted her steps.  It was a strange routine.  When Josefina would find herself in a moment dancing alone, Noise would lurch out of the crowd, getting somebody’s attention.  She’d point at Josie, point at her victim, and make lurid faces.  Checka this out, buddy.  Wanna piece of that?  If the person took the bait and danced with Josefina, Noise would lurk like a strip club patron, shaking invisible dollars at the edge of the stage.

In moments where she avoided her weird friend, she’d dance past the dealer man, giving him a chance to join, but also trying not to be too obvious.  How could shyness even find her strung out on drugs and half naked in a crowd?  The first two times she tried the maneuver, he didn’t bite.

At last, she a strong hand touch her bare side, and looked up to find herself in the man’s grip.  By then, the night was reaching a climax.  The crowd surged; security was unable to keep track of anything happening inside the club.  The lazy engineer had flicked a switch to get lights reeling and spinning.  Every breath was hot vapor, every glancing brush past a stranger was hot sex.  Josefina felt like she was in the whirling heart of a pansexual orgy, and personal attention from the handsome stranger was the thing to bring that to a perfect crescendo.

She let her eyes keeps spinning, not wanting his eyes to find them.  She took in the details she preferred – the shape of his ear, of his shoulder, the texture of his hair, the scratch of light stubble on his chin, the shape of his mouth… Unless he was saying something.  God, don’t let him be saying something.

He was saying something, felt more than heard under the tumult in the air.  take it off, girl.

No.  Josefina felt her breasts brush against his chest, the fabric of the bikini threatening to slip off the nipples that held it in place.  She backed away but was immediately caught up on somebody from the crowd.  Noise was behind her.

“Yeah,” she cackled, “Take it off!  Woo!”  Her face was that of a harpy, pink and beaked and framed with wild yellow wisps of hair.  She shook a chubby fist in the air.

Josefina bounced back against the man and he breathed into her mind, take if off, Josefina.  His eyes were American Psycho, his teeth were a primate threat signal.  But she couldn’t deny as she felt her flesh pressed against his tight body, sweat a salty ocean between them, that she did kinda wanna take it off.

No, it was too dangerous.  There was some kind of cruel electricity racing through the crowd, turning the touches from sex into pain.  Laughing eyes with champing piranha teeth for lashes.  Get away.  Now.  She called out, voiceless, “Peace?”  He could not be seen.  Again, it was Noise’s face she beheld.

“Take it off, Josie!  Wooo!”

Suddenly she grabbed that Del Taco T-shirt in her tiny fists and looked into her beady snake eyes, and yelled into her open mouth, “How can you do this to me?  Let me go!”

Noise looked confused, like Are you for real?, and made no move to get out of the way.  Josefina scrambled past her with thrashing limbs, smearing sweat all over the white girl, and tumbling away into darkness.

The club breathed, the soundproofing and lights and the flesh closing in and then breathing out.  Fingers grasped in the void.  Collapse was a definite possibility, until her hand sunk into the gentle mass of a big belly.

“Oof,” said Peace.

“Peace?  Oh God I need that water now.”  She was still blind, pawing at his limbs and clothing until she felt the surface of a plastic bottle, and hastily got into it.

“You get too high?  Gotta cool down, somewhere less wild?”

“It wasn’t no bunk,” she whimpered.

“This place has a basement.  I just think they store extra junk in it.  Nothing valuable, so they don’t care if people find it.”

“Really?”

She heard Noise’s cackle from somewhere in the light behind, and squeezed her eyes shut.  “That sounds great.  Take me to it, Brosefina.”

He pinched her nose.  How he found it in the dark was anybody’s guess.  “Got your Nosefina.  C’mon.”  He found her hand and led her further into the void.  She had seen Razzmatazz before with the lights on, and did not remember there being this much space.  She must have gotten turned around, ended up in a different corner than she thought.

Josefina’s sweat immediately began to dry in the cool dusty recesses of the building.  The high end of the music fell away, leaving only bass.  A dull glow ahead bloomed into buzzing fluorescents over exactly what he had described.  Racks of ambiguous junk.  It was all just terrain – canyons and valleys in an artificial world, no meaning to any of it.  They found a smaller bench, with room for only two, and crowded into it.

Josie said, “Peace, I wish you were there, when I was feeling bad.”

“But then you wouldn’t’ve felt bad, and I’d be there for nothin’.”

“Huh.  Well where were you?”

“Findin’ out about this place.  Though it’s kind of a waste of a good high for us to be down here.”

She shook her head.  “It ain’t good if it’s too much.  I hafta cool down.  This is perfect.  You’re the best.”  She leaned on his shoulder and put a naked arm around his back.  His long hair bunched around her face.

His breathing became a little erratic.  “Umm, Josie.  I wish you wouldn’t be so snuggly with me right now.”

She winced, her tired eyes disappearing.  “Too much like love?”

“Yeah.  I can’t be in love with you.  It would be too hard.”

She respected his request, withdrawing arms, folding hands in her lap.  “I forget.  Why do you say that?”

“You know I’m not enough for you.  It would make me too sad.”

“Aww.  You know that doesn’t mean nothin’.  All the people I dance with.”

“It feels like it means somethin’.”

She shivered, finally cooling down.  “Shit, where’s my hoodie?”

“Was your wallet in it?”

“No.”

“Easy come, easy go.  Don’t worry about it.”

“HEY!  Heyeee,” Noise came bustling down the stairs – the pusher close behind her.

“Oh no,” Josefina said.

The man affected a look of bashful charm – very badly, looking all the more like American Psycho Bale.  “I thought we were getting along, Josefina.  What’s the matter, boo?”

“You don’t know me, bro.”  She folded her arms over the bikini top.

Noise said, “C’moooon, he’s way hot.  What was so bad up there?  We’re just trying to have fun.”

He said, “This is the fun place.  I’m fun people.”

Noise added, “Yeah!  And check out his V-shape.”  She grabbed his side and shoved his pelvis forward, the tank top riding up to show the form of his muscles there.  Was he commando?

She shook her head.  “No!  Peace, I– Peace?”  He was gone.  “Jesus Christ, he was just here.”

“We’re both here for you,” said Noise.

“I am too,” the pusher said.

“Not you, Mac,” Noise said.  “I’m sayin’ Peace and me, we brought you here.  Together.  We’re both here for you.”

Josefina stood in a huff and waved them off.  “I need to find Peace.  Where the hell could he have gone?”  She looked at the far end of the room from where she came in, and it seemed there were stairs going down another level.  A sub-basement?

“Hey,” the dealer said, “Don’t turn me on and leave me hangin’!  Fuck I got feelings, y’know?”

Josefina ran to the stairs down, crying softly.

He was about to come after her, when Noise blocked him with a thick arm.  “Sorry Mac, time for you to fuck off.”

“Bitch!  Bitches.”

Noise went after Josefina.

–

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…

–

Blasfemia had tried to bully an autoesclavo into giving her a ride out of the garage, but it was to no avail.  All the machine wanted to do was call its master, set off alarms.  She killed it and moved on, finding a motorcycle with a simpler locking mechanism that she could brute force with the tools.  And then she was on the road.

There was more than one way to get off the planet.  The nerds were content to slink back the way they’d come, play it safe.  But outside of the walled city, there were a lot more places to hide, and who knows how many less locked-down astropuertos?  She didn’t know her way around, barely knew the language, but she knew she didn’t want to go the same way as the cowards.  She needed to get home to Corazon 2.

Not that she had a real home anymore.  Their mother rejected them, their village, the Church – the whole world, laughing at Josie, making her run away.  And then it was just Blasfemia and the Libertines, the violence…  Fuck the world.  She just knew that was the last place they had seen Josefina.

She rolled the bike to a stop, a quarter kilometer back from the gate, and squinted at the view.  Yeah, that gate was locked down, with guards checking everybody that passed.  Her eyes drifted over to the wall itself, and down its length, until it disappeared behind distant buildings.  The base of the wall was a curve to the ground.  She shrugged and took off again, driving away from the official exit, looking to make her own way.

The pavers were a rough surface, but at a high enough speed she was sliding over them smooth enough.  Nervous vaticanos awakened by angel tears walked the streets with tentative feet, and had to dive out of her way as she passed.  Residential buildings were a blur, people were phantoms.  And then she was heading straight at the wall, so fast.

The curve was just enough of a ramp to reorient the bike without tossing the rider, and it flew over the wall.  Blasfemia knew there was no way that would be a safe landing, and ditched, letting herself fall out of the seat near the top of the wall, and catching herself on the edge.  She clambered onto the surface, and watched the bike in concern.  Where was it going to land?

The arc was surprisingly tall but short, and it was coming right back down on the wall itself.  She leapt out of the way, and it smashed itself to pieces behind her, explosively.  Chunks of hybrid metals shrieked by in ragged chunks, sparks raining on the stone.  She stood again and brushed herself off, but the bloody sleeves just made a worse mess.  Frustrated, she turned to plan her next move.

Both sides of the wall had the same ramp at the bottom.  It could be used for a bike jump, but how about the reverse move?  The wall was too far from anything else to make a leaping reasonable, and the surface just a little to smooth for a climb.  She held the nun’s garb close around her and ran down the side of the wall.  Her feet were barely able to slow her descent – hardly at all – but the ramp at the bottom proved just enough of a momentum break to avoid injury.  She did fall on her back and tumble, getting banged up, but the thick uncomfortable clothes protected her skin.

She whipped off the ruined disguise and wiped the blood off her hands and wrists on pant legs.  Then she noticed she had dropped the rifle somewhere, and cast about in the few chunks of debris that had reached this side of the wall.  No dice.  When she looked up, a humanoid autoesclavo was watching her from a window nearby.  She asked, “You got a problem, man?”

“Are you well?  Not injured?,” is asked in flawless corazono.

“Oh yeah.  I guess that was kinda crazy.  No, I’m cool.  Don’t worry yourself.”

“Very well, señorita.”  It went back to some unseen chore, perhaps washing dishes.

“Thanks.”  Blasfemia couldn’t count on everyone to be fluent in her language, so she’d minimize the chit-chat.  The city was about to get hot, with everybody looking for the assassins.  At that point, everybody could be a snitch, or a vigilante, depending on their religious devotion.  She had to get herself sorted out in a hurry.

Where life inside the walls was sedate, with people resting indoors after dark, there seemed to an element of nightlife in the city outside.  People went about business with no special note of urgency or mystery.  There were not so many obvious spirits outside of those antique churches and pavilions – no sobbing creatures upset by the old man’s demise.

Why should Heaven care what happened to the pope?  Why didn’t it care about Josefina?  Blasfemia scowled.  But the chill night air was finally getting the better of her, and she buried hands in her pockets.

A drug dealer saw her shabby attire and offered her a hit of something she could not pronounce.  She ignored him and kept strolling, eyes darting around for anything she could use – a disguise, a vehicle she could steal, a mark she could roll for money.  Nothing easy, nothing that didn’t risk a scene, and more trouble.  After-work people prowled the bars for drink and affection.  Others just made long journeys home, or purchased groceries, or visited the all-night chemist.  Through it all, she stood out like a sore thumb – a corazona in a tank top, leather utility pants, and combat boots – scratched and smeared with blood that she hoped passed for oil under the warm streetlamps.

“Pir Dio, che diabolo i quello?”  “Nel cielo!”  Some old folks at a bus stop were gawking at the sky.  Were angels coming out of the city?  Winged baby rat rampage?  Blasfemia followed their gaze.

Strange bands of light towered over the world, like a magnetic aurora.  Angelic forms twisted and burned, shimmering in and out of existence.  Was the astrocielo opening up?  Surely nothing like this had ever happened before.  Within the aurora, one form was larger than all the rest – impossibly large, but less present in the physical realm as well, just a ghost image so faint everyone had to wonder if they were imagining it or not.  But no, it was just clear enough to know.

The angel of the world was descending.  His wings took up half the sky, and less by the second.  He was coming to land.

Just when everyone expected to be crushed under a holy spirit, to see the world end at the whim of Heaven, that part of the vision was gone.  The aurora and the other falling angels remained.  Blasfemia looked at her hands.  Had she done this?

–

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…

–

Without Blasfemia, it was easier to fit everyone into the sedan.  Zochino and Christina rode in the front, Xihuani and Jorge in the back.  They were quiet as hell.  Nobody could hear anything above the siren anyway, but perhaps they hoped to minimize distractions – to sense danger coming.  Or maybe the shock of losing a member of the squad had them all feeling more vulnerable than before.

Searchlights washed over them again and again – automated things with no sensible arc to their movements.  And who even knew how to search for assassins, among all the people who had leapt into motion when the chaos began?  The colors of the world, the shadows of the little angels like bats in the night, the roaring siren fading in and out – it was the vibes of a fireworks show, sliding over the windshield.

Had they really lost a member of the squad?  Blasfemia had always been something apart from the rest.  They were college students; she was a radicalized farm girl, making news for iconoclast terrorism.  They sought her out, in their revolutionary zeal, and collectively talked each other into killing the pope.  Now that they were done with the human weapon, their shared bloodlust was bottoming out, replaced with bone-chilling dread.

The tires of the sedan were designed to minimize damage to the plaza bricks, thousands of independently firing and retracting rubber-tipped spines ringed each wheel.  Unfortunately, the engine was also designed to minimize damage, maxing out at fifteen kilometers per hour.  It was a slow ride to the astropuerto.

The leader of a passing phalanx of soldiers flagged them down.  Zochino stopped the car.  “Be cool.”  He rolled down the window.

“You need help, officer?”  Zochino spoke almost the language of Dio 6, vaticanes, with almost no accent at all.

The soldier raised his visor.  Despite being in charge of ten men, he looked like a boy of seventeen.  Had they called up the trainee classes?  “We need to scan your ID, father.  I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, I can barely hear you over the siren.  You need what?”

“ID!  To scan your ID!”

Zochino nodded, playing the part with a perfection that can sometimes come at the point of a sword.  “Of course.”  He handed the ID of an early victim over to the soldier.  The man scanned it with his mobile, a complex stream of codes and lights reflecting in the shiny surfaces of his helmet.

“Now the others, Father Teodoro, if I may.”  He hadn’t noticed the flag that the real Teodoro Saenzi was missing – a less colorful and obvious flag than the one indicating death.

“I’m sorry.  The noise!”  Zochino gestured vaguely at the sky.

Unknowable radio babble caught the guard’s attention and he waved them by.  After all, looking for six people, not five.  The passengers started breathing again.

They had smuggled themselves to Dio 6 on an astronave shipping grain, and used carefully researched back paths and side halls to creep out of the astropuerto unnoticed.  Their return plans hadn’t accounted for one significant unknown – the capitol’s reaction to a major alarm.  They didn’t know those security protocols at all, and had to hope the return route was still open.

Christina spoke, when the soldiers were small enough in the rear view.  “Sorry I doubted you Chino.  Even if we get caught, no way I could do better.  I wonder if we…”

“Should go back for Blasfemia?  Definitely not.”

“Not that.  I wonder if we did her wrong, by bringing her here.  Maybe she lost it, but maybe she never had it.”

“Crazy?,” Zochino asked.

“Cognitive disability,” said Jorge.  “Has she ever really understood what we were talking about, or did we just fool ourselves into thinking she did?  Maybe we fooled ourselves about a lot of things.”

Christina said, “Crazy.  I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about Jorge.  Anyway, she only sees what she wants from one minute to the next, like a fucking shark.  If we didn’t bust her out, maybe she could’ve had a long life in the looney bin.”

“Don’t care,” said Xihuani.  “I’m sorry, but I can’t.  Let’s just go, please!”

Zochino felt the accelerator under his foot, already flat to the floor.  Useless.  “We could run as fast as this thing drives, but then we’d get there all fucked up and out of breath.  Just a little longer.”  He looked at the vehicles and crowds in the streets, and projected the best way to get past it all – to the extent it was possible.  They’d find out soon enough.  He was frustrated at how much faster he could think than the sedan could drive.

The slow ride, the noise, the lights, the elaborately decorated everything – it struck Xihuani as resembling a theme park for kiddies.  What happens when the theme park is overrun by ogres, and kiddies are on the menu?  The ride crept up the tracks and down again, past the biergarten and the petting zoo, and at last…

Zochino parked the car on a crowded thoroughfare, where many people had no choice but to park, and negotiate with soldiers for a way through.  Only he had no intention of negotiating with anyone.  They joined the crowd, while staying left long enough to disappear behind a tall hedge, then jump a rail.  For all they had been through, no one was injured, and they found it easy to clamber down the curved side of the canal.  They were very exposed then – anybody who happened to look could see them – but it wasn’t so easy from that chaotic street.

They made it to the bridge, which could conceal them as they entered a culvert that ran under the astropuerto.  Free from watching eyes for another good stretch of time, it was a big relief.  Jorge ran out of breath and asked the others to wait up.  As they stood around him, looking on sympathetically, he wondered aloud, “Would it be safer if we just lived down here for a few weeks, and smuggled ourselves out at that point?  I really don’t want to do this next part.”

Zochino shook his head.  “There’s no way to know what the best time will be, but staying on this planet can be nothing but bad.”

“Mmhm.”

Xihuani paced, seemingly immune to sore feet.  “You’re right, you’re right.”  She flexed her hands over and over.  “No safe time, no safe place.  Nowhere in the world.”  The electric lights of the plaza world were receding in the distance, replaced with nothing but the light of their mobiles.  Glints on skin.  The alarm still nearly as loud as at street level, but very different, echoing through the tunnel.

She was giving Jorge a case of nerves, which over-ruled his need for rest.  They moved on.

The culvert opened under a utility courtyard between two equipment silos, with not a soul in sight.  They checked the door they’d used to access the spot from the inside, and the lock was still foiled from their earlier efforts.  From the courtyard, the sound of the alarm was weaker, but something else about it felt off.  They were quick to get indoors, but Jorge paused there, last through the door, and looked at the sky.  Was it his imagination, or were larger forms falling from it now?  Larger angels?

–

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…

–

Razzmatazz was not the hottest nightclub in the grotty little California town, but it was jumping. In a way, being second rate was a good thing.  These weren’t all coked-up children of privilege and gymbunny starfuckers; they were people who came to get high or get laid, or some combination of the two.  Less bullshit, more flavors of decadence to choose from.  The night was young and the walls weren’t sweating yet.

Josefina was there to dance, but her skin jumped with anxiety, her eyes wheeled in their sockets.  Despite her youth, those eyes always seemed tired.  Physiognomy, or a result of constant stress?  A feeling of disjunction followed her through the world – that she did not belong in reality.  She had to loosen up, and the only way that had ever worked was ecstasy.  The pills were already dissolving in her stomach.  She imagined she could feel them, that her stomach itself was a glass bottle of hydrochloric acid, a hand dangling from her esophagus giving it a little swirl.  The pills fizzed like the product in an antacid commercial, losing their cartoon dinosaur shapes.

Noise laid a comforting hand on her thigh.  The woman had naturally blonde hair, long and fairly straight, but wore no makeup, hadn’t dressed up at all.  She was still in a stained Del Taco t-shirt and khakis from work, unflattering to her rubenesque figure.  Without darkened lashes, her eyes looked tiny, with a reptilian glint, and without lipstick, the big but thin-lipped mouth looked like that of an albino ape.  Noise always bore a faint smile, deriving a crass amusement from the world of vice.  This was largely vicarious, as she never developed much taste for drugs and only got a laid a few times a year.  Mostly she was a chain smoker, always with a cigarette behind one ear.  “Hey Josie, you feeling it yet?”

“No, no.  I can’t.”  Josefina didn’t look at her, but Noise wasn’t offended – used to her ways.

Peace lay a comforting hand on her other thigh.  He was big round Cayuse man that had moved south from Oregon as a child, and joined one of the ambiguous brown people cliques at Josefina’s junior high.  He was a calming presence in her life.  Whatever his delinquency or foolishness, it was taken at a casual pace, arousing no anger from anyone who heard his soft, resonant voice.  Like Josefina, he had very long hair – mostly straight, but frizzed from a trace of natural curl.  Josie’s hair was dark and her skin light, while Peace’s skin was a shade darker and his hair lighter, like God turned down the contrast on him.  He wore an illegible death metal t-shirt, an open hoodie, and absurdly loose-fitting blue jeans.  Nobody would mistake him for a law-abiding citizen, yet he also did not provoke suspicion.  One could imagine no harm coming from his thick hands, even as he used them to feed MDMA to his friend.  “You’ll get there, Josie.  Clark and Mister Dougie don’t sell no bunk.”

“Thank you, Peace.  I can feel something, but I’m not there yet.”  She almost confessed that she felt a bit ill, but knew that would get her friends pouring bottled water down her throat, and she wasn’t ready to hydrate yet.

“They better not,” Noise cackled.  “I wanna see Josie go crazy.”

“I’m always crazy, Noise.”

“You know what I mean, girl!  Shit.  And what is this crap they’re spinning?”

“Morcheeba,” said Peace. “It’s ’90s stoner stuff.”

“How do you even know that?  I don’t care.  It’s putting my ass to sleep.”

“Go burn one?,” he offered.

“No.  I don’t wanna miss it when Josie gets up.”  She was clearly considering it, turning the lighter over in one hand, again and again.

“I’ll wait ’til you get back,” Josefina said.

“Liar.”

Whoever was working the lights was not feeling creative.  They’d left bands of different colors over the floor in discrete regions, spotlights staring straight down.  People changed colors as they crossed the floor, as bored with the music as Noise.  The closest color to the stoners was a wall of De Palma red.  They sat on one of the few benches at the back of the floor, under a looming maze of blue-grey geometric chunks – sculpted foam meant to quell noise complaints.

Josefina contemplated the bodies, ignoring eyes.  What did she want from them?  She felt like a vampire choosing its victims – but an incompetent one that would usually end the night thirsty.  Ladies and gentlemen and some other kinds of creatures in the mix, all dressed like myriad species of gangsters and sluts, the fashion not precisely mapping to assigned genders.  Their movements spoke of relationships – this woman connected to that woman and that man and his friends, that man connected to the bar staff and bouncers, and so on.

Nobody was alone – she would have to inveigle her way into another clique if she wanted to dance.  Peace would only dance with somebody he was courting and didn’t want to mess up their friendship, and Noise’s idea of dance was to grab a guy’s ass and stand there like a fire hydrant.  But Josefina would not go completely neglected that night, having slut gear under the hoodie, ready to go.  She was wearing a black bikini under her clothes, and would probably get away with stripping down to nothing but that, as the club heated up and the bouncers lost track of the chaos.

Her attention kept coming back to a drug dealer – a possibly older man, white, and wolfish – like a less interesting cousin to Christian Bale, dressed like Mac Miller.  He had come alone, though some people in the crowd knew him, and glanced by him for product, or to make a nominal amount of nice, to stay in his good graces.  In her experience, a man alone was a dangerous wild card, but this one was a professional, never jerked an elbow in anger, and seemed well-liked.  Further, he subtly moved his body to the music, with no thought to how he looked without a partner.  Unselfconscious, in a way that promised a good dance.  Still, would he want to be interrupted at work?

The drug hit and her head lolled dramatically.

“You should drink some of this,” Peace offered.

“HaHA!  It’s happening.  Get up, girl, get up!”

Josefina waved off the water, and stood up slowly, carefully.  Noise got a hand around her ass and pushed her into the crowd.  She crashed through a couple, pulling them apart, and caught angry looks.  But it was official.  She was dancing.

–

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…

–

Down cavernous corridor through the haze of rose-hued chandeliers the assassins could barely see them – more guards, perhaps, but surely witnesses to their latest massacre of priests.  Zochino shouldered his rifle and let off a burst of suppressive fire.  The youths had been college students just a few months ago, but radical schemes gave them a quick education in the arts of war, and they advanced in the opening his volley had made for them.  The hall was encrusted with elaborate gold – frames for massive paintings, pedestals for sculpture, sculptural elements at every joint of the walls ceiling and floors, and cabinets for relics – which gave some amount of cover.

Christina was always the most bold, leaping sidelong into the next hall, laser bolts shrieking through the air all around her as she launched a burst of her own.  She survived, and Jorge and Xihuani moved into the opening to finish the job.  After another run and gun, the whole squad advanced into that hall and took new positions of cover.  There was a half dozen places for trouble to emerge, but they needed to be sure they’d finished the job.  Dead men lay in heaps, so many dark lumps behind a screen of smoke.

Blasfemia just abandoned her cover and walked down the hall, whistling.  It was the only sound besides the bubbling squall of grieving putti.  The ones in that hall, at least, had recovered their senses enough to buzz around seeking escape.  Most took the largest exits, back into the throne room where the pope lay dead and desecrated.  A confused straggler crawled on the tiles, almost like a human child.  Were its wings singed?  It pawed at Blasfemia’s feet as she walked by, slowing her progress.

“Get off me, baby!  Disgusting.”  She raised a boot and crushed the putti with a stomp.  It was the size of a human infant, too large to fit under her foot, but somehow it just disintegrated into a pile of meat under her power, chunks trailing strings and sprays of blood.

From his position, Jorge was revolted.  He understood that no real harm had come to the spirit creature – it was merely banished to the spirit world – but it was still a shocking sight.  Blasfemia was a natural exorcist, with the unusual power to banish spirits by violence.  Perhaps the fact she had struck the death blow on the old pontiff was the reason for the resounding shock to the angels, or perhaps as the old priest suggested, they cried every time a pope died in office.

Laser blasts shook her out of the distraction – somebody firing from cover down the hall.  They shouted in the language of the Dio 6, which she barely understood.  It was defiance, no doubt, rage at having his cushy young life as a papal guard subject to unprecedented violence.  Well, little soldier, what did you think that weapon was for?  Blasfemia mocked him, “Blah, blah, blah!”

The squad showered his position with fire, disintegrating his scant cover and most of his body in seconds, then regrouped. Zochino gestured for them to follow, and cut across the throne room to get back on course.  By now the putti were all in flight, like panicked doves hauling a few plump kilos on stubby wings.

Christina slapped Blasfemia’s arm.  “Put your fucking hood up and get the rifle ready.”

“Oh yeah.”  She was still royally distracted, but beginning to make some sense of the world again, and complied.

The evening sky was filled with light pollution, a royal blue haze admitting only a phantom glimpse of the starry void above.  Every pavement stone was a dedication to holy works, every ornately chiseled holy building transformed by shafts and sprays of lamplight into cerulean ghosts.  The lights at the plaza level were more amber-hued, blending with the red stone to irregular shades of orange and blood.

Thousands of putti and millions of angelflies buzzed madly through the sky, and people cautiously emerged from every shadow to find out what was going on.  The assassins mirrored the body language of the curious as best they could, while still following Zochino’s lead.  Nobody else was moving with such purpose, so it was a poor disguise indeed.  Nonetheless, it held out long enough.  They reached the grand stabling, where myriad strange vehicles were filed in stalls or suspended from skyhooks.  The only security present had never felt the need to question priests, and were distracted enough by the strange air to let them pass with little notice, and they were quickly alone again, in dimly lit passages, the concrete beneath them now an unadorned smooth grey.

Blasfemia smiled wearily at the stalls.  It was a shopping trip.  Would they reach the skyhooks to take a flying cabriolet?  Motorcycles?  Autoesclavos shaped like headless horses?  A simple wheeled sedan?  Take the pope’s personal carriage, as they had taken his life?

Zochino looked up to the skyhooks.  “Those are the best bet.”

Jorge said, “They are harnessed celestial spirits like the astronaves, and might rebel at our touch.”

“Alright, it will be quicker to boost a sedan anyway.  Xihuani?”

Xihuani was their best mechanic, and got to work on opening the nearest stall, as the others stood guard.

“Aww, man.  Why you gotta be so boring?”  Blasfemia was still shaking blood out of her sleeves.  “The pope’s cab is in this place somewhere.  We could tell it what to do.”

Christina agreed.  “You’re talking out your ass, Jorge.  Just because those flying rats figured out the old man was dead, it doesn’t mean they can magically sense that we did it.  Were they swarming us?  No.  Let’s take a flyer.”

Blasfemia said, “Yeah, maybe we can splat some of those bambinos on the windshield, haha.”

Zochino got in their faces, judgmental glare suiting well his clerical disguise.  “You know what the odds are we get off this fucking planet alive?  This isn’t a game.”

Christina spat.  “Don’t be a coward, Chino.  We all knew we could die.”

“I’m just being practical.  I want to get away with this as much as you do.”  He looked at the dark rafters, imagining the stars beyond.  “The easiest world to disappear will be Laia 4.  Lots of big cities with corazono neighborhoods.”

Blasfemia cocked her head at him.  “We’re going to Corazon 2, Zochino.”

“Are you mad?,” he looked at her again.  “We’d be caught there in a heartbeat.”

She shook her head.  “We’re going to get Josefina.  I’m going to get Josefina.”  She stopped fiddling with her sleeves and balled fists.

Christina turned her sharp features on Blasfemia.  “If you wanna go die, do it alone – after we get to Laia 4.”

“Oh, now you’re with him?”

Zochino said, “You were all with me.  I got us this far; I’m the only one that can get us out.”

Christina rolled her eyes at his self-importance.  “He’s right about this, Blasfemia.”

Their attention was drawn by the clunk of the stall’s locks hitting the concrete.  Xihuani had finished her work, and Jorge opened the side-rolling door.

Blasfemia said, “No.  No!  Xihuani, get me a ride too.  I’m going my own way.”

“I still have to get this one started.  I don’t have time!”

Zochino was getting heated.  “Blasfemia, I don’t want to see any of us die.  If we don’t stay together until we’re free, it’s over!”

“No, man.  Xihuani, get me a fucking ride!”

Jorge nudged Xihuani toward the driver side door of the sedan and stared forlornly at Blasfemia, hoping she’d snap out of it.

Zochino said, “We’re staying together.”

A great keening blast arose in the air, a chord of bending, whining notes that flattened as they peaked at brick-shaking volume.  It cycled again, then again – an alarm that had not sounded in centuries.

Blasfemia backed away.  “I’m going to get Josefina.  Fuck you guys.”

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