by Shad N Freud
“’ello guv, been a while.”
“Indeed, Carl, it has. I’ve sent for you because your services have been…requested…by a rather powerful Archduke. Baal specifically asked for you to perform a service to the Church.”
“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.”
“No, Carl, I’m serious.”
“Bloody Hell. Right, so who’s the lucky sod that gets a one-way ticket to Hell? Or is it a case of ‘appropriating’ some Church property that we don’t own yet? Or perhaps you’ve got some children with too much candy, and you need me to go unburden them of it?”
“That’s enough, Beaumont. I’ll only tolerate so much sass from you. Now then, this dossier should just about cover it. This is classified DI and your…associates for this mission are to be sworn to secrecy.”
“Dire Importance? From an Archduke? What the Hell have you volunteered me for? If this is anything like that debacle with the Frogs, count me out. I needed a full silkwood shower afterwards, and I wasn’t even directly involved! And poor Hiroshi…still goes into convulsions if people even so much as mention tardigrades. What a debacle.”
“Just read the damn file and quit your bitching. You’re dismissed. Also, you shall have the full backing of the three other faiths to complete this mission. Now get out of here; you’ve made me late for my twelve o’clock appointment.” The Pope then poured himself a drink, as well as a second for his next appointment, who came hopping back into the room, wearing…well, clothing would be a rather loose term. A leather bondage harness with silk ropes binding her arms from elbows to wrists behind her back and legs from her knees to her hooves probably couldn’t be considered clothing. Much less the ball-gag in her mouth.
She bounced as she made her way up to the Pope, stopping to murmur what almost sounded like “Care to stay, handsome?” to Carl, who shook his head, and raised his left hand, showing off his wedding band. Trixie shrugged, murmured “your loss,” and continued her trek to the Pope, her tail swishing excitedly.
Carl hurried out of the office, shuddering as he briefly considered the crime against sex that was about to occur in the sound-proofed office, then broke the seal on the file, and began reading its contents. He read the profiles for the individuals he was to recruit, as well as Plan B candidates, and sighed. He suddenly felt the need to drink, as just reading about the misfits he was to interview gave him a migraine. ‘It’ll be like herding cats! Twinned souls?! The bloody Hell is the Pope on about? What kind of suicide mission did I get voluntold for? Wait a tick, Prophecy? With a capital P?’
Carl pulled a small stone out of his pocket, with the elder futhark rune of Fehu inscribed on it and opened the door to a broom closet to touch the stone to the wall where it attached itself, and then he closed the door. He waited five seconds, and opened the door to a lavish mansion, floors of black marble laced with gold inlay, pearlescent crown molding, red marble walls with white veins, and vaulted white marble ceilings twenty feet high. The sitting room near the entrance was furnished with opulent, overstuffed black leather furniture with gold trim.
He looked up at his butler, Jeeves, who carried a crystal decanter filled with thirty-year-old single malt scotch, a small onyx box covered in frosty condensation, and a large tumbler. Jeeves immediately poured four fingers of scotch into the tumbler with four frozen white skulls carved out of soapstone and handed the glass to Carl who lifted his glass in salute. He pulled a pack of cloves from his pocket, removed one with his teeth and sparked a candle light’s worth of Hellfire from his thumb, lighting his smoke.
“Rough day at the office, Sir?” Jeeves drawled in the mechanical fashion Carl had long grown accustomed to. Jeeves was, after all, a construct. The mansion, it’s assortment of marble golems who typically remained out of sight until called upon, and the butler were designed, created, and enchanted by a genius wizard who focused more on creature comforts and inventing new types of magic than anything else. That wizard, Jameson the Wise, was a human that had been born into the lap of luxury and had created six of the mansions contained within unassuming runestones as gifts for his friends, one of whom had been Carl’s predecessor and mentor, the previous Grand Inquisitor of Greed, Cardinal Jean-Baptiste de l’Orange. It was rumored that Jameson created a seventh as a prototype that had never been found.
Carl absently rubbed a scar on his neck he received during one of the many “training sessions” he’d received as a junior Inquisitor for backchat. He looked again at Jeeves who stared, unblinking, as Carl slowly raised the glass to his lips, savoring the mossy notes of the very expensive liquor.
“You ‘ave no bloody idea, mate. The bloody Pope calls me away from my duties to hand me a dossier with a ridiculous mission. It involves a Prophecy I’ve got to fulfill. Prophecy. With a great sodding capital ‘P.’ Classified DI! You tell me, Jeeves. Does that ‘compute’ as a rough day at the office?”
Jeeves leaned back and stared at the ceiling for a moment. The clockwork man leaned forward again and smoothed his coattails before looking back at his employer. “Well, Sir, that sounds…terrible. Shall I arrange expensive-looking things in the training room so that you may blow off some steam, or shall you simply be needing me to draw you a hot bath? Or should I do both? I can’t always tell precisely what would help in this situation, especially with your…unique…heritage.”
“Well, while smashing things is what mum would ‘ave done, I think I’ll stick to getting pissed and figuring out which one of these…winners I’m going to go ‘interview’ first. Leave the decanter.”
“As you wish, Sir. If there’s nothing else, I believe I’ll go find something more constructive to do than watch you pickle your liver.” Carl gave the android the V-sign as he blew a raspberry, then made his way to the chaise lounge, dropping his clothing as he walked. The clothes sank into the floor, his greatcoat reappearing on a coat hook at the front door with the rest going to the laundry hamper in his room. As he lay down on the chaise, a large, red, warm beach blanket appeared under him. He sighed as he eased himself into the sinfully luxurious chair, setting the decanter on the end table that rose out of the floor under it, and took a healthy sip from his glass, the cold liquor burning down his throat and into his belly.
After refilling the tumbler, Carl reopened the file, reading its contents from where he’d left off. The Prophecy, as written, seemed ridiculous. The implications of some of the passages worried him, as some seemed to border on blasphemy.
The dead sleeper shall awaken when the home of Man passes its star two thousand times.
Those of two souls shall be set upon a quest to receive the instruments of Entropy’s defeat,
With failure meaning the awakening of his brood, and the end of days
For the survival of your world, five shall be present at his awakening to return him to his sleep of Death
These five shall never twice be the same, and shall be acquired at great cost to mind, body and Soul.
When the calendar of the fallen Empire comes nigh, in the city of evils triumph, where birds
Made edifices to greed topple, shall the Elder God of Entropy return, on the site of the ritual of the Falling Sphere, where millions flock to see the death of one year and the birth of another.
The five are as follows:
One whose fate is shrouded in fire and darkness most dire.
One with the power to kill a god.
One to settle a debt.
One to make a decision that shall affect worlds.
One beloved of Bahamut, who shall anoint him in the blood of a god.
A final word of advice: Should the list be impossible to achieve in the present, seek the Wisdom of The Past.
Upon reading the final line, Carl sputtered, spraying the expensive Italian leather of the couch with the fine liquor he’d sipped, and re-read the passage. Time travel was considered a cardinal sin in the Satanic religion, as Lucifer despises those that try to buck the system by cheating. Dying in the past, if at a time when y
ou were a child, could potentially mean that a full-grown man could die at the age of five. The implications of such an act were rather perilous. Imagine shortening the length of your stay in Hell as an inmate and *poof* instant devil.
So, it was rather understandable that Carl fell into a Rage, as his orcish blood came to the forefront, and he proceeded to nakedly bash the couch into kindling. The fragments sank into the floor, as did the remaining furniture, leaving Carl to rant and rave impotently at the walls, the world, the sheer injustice of it all. Eventually, his cooler-headed elvish blood came to the fore, and he began to calm down, whereupon he began sobbing angrily.
“Join the Inquisition! See the world! Risk eternal damnation with this faffing shite! Lucifer’s bald goolies, why must I be the sod that has to do this? Bollocks!”
Carl sat down, a couch rising to meet him, and reached his hand out to retrieve the decanter as it rose up to meet his hand. He took the top off and began chugging the contents. Jeeves rose up out of the floor and took the decanter from him, placing it on the floor where it promptly disappeared. He then sat down across from Carl and rested his hand on the sobbing man’s shoulder. Carl raised his head as Jeeves began to speak.
“Sir…Carl, I’ve been around for over a century. I’ve heard of prophesies, fated events…I can connect to the internet, and see what is going on in the world outside of this mansion. I know that the Church has been doing its utmost to reach out to the impoverished nations around the globe, to help modernize less developed nations. I also know that the Church doesn’t waste its time or resources on fool’s errands, nor would they put it in the hands of someone they didn’t trust. So, whatever it says in that Prophecy, I know you can accomplish it. Now, I shall draw you a bath, and prepare your supper. Do not worry about the mess, I shall clean it. Nothing in that folder is so important that it cannot wait until tomorrow.”
“World ends if I can’t get Bahamut to spill his blood on someone. Probably a gold dragon. You know, the ones that went extinct about seventy years ago, right around the time that bomb fell on Nagasaki? POOF. Dead Dragon God? Ring a bell?”
“Oh. Well, I suppose you’re proper fucked, then.”
Carl looked at the copper-colored man in shock. “In the past forty years that I’ve known you, I’ve never once heard you curse! Also, what the Hell? You give me a rutting inspirational speech and then tell me I’m fucked? What kind of butler are you?”
“Well, if the world is going to end, I suppose I don’t need to worry quite as much about propriety, now do I? And as for the second part, it got you out of your funk, so go me. Finally, Sir, I’m the kind of butler who won’t hesitate to kick you in the arse if necessary. Now then, get up, go bathe, and get dressed. I shall lay the table for your dinner in an hour. Worry about this Prophecy nonsense in the morning.”
Carl ran his fingers through his hair, then walked, swaying, to the grand staircase. He made his way up to his ensuite, pausing to relieve himself before sinking into the jasmine scented bath. A marble golem slid out of the wall and began using her magically softened hands to massage Carl’s sore body, his pulled muscles screaming in protest as a reminder of the cost of losing his temper. When the marble golem began saucily reaching below his waist, Carl gently slapped her hand, reminded her he was married, and dismissed her. Pouting cutely, the golem sank back into the wall, disappearing from sight.
Carl sighed, the heat and alcohol taking its toll on him, and he began to feel drowsy, a sign he should exit the bath. Twenty minutes later, Carl staggered downstairs in a black Egyptian cotton bathrobe and stumbled his way into the dining area. Jeeves stepped out of the kitchen, and placed his hand on the table, a five-course dinner for one appearing, with the wine conspicuously absent - grape juice in its place. Jeeves then placed his hand on the wall, and the dossier slid out of the wall, into his hand. He then took a seat at the table and began to read.
“Hmm.”
“Hmm?” Carl grunted as he chewed on the sinfully rich roasted pheasant with sage and walnut dressing. “Wot?”
“It appears that you have a rather motley crew of misfits in this merry band of yours. And all of them gestalts no less. One of whom, if I am reading this correctly, is a male tiefling? Gracious, you’ve sure got your work cut out for you. As far as who you should recruit first, I’d recommend the Inquisitor. He should be the simplest one to acquire. Now, how are you going to acquire the gun, the thirty pieces of silver, and the…oh my, I can see how that one may be troubling. Though, if I’ve been reading message traffic correctly, the time machine in Berlin is ready, is it not?”
“Yeah, bit of a holdover from the Nazi R&D department. One of der Fuhrer’s personal limousines. Apparently, he wanted to travel through time in style. That part isn’t in the other dossiers.”
“Ah. What of the one to make a choice? The rest seems self-explanatory.”
“Not a bloody clue. But I’m sure we’ll know it when we see it.”
“Well, sir, I shall inform the staff that we shall be expecting visitors. Shall I also ensure that the rather…unique dietary needs of one of your minions be available, or shall he be catching his own meals?”
“Something tells me he’ll need a feedbag, so yeah.”
“Very well, sir. Also, shall I prepare the customary gifts for your daughter’s birthday, as well as your anniversary?”
“Yeah. Thanks Jeeves.” Carl pushed his plate away and slid out of his chair, walking towards the grand staircase and heading for his room. ‘Thirteen years already. Lucy’s pretty teeth, has it been that long?’ Carl pondered as he readied himself for bed, making a note to see an alterist in the morning to get his teeth fixed after his Rage. He had a long day ahead of him, and he didn’t have time to reminisce. Carl lay down on his Alaskan King bed, the mattress enchanted to provide optimal comfort and sense whether the sleeper needed the bed to be colder or warmer, firmer or softer. The two-thousand thread count sheets were black silk, his comforter made of mammoth wool.
As he lay in bed, he thought of the day he first saw his daughter, having been away on a six-month mission during the end of his wife’s pregnancy and missing her birth. He pulled a picture out of his bedside table and stared at the tiny portrait of himself with his family, smiling for the camera. Her short crimson hair contrasted somewhat against her faintly green skin, with slightly darker green shadowing her eyes, and her bright blue irises stared up at the strange man who reached out to the tiny child. Her mother looked especially tired, her blue eyes somewhat dimmed from their usual brightness. She handed the baby to Carl, smiling as she made her way to the bedroom to sleep, “She’ll need to be changed in about an hour, dearie, an’ I dinnae ken we’ve any formula in th’ house. You’ll ‘ave to make a trip to the chemist for some, as me baps are completely tapped out. Greedy guts there eats like you do.”
Carl nodded, completely transfixed by the tiny hand holding his finger, filled with a joy that only a father would understand. Tristana smiled at her husband, her normally perfect hair a disheveled mess that obscured her rather elven ears. He gently lifted his daughter out of his wife’s arms and felt his entire world change. He looked at his wife and began weeping copiously. In his hands he held the most beautiful thing in the world, and he smiled as he carefully, gently held his firstborn like a porcelain doll.
In the present, Carl’s tears fell on the photograph, which he quickly wiped off. He then gently placed his most treasured possession back into his dresser and turned out the light as darkness claimed him.
Chapter Two
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Inquisitor Fernando di Flores snapped at the recalcitrant young tiefling before him. The young man glared defiantly at the Superintendent of the Basilica di Madonna Negro in the Vatican, and fiddled with his pendant, all the while pondering his fate. “We took you in, fed you, clothed you, and even looked past some of your…foibles. And how do you repay our generosity? By seducing your history teacher! An Inquisitor of great renown, a well-respected
historian, and a devout member of the church. And as if that wasn’t enough, she is also married to a prominent Cardinal of the Church! What say you in your defense?!”
“Hey, I didn’t make her do it! And I sure as Hell didn’t know she was married! She sure as shit wasn’t wearing her wedding band while she was sucking my cock. and she didn’t seem too concerned about her fidelity while she was screaming my name. So, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it! It’s not my fault I’m irresistible to women!”
“No kidding. You’ve shtupped half the women in your year, the years above you, and the year below you.”
“Since when is being popular a crime?”
“It is when you cause an international scandal!”
There was a knock at the door and Carl Beaumont, Grand Inquisitor of Greed and Sloth, entered the room, smoking a Black Jack clove cigarette. “Superintendent, I do hope this isn’t a bad time?”
“Ah, no your Grace, I was just handling this little ingrate, and letting him know that he’s washed out of the program.”
“Afraid not. This bloke’s coming with me, by order of the Pope.” Carl flicked his cigarette ash into the candy bowl on Fernando’s desk, which caused the elderly Inquisitor to flush a bit in indignation. Carl reached into his pocket, and pulled out a crumpled missive from the Pope, handing it to Fernando. Fernando broke the official seal and began to read. He looked up at Carl over his half-moon glasses, one eyebrow rising almost to meet his hairline as he stared Carl in the eye.