Debris of Shadows_Book II_The Forgotten Cathedral

by Tony LaRocca

  The screech of metal bearings grinding against gears rang out in the darkness. The thing in his hands gave a few inches, and then stopped. Was it a JarMonger, perhaps? The Sages of WesMec seemed to be littered with the rusting remains of its war machines. He felt along its rounded edge until he reached the thing’s head.

  It was a warped, metallic shaft. He crouched, and ran his hands along its surface. A nest of wires dangled from a hole in its base. The brittle strands crumbled at his touch, covering his fingers in slime. He held them to his face, and sniffed.

  It was oil.

  Realization hit him, and he laughed. The machine was a turnstile. Like everything else in this city, it was contorted and deformed. He crawled underneath, and made his way along the wall to the escalator.

  He held his breath. Though he was underground, he could still hear the drone of insects. Their whining buzz came from the stairway that led to the surface. He gripped the rubber handrail, and descended to the tracks.

  His footfalls on the steps of metal grating seemed far too loud. He winced. The inevitable wave of exhaustion that followed the use of his shoulder had passed, but he still felt a weariness that seemed to radiate from the marrow of his bones. He would have to return to the surface eventually, but right now, he needed a place to rest. Fatigue always gave birth to bad decisions. All that mattered was that he stay alive until he found the Cathedral —

  The step pivoted beneath his weight, dropping him through its incomplete frame. His face smacked into muck and crumbling cement, his knee cracking against a steel clasp.

  He lay in the mud, gasping for breath. Uneven ties pressed against his chest and shins. He had fallen onto the tracks.

  Good, he thought, just let the train roll over me. Then, maybe I can get some sleep.

  He rolled onto his back, and sighed. It was as good a place as any to take a nap. Why not? The system was clearly not running. He was as safe as he was ever going to be. Besides, while the air could not be called clean, it was notably less rank than on the surface. He closed his eyes, and allowed himself to rest.

  “Let me ask you a question!”

  His head shot up. Though he was still in total darkness, he could just make out the hazy outline of a man. He seemed to be pacing the platform, waving a book in the air.

  “How can one break into the house of a strong man and steal all of his stuff, unless he ties him up first? And so I’m telling all of you, you are either with the Ophanim, or you side with the Clown and his harlot against her!”

  Matthew ran his hand over his face, and yawned. He did not know how much time had passed, but the rest had definitely helped. He peered at the ghost as it strode by above. Whatever it was, it took no notice of him.

  “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy against me shall be forgiven, but whoever talks smack against the Ingegno, it will not be forgiven, neither in this age, nor in the times to come!”

  Yeah, he thought, and it’s easier for a rich man to enter the whore of Babylon than it is to pass a kidney stone through the eye of a camel. He sat up, and rubbed his eyes. “Hey,” he shouted, waving at the apparition. “Hello?”

  The flickering outline continued to ignore him. “You either help a tree grow, or your pollution and industrial waste makes its fruit rotten and corrupt. And let me tell you, trees are known by their fruit. God save the West, you pathetic, faithless douche–nozzles!”

  Matthew’s eyes grew wide. “What?” he asked as he climbed to his feet. He did not remember what the phrase meant, but somehow, he knew that it was important. “What did you say?”

  A huffing sound, like a cross between a warthog and a steam engine, came from down the tracks. He turned, and saw a pale green phosphorescence shine from beyond the curve of the tunnel. He turned back to the platform, but the insubstantial preacher had vanished.

  The rhythmic, low, snorting noise grew louder. Was it a train? There was no power down here, he was sure of it. He squinted as the light grew brighter. A tiled wall ran alongside the rails. Alcoves as tall as a man and barely as wide had been placed in it, about twenty feet apart. He trudged to one, his boots slurping in the muck. He stood inside, pressing his back flat against the tile.

  The huffing became a howl. It was not the same scream he had heard above ground. This was the cry of an animal. Matthew pursed his lips, and prepared to separate his shoulder. He was still tired, but he had found his second wind. If he needed to fight, he would.

  The light brightened the dusty mist as its source neared the bend, sickly and pale. The cadence of marching feet, or perhaps they were hooves, thudded along the decrepit ties.

  An enormous Rottweiler bounded through the fog. It was emaciated, its transparent skin stretched over its luminescent skeleton like latex. It ran to Matthew and skidded to a halt, snarling. Its deformed head almost reached his shoulders, and he could see his reflection in its slanted, drooping eyes.

  “Easy, girl,” he said.

  The dog growled, a line of spittle dribbling from its ragged jaws. The growl became a whine. He looked down. Its protruding ribs were a network of jointed, angling lines that reminded him of circuitry. He could not focus on its paws and tail, as they appeared pixelated and blurry. He looked at his own shoulder, then back at the creature. A name popped into his head.

  “Bananas?”

  The dog half snarled, half whined. Whatever Bananas meant, it was not its name. A stab of pity poked through the rush of his adrenaline. This poor thing, whatever it was, was in horrible pain.

  He held his hand out beneath the Rottweiler’s moonlight skin. It sniffed his palm with phlegmy snorts. “Easy,” he said. He scratched its neck —

  The instant he touched it, the dog exploded into a cloud of radiant muck.

  Its brilliant glow faded to a blurry glare. The world shook around him, swaying to the left and right.

  He was on a subway train.

  Its passengers sat randomly throughout the car. Like the ectoplasm that had made up the hound, they shone with a pale, green light. A few napped, some played with their phones, and one or two even read newspapers. He could see through them, along with the sides of the subway, to the cement walls of the tunnel rushing by.

  Despite signs warning that passage between cars could be fatal, the door at the far end slid open. A young woman stepped through. Parts of her scalp had been shaved, most likely by herself, leaving a ragged hairline that split her head in half. The flesh of her heavy face was thick and pockmarked. A spiderweb of silver chains hung from one earlobe. He looked in her eyes, and swallowed. They were angled and drooping, like those of the dog.

  Ripples of energy emanated from her center. They flowed through the air, and into the passengers. As the waves washed over them, they began to change. They merged into groups. Their clothes grew finer and more expensive. Couples held hands, laughed, and kissed. Girls, their skin flawless, their faces thin and perfectly symmetrical, giggled in unison. Muscular boys, their collars pressed and creased as if they had just returned from the preppiest laundromat, winked, slapped each other on the back, and bumped fists.

  He turned his attention back to the girl. A bubble had formed around her. He could see the reflection of the other joyful passengers in its sheen. The tattered cuffs of her patchwork jeans swept the grime–covered floor with every step.

  He approached her as she walked towards him, her head down. She concentrated on the screen of her phone, her nails clicking on its surface.

  The laughter around them grew louder, the signs of affection more amorous. A man kissed the neck of the woman sitting at his side. She tilted her head back, her lips parted. Four of the boys had formed a barbershop quartet, and broke into song. Matthew stepped towards the bubble, and tapped on it. It was cold and hard, like a wine glass that had been chilled.

  “Hey,” he said. “Excuse me.”

  If the young woman saw or heard him, she gave no sign. Her canine eyes were focused on the small screen in front of her. He tapped again, harder. She
walked on, her bubble pushing him to the side.

  “Look,” he said, “I need your help. I need to understand what’s happened.”

  He looked over her shoulder at the screen of her phone. Her fingers slid across it, making words appear:

  How did you find me? Did Malachi send you?

  The train swung to the side, and he clutched a pole for support. He could see through the translucent undercarriage to the blur of antiquated tracks beneath.

  “Yes,” he said, his head bobbing up and down. “Yes, General Jaeger sent me. Who are you?” The girl ignored him, and walked away. He let go of the pole, and followed her. “Please, I need your help.”

  The train lurched again, pitching him forward. He collided with the glossy sphere, and it shattered —

  He fell to his knees on the tracks exactly where he had been before, in the remains of the burst hound. Its glowing scraps of flesh wriggled in the mud for a few seconds, squirming like radioactive worms. At last, they fell still. Their light faded with their visions, leaving him alone in the darkness.

  He straightened, the drum–beat of his heart pounding against his ribs. What had he just witnessed? Was it a memory of one of this Sage’s citizens, her subconscious mind twisting and tearing at its reality? How could she have known who he was?

  Far off, a faint, grating screech whispered from the depths of the passage, the sound of steel scraping against steel. Then came a series of popping rumbles, like rolling thunder. He felt in his pouch for the flashlight, and turned it on.

  Its tiny charge cast a dim glow as a cloud of dust and smoke rushed at him from around the bend. The blast hit his cheeks as the din grew louder.

  The tunnel was collapsing.

  He could just make out the last step of the broken escalator, dangling inches above his head. He leapt for it, his fingers scrabbling along its grate for purchase. As he floundered, he dropped the flashlight. It extinguished as it hit the tracks, enveloping him in darkness once more. His fingers closed around an exposed metal bar, and he pulled himself up.

  He clung to the stair as a cacophony exploded around him. The air became a storm of cement dust that clogged his nose and throat. He pushed himself to his feet and doubled over, choking. He clutched the rubber rail, and climbed the grated steps to the landing. He ran towards the shaft of light that marked the stairs, pushing through the turnstile. The floor lurched beneath him, accompanied by the sound of shattering tiles. He ran up the steps, and back into the daylight.

  The air above ground was clearer, but not by much. The ever–present, reeking miasma still made it difficult to see. He leaned against the wall beside the subway entrance, pivoting away as a cloud of dust and smoke burst into the street.

  Where would he go? He could not return to the desert, not without creating another Mirage. And what if the Cathedral was here, amidst these freakish ruins? He scanned the skyline, what little he could make of it. A tower, perhaps a few blocks away, stretched up from the mist. He walked in that direction. Perhaps, from a higher viewpoint, he would be able to see —

  The tower disintegrated.

  One moment it was there, a misshapen monolith of glass and steel, winding upward from the fog. The next… It was as if God had taken an eraser, and rubbed it out of existence. Its silhouette became jagged as, from the top down, it dissolved into an avalanche of cascading sand.

  And then, it was gone.

  The buzz he had heard before echoed across the vanishing cityscape. A black cloud flowed from the crumbling tower like a river in the sky. His heart sank. The clockwork insects had turned WesMec and its Sages into wastelands. If other monsters fed upon its protected oases, then there was no hope. What if this dark, droning phantasm ate the Cathedral?

  What if it had already?

  Another scream cut through his thoughts. He turned. Three figures had appeared in the mist. He separated his shoulder half an inch. It stung, as if he had ripped off a scab. He examined the crack’s unfamiliar glow. There was definitely something strange about it. He pushed his worry aside, lay on the ground, and cast the cloaking shroud around him. Once hidden, he crawled towards the newcomers.

  One man was bald, and of medium height. His elderly face was a sagging multitude of wrinkles upon wrinkles, his nose swollen and bulbous. He wore what appeared to be a cloak of mottled leather, but when the wind whipped at it, Matthew could see that it was part of his skin, a mantle that flowed from his naked back. His lined, weathered face was grim, determined, and sad.

  As Matthew approached, he could see that the others were not two people standing together, but one. The larger head belonged to the screamer. It let out another anguished cry of fear and pain. Its face was female. Her long, blond hair hung from her skull in thin clumps. An emaciated torso, spine, and head that may or may not have been male sprouted from her back. The face atop its neck was elongated and drawn, its jaw slack. Eyes that were completely black rolled in its sockets. The front half of a misshapen trout dangled from their shared, distended belly.

  The woman lowered her head, and moaned.

  “Please,” she begged, “I’m not ready to be judged.” Her mouth opened wide, revealing teeth that were round like pearls. Light danced off of her tongue, as if it were coated in glitter. “Let the Magistrate have mercy on me, according to his loving kindness.”

  The old man’s cloak of flesh unfurled like wings. Long, faded rents that looked like pale, puffy lips lined his neck and chest. He sang, his raspy, tenor voice chanting in a minor key, and the droning cloud descended.

  It filled the conglomeration’s mouths and nostrils — all of them. Within seconds, their mutated form exploded into a rain of dust and grit. The man watched it fall, his shoulders slumped. “He will cleanse you,” he said as the churning nebula departed to devour a chirping fire hydrant that was coated with feathers. “He will make you whiter than snow.”

  The cloud deposited a pile of red, crystallized sand at the man’s feet. He bent, and stroked its grains with rubbery fingers.

  He turned his head, and stared at Matthew as if he could see him. His eyes narrowed. Then he began chanting again, and walked on down the street. Matthew followed.

  Building after building fell. Gnarled trees, some with hands, some with hair, were rendered to sand. So were the beasts. Some had human features, while others were a bizarre patchwork of insects, fowl, and flora. One by one, the wrinkled man erased the nightmares. Some of the resulting sands were the color of ivory, but most were stained with various shades of red.

  “Mommy? Daddy?”

  The call, high–pitched and childlike, came from around the corner. The man cocked his head. Matthew could see that his skin, though shriveled and spotted with age, was immaculate. He ran towards the sound, with Matthew scuttling in his wake.

  The cry came again, in a voice wracked with sobs. Its owner was a boy of maybe five years. He wore a torn t–shirt and blue jeans. He had only one sneaker, his other foot clad in a muddy sock. He lay curled in a ball beside a plate–glass shop window, his tiny palms pressed against his eyes. The old man dropped to one calloused knee, took the boy’s hands in his, and lowered them. Matthew could not be sure, but the kid’s face seemed normal. The child sat up, and pressed his back against the window, his eyes wide.

  The droning grew louder, and the cloud reappeared from the putrid mist. The man sang a quick procession of high, warbling notes. The seething nebula halted, hovering a foot above Matthew’s head. The old man returned his attention to the child, his leathery, tanned hand turning the boy’s head from side to side with the gentleness of a loving grandparent. “Are you all right?”

  The boy nodded at first, then shook his head. “Where’s my Mommy?” he asked. “Where’s Daddy?”

  The man rustled the boy’s hair. “Open your mouth,” he said, “and stick out your tongue.” With a look of confusion, the boy complied. The old man looked inside, nodded, and then examined the child’s fingers. He peered between them and at their tips, examining their nails
and whorls. A thin, reluctant smile appeared on his lips, his eyes glinting with hope. He pulled off the grimy sock.

  Four long, wormy protuberances squirmed at the end of the boy’s foot. Once exposed to the light, they began to thrash. They ended in tiny, horned beaks that proceeded to snap at each other with malice.

  The man closed his eyes, and let out a long, shuddering sigh. He kissed the boy on the forehead, and stood. He stepped back. “I am sorry,” he said, his head bowed. He sang the same minor chant as before, and the roiling cloud poured forth.

  “No!” Matthew shouted as he leapt to his feet. His shoulder felt as if it were on fire, as if thousands of tiny needles were stabbing into his tendons and muscles. The Mirage bubbled and shredded around him. It clung to his face and arm like taffy. Then the pain became too much, and it sloughed off of his body.

  He separated his shoulder further, slowing time down to a crawl. He dove between the cloud and the child, and pushed. He watched the boy tumble inch by inch, as if through water. He turned and faced the billowing darkness. He knew that total separation in this Sage was dangerous, but he had no choice. If the cloud wanted to devour someone, let it try to devour the Serpent. He reached into his cleft joint with his right fingers, and tore.

  Agony exploded through his nervous system. He looked down. A mesh of lightning, like tight, micro–woven fibers of electricity, bound his arm to him.

  He felt sick and disoriented. He stumbled as the cloud inched forward. The street, the sand, the rubble, the surprised, wrinkled man, and the falling child all swam in front of his eyes. He pulled at the separation again, desperate to tear his arm from his body, to unleash the Snake. Instead, time froze, and for a relative moment, he saw every particle of the nebula in perfect detail. Each one was a microscopic, clockwork wasp. It was not a cloud, it was a swarm.

  Then the cleft in his shoulder snapped closed, squeezing out his fingertips. The world resumed its normal speed, and the legion of gnat–sized mutants enveloped him. He had half a second to think of the word “Sigma,” before his brain shredded into nothingness.