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…

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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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See my previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  Meanwhile, a wee bit of this bullshit…

Blasfemia withdrew one knife from the pontiff’s chest, but left the other in his heart, a hand still on the grip.  The spasms of dying muscle sent a jolt of dark pleasure through her hand, the scarlet ribbons coursing down his chest thrilled her eyes.  His head rolled dramatically, with an air of finality stealing the gaze from her handiwork.  “No no no,” she said, “Stay with me, papi.  You need to feel this.”  She dropped the loose knife and slapped his cheek with her free hand, little smacks.  “Come onnn.  Know why this is happening.  Don’t forget her!”  The pontiff died abruptly, and his dead weight dragged itself free of Blasfemia’s blade, collapsing on the floor.  “Josefina!,” she yelled, and stabbed him again – perpendicular to the fatal wound, marking his corpse with an X.  She crouched over his body like an ardent lover.

The witnesses – the band of assassins – all bore different burdens within their hearts.  Zochino had spent his entire young adulthood in study of political philosophy and its history, and became as obsessed as the dreamers of old with the idea that a more perfect system must someday be born.  Cristina had come to see all the sanctimony of her pious homeworld as bars in a cage, had grown to see all priests and police as icons of her oppression – just so many targets.  Jorge was a scholar of the spirit world, who saw how The Church’s angels press-ganged innocent entities into their host, twisting embodiments of nature into foot soldiers of celestial fascism.  He felt their pain and sought their liberation.

Xihuani had only wanted the people of her world to live their own culture free from the foreign influence of The Church, but it all seemed so remote, as she stood drenched in cold sweat on an alien world.  They all beheld a savage murder, the culmination of a hatred divorced from all sense and ideal.  Xihuani, at least, could not feel her ideals anymore, not in the slightest.  They would return to her later in some quiet moment, if she survived the consequences of their terrorism.

None of the assassins had been truly prepared to see Blasfemia’s passion consummated like this, and it broke the energy of their movement.  Zochino had already been feeling the absurdity of their quest as they stole into the Tiemplo Santo Pietri.  Who wanted to kill the pontiff?  Who wanted The Church gone?  Just a few isolated radicals.  The main run of the people truly loved and trusted the institution.  Without popular support, any revolution was doomed to fail.  They were bringing the wrath of several worlds down upon themselves for no lasting benefit, just for a single moment to satiate their bloodlust, to feel like they could do something important.

He was the first to speak, an attempt to dispel the haze of war, to restore sense to his comrades.  “Blasfemia!  Put those things away!  We need to get the fuck out of here.”  Nominally the leader, he might have ordered Christina to restrain her, but Blasfemia’s knives were the claws of a bear enraged.  They would kill anyone in the hot moment.

Blasfemia paid no heed, rocking on the knives, barely resisting the drive the keep savaging the corpse.  Christina rapped the ground with the butt of her rifle, just out of reach, and whistled sharply.  “Crazy bitch.  Move it!”

A strange murmuring sound rose in the world around them.  Had it begun when the first knife entered the old priest’s heart, and only then grown loud enough to overcome the blood pounding in their ears?

“what is that,” Xihuani muttered, terror stealing her breath.

“The angels.  They’re crying,” said Jorge.

“Bullshit,” said Christina.  “They’re animals, like a bunch of flying fish.  They didn’t notice shit.”  She still readied her weapon.

Jorge shook his head.  “He was bound to the celestial hierarchy.  You know the Church wasn’t lying about that, right?  We took a linchpin out of a bridge.”

Zochino readied his rifle.  He hoped he would not have to kill them.  They had passed hundreds of them in the cathedral halls, clustered in slumber at the rafters, or lolling around the floors in mindless play.  They were alien things, but they did rather convincingly resemble winged human infants.  “Ximura,” he used Blasfemia’s birth name, “come with us.”  He hustled to the door, deftly skipping through the bodies of papal guards, and paused at the threshold.

Blasfemia cocked her head at the words.  Who was Ximura?  Two people ever used that name, two voices in her memory.  One whose memory made her spit.  One whose name had just been in her mouth, spoken in hatred.  Why would she ever say Josie’s name like that?  Sweat beaded around her dark eyes, and she finally freed herself from the corpse’s embrace, staggering.  “Josie?”

She looked at the blood-soaked knives in her hands, and they responded to her will, the blades shifting shapes, twirling to shake off the red, and dulling to soft curves.  They were never meant to be weapons – just adjustable farming tools.  She hadn’t engaged in agriculture for a hectic little eon.

Seeing the blades go dull, Xihuani picked up the courage to get close.  She even put a hand on the brute’s shoulder.  “Ximura, Josie isn’t here.  You just killed the pope.  We all need to hide, just hide away forever.  Right now, honey.”

Blasfemia flicked away sweat with long curling eyelashes, and her coal-black eyes burned again.  “Hey.  Hey I did what we wanted to do.  Where are you going?”  She called over Xihuani’s shoulder to Zochino, not shy about shouting.

Zochino grimaced in frustration.  “We need to go!”

“Where’s Josefina?,” she asked.

Xihuani said, “You know this.  She went to her abuela at the north pole.  Why are you asking?  Please… Snap out of it.”

Blasfemia sheathed her tools and went to Zochino.  “We’re going home, to Corazon.  How?”

“We’ll be lucky to get out of this building alive.  Are you ready to try?”

“We can do whatever we want, man.”

He shook off his annoyance, but was glad the squad was ready to move again.  “Maybe the mewling putti will distract the guards.  Pull up that habit.  We’ll cross the plaza to the stabling, steal a ride to the astropuerto–”

“It’s no good,” Jorge said.  “The Church’s astronaves are part of the Hierarchy too.  They won’t fly for us.”

Christina scoffed.  “They’re less than animals.  They don’t know shit.  We could ride them up God’s asshole and blow the Universe to Hell.”

“Could that be true?,” Xihuani asked, obviously ignoring Christina’s take.

Zochino’s sweat felt like ice water.  “Did you know that was possible before we came here, comrade?”

“I didn’t imagine.  I knew it would have an effect.  Maybe I hoped they’d all just lose their wings.”

Christina grabbed him by the scruff of his collar.  “We kinda need wings to fly the fuck out of here, Jorge.”

Zochino waved a hand to hush them, and in that moment the squalling of unnatural babies sounded like an industrial farm full of goats.  “Animals fly around with fleas all the time.  Christina’s right enough.  Everybody on me.”

Blasfemia felt the coagulating blood glue the sleeves to her arms, and rubbed them idly, disgusted, annoyed.  But she followed the squad, not knowing what else to do with herself in the moment.  They’d go home, she’d go north, and she’d find out where Josefina had gone to hide.  It was the only thing that made sense, with her rage finally spent.

They were a little flock of priests and nuns again, walking briskly in the temple halls, heads bowed, rifle-shaped parcels under their sleeves.  But one nun’s habit lay askew at her shoulders, curly hair hung heavy, sweat making serpents of it – a frame for a bestial face.  They marched past clots of putti, the winged babes thrashing on the tiles with eyes squeezed shut and mouths agape in tantrum.

A golden door opened at the end of the hall ahead, and priests rushed out, to make sense of the chaos.  On seeing their fellows of the cloth, they waved for their company.  Zochino let Jorge out in front – his seminary studies gave him the vocabulary to talk with these clerics.  He met their approach with palms down, eyes trying to meet theirs – draw attention away from the squad’s numerous suspicious details.

“Brothers, what has come to pass?”

The most senior of their number pushed up his glasses.  He was also taller than anyone present, with an eagle’s nose.  “This happened when Pope Sincerus VI died.  Be still.”

His head jerked back, charred brain sputtering into the air, and as his friends came to grasp the situation, they were already being gunned down with laser bolts.  It was Christina who had pulled the first trigger.

Zochino glanced down a hall in alarm.  “That way.  We gotta kill ’em all fast!  Go!”  They could leave no witnesses, if they wanted to reach the astropuerto in peace.  A general alarm would be the end of that.  The vision was taking shape in the young man’s mind.  Chase down one group of witnesses to slaughter them, behind them two groups, behind them a hundred, behind them the world bearing witness.  They had only gotten as far as they had because nobody in a thousand years imagined anyone would be foolish enough to strike at the pontiff.  The scheme had been foolish, and it was unraveling.

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