The Ruined Man

by Jason DeGray

  Jonas the Unrepentant involved the innermost circle in murder, extortion, deception, and a whole host of other sins in order to draw the secrets from the book called Power. Nothing was sacred, everything profane. All of these actions were accepted by the innermost circle and even performed with a type of reverent zeal. Jonas had become a messiah to them. He had shown them wonders beyond their wildest imaginings. And what’s more, he’d taught them how to use it.

  Martinez remembered the first conversation with Jonas well. The Unrepentant had addressed the entire innermost circle in a private meeting in the Purple Gates Chapel reading room.

  “Power is one of three books with no titles. Desire and Life are the other two. These books are the original grimoires. Legends say they were written and bound by the fallen watchers whenever they left Heaven to mingle with mankind.”

  “The original grimoires?” wondered Stapleton. “What does that mean?”

  “It means they were the first books ever written in getting the trick, or what the uninitiated call magic. Everything else is a watered down rip off of the first Triumvirate. You can see how deluding the text with misinterpretation can cause problems with proper getting. You’ve spent years and only understand the basics.”

  “So using this book properly can give us power?” Stapleton said excitedly.

  Jonas nodded. “Whatever power you desire. Religion. Politics. Wealth. Sex. It’s all in here. And more, so much more. Power enough to shake the foundations of heaven and earth with the blink of an eye.”

  “And you know how to use this?” Faye spoke, trembling with the excitement they all felt.

  “I do. And I can teach you how to use it. Imagine. You—all of you—will command the trick, craft it to your will. You will be masters of your own worlds! Worlds you create! Worlds you bring to life by merely thinking them into being!”

  “What do we need to do?” The entire group clamored.

  Jonas calmed them down and got their attention before continuing. “Look, as great as it seems, you have to understand that power like this doesn’t come without a price. You have to be willing to pay it. Are you?” All of them nodded. “Good. Then we can begin. I’ve chosen a ritual that will serve us for generations to come. Let me explain to you about creating an avatar…”

  Thirteen murders. That’s how many the ritual called for. And each person seeking to gain power from the book had to perform a murder as an offering. There were thirteen people, including Jonas and the Violet Shadows, in the innermost circle. One for each of them. Jonas explained that the spirits involved could sense getting and often constructed synchronicity in order to facilitate the ritual’s completion. They decided to target the homeless and degenerate. They were less likely to be missed and any investigations could easily be manipulated into the unsolved files with Stapleton’s connections.

  Martinez chose a hooker as his offering. He felt more at ease overpowering a woman. Besides, wasn’t original sin all their fault? If Eve hadn’t given in to the serpent, Cain would’ve never killed Abel and sin would still be unknown in the world. Of course, then he’d be out of a job, but he didn’t let his thoughts stray into that shaky territory. Instead, he focused on the karma he would be facilitating on the hapless woman in the seat next to him. God would forgive him. Because, in a way, he was doing His work.

  He let her finish the blowjob before he struck.

  “That’ll be twenty-five bucks,” she said while fixing her lipstick in the mirror.

  Martinez grunted and reached for his wallet.

  “Say, haven’t I see you before?” She stopped her makeup routine and looked him square in the eye. “Yeah! From TV! You’re that preacher, right? Oh my God! I just gave a preacher a blowjob. Does this mean I’m going to hell?”

  Martinez felt energy rush through his veins. It was something foreign that charged his adrenaline and forced his rational mind to the background so the animal within could take control. He roared and slammed the prostitute’s head into the dashboard.

  “What the fuck? Asshole!” screeched the terrified woman as she fumbled with the door handle.

  Martinez reached under the seat and grabbed the knife stashed there. He was shaking almost as badly as his intended victim. It’s no small thing to kill another human. It takes a certain mettle or a specific malfunction to cross the line into murderous territory. Murder irreversibly alters a person, killing off the last remnant of innocence that humans possess. And with it goes the life in a person’s eyes.

  Martinez’s hesitation allowed for his prey to flee. She finally opened the door and spilled into the alley. She leaped to her feet and immediately made a mad dash for safety, running down the alley pounding on doors and yelling for help.

  “Shit,” spat Martinez and started his car. He chased his quarry down the alley, toying with her like a cat would a mouse. She was trapped and, in desperation, tried to crawl into a dumpster to escape being run down. Martinez got to her before she made it. She whipped into the hood, the unmistakable sound of snapping bones filling the air. He climbed out of the car and inspected the woman laying across his hood with a childlike curiosity. And indeed, he was a child in evil, barely in his infancy and therefore susceptible to the wonder of the world that infects all children. She was alive, staring at him with pleading eyes.

  “Please…help me…I can’t…move,” she moaned.

  He leaned in very close, staring deep into her eyes. They were already glassing over and he imagined she didn’t have too much longer to live without medical attention. “You know, before when I was going to kill you, I almost couldn’t. You know why? Because it was a sin. And old habits die hard. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ I’ve been preaching that all my life. But now, seeing you here like this—it’s tragic. Killing you would be an act of mercy.” He brandished the knife.

  “No…please…” she begged, tears streaming down her face.

  “Shhhh. Easy now. It’s all over.” With that said, Reverend Martinez drew the knife gingerly across her throat.

  The prostitute died gasping like a fish out of water. The good reverend watched the entire thing and then steeled himself for the next step: collecting the offering. He took her eyes and cut out her heart, placing both in Tupperware containers in an ice chest in his trunk and headed for the Purple Gates Chapel with bloodstains on his hands and his hood.

  Eleven murders and as many months later, the time for the final ritual had arrived. They would raise the avatar on the next full moon. And they did exactly that until things went wrong.

  When the Lord of Murder turned his gaze upon them and the monitors exploded in his face, Martinez didn’t die. Not outright, anyway. As his compatriots fled, Reverend Martinez’s soul was taken by the Prince of Hell.

  Martinez was trapped alone in an infinite void, his soul writhing and contorting upon itself in pain. The Lord of Murder personally inflicted this pain with a sinister glee as he chatted up the disembodied spirit of Jamie Martinez.

  “Do you understand what you did wrong, my servant?” purred the demon. His voice came from everywhere at once, its vibrations ripping through his captive causing more howls of pain. “That’s the problem with humanity. You are all too stupid to understand and too boorish for proper consideration. I am a prince of Hell. I am nobody’s slave. I am nobody’s familiar to be trapped and kept like a pet.”

  Agony beyond reason stole Martinez’s ability to speak or do anything besides wallow in torment. But he heard every word, felt each syllable like a dagger.

  “None involved in this indignity shall escape me. But you, you are fortunate. I have use for you. You will help open a door into the world so that I may roam freely. In exchange, you will live and your pain will stop.” The instant after that statement, the pain did stop. Martinez regained some of his faculties and stared at the hideous face floating in the blackness before him. “Will you serve me still?”

  “With all my heart and soul,” breathed Martinez thankfully. Vertigo rushed up around him and he was
thrown back into his body and into a pain of a different kind, but no less excruciating. He opened his eyes and through the blood covering his face, could make out the hazy form of Sven.

  “Father? You’re alive!” said the man excitedly. “Can you stand? Walk? We have to get out of here. Things went…badly. The cops are on their way.”

  “Cops?” murmured the reverend dazedly. “No. No cops. Must leave…”

  Sven helped his stunned guardian to his feet and together they limped to the Purple Gates parking lot, escaping the coming investigation.

  Reverend Martinez was dead. Though he still breathed, though life still pumped through his veins, he was dead. What grew in the man of God’s place was something bred of shadows and death. He had sustained massive injuries during the accident and his scars rivaled Wolf’s, though they had a different origin. His public life was over. With nothing left in the world of men for Jamie Martinez, he simply disappeared from their midst. He concocted a story about a heart attack that he had Sven sell to the media. Then a public funeral was held. The old Jamie would’ve been impressed by the turnout. Thousands of people crammed into every square inch of Grace Pentecostal Church and those who couldn’t find room spilled onto the street outside. The new Jamie Martinez watched all of it from the shadows with disinterest. All the platitudes and prayers were bullshit, he knew. When you died there was nothing but darkness and suffering. He’d spent a lifetime in the service of God and religion and in the end, did God save him? No. There was no divine intervention. No angels swooped from the sky to claim his Christian soul. Only darkness and agony was there to usher him into the afterlife. Everything he’d believed and convinced others to believe was a lie. The seeker had found the truth and in the end, he was no better for its discovery.

  “What will you do now, Father?” asked Sven after all the hoopla had died down.

  “Now the real work begins, son,” he was fingering a plain porcelain mask that he had custom made. “Now we gather our like-minded friends to us and give the Lord of Murder exactly what he wants. Freedom. And revenge. The Purple Gates will suffer. Either join my cause or be sacrificed to it.” He donned the mask, covering his disfigurement, and turned to his charge. “Are you with me?”

  “I always was,” Sven said and flashed his charming smile.

  CHAPTER 36

  Barber never felt the blow he’d braced himself for. He opened his eyes and saw both twins lying at his feet, smoking from wounds identical to Jonas’. Barber snapped then and began mumbling to himself while he laid the twins’ bodies side by side.

  He climbed into the only remaining car on the mesa and used it not to escape, but to repeatedly drive over the heads of the inhuman twins until they had been smashed into pulp. He inspected his handy work from the rear view mirror and hooted in victory. But his joyous hoots turned to tears when the two bodies twitched and jerked, returning to life. He wailed in vexation when they shambled to their feet and lurched in his direction. He immediately spun the car around and drove at them head on. He rolled out of the car as it smashed into them, laughing like a madman the entire time, as the car forced the twins into the bonfire, bringing down the burning crosses and the immolated corpses still dangling from them. That finally did the trick.

  Hugo and Creepy’s bodies caught fire like wicker men and the inhuman pair finally returned their spirits to whatever horrible realms Caine had pulled them from. Flaming cinders exploded into the air and quickly started a grassfire atop the dry mesa that raced hungrily down the hillside toward the ranch house.

  Wolf sat against the bloody altar clutching Miriam’s dead hand oblivious to the fire raging around him. He stared blankly into space, tears openly pouring down his face. Barber broke through the smoke, coughing and heaving for breath at the same time.

  “What the fuck, Vic?! We gotta run!”

  Wolf didn’t answer.

  “Vic! Snap out of it!”

  Still no answer.

  Barber slapped Wolf across the face. He didn’t flinch, but his eyes found Barber’s.

  “Frank? They killed her. They killed Miriam and our baby. I failed her. I couldn’t even grant her dying wish. I fucked up royally.”

  “Quit with the pussy act! A lot of people are dead and we’ll be dead soon if we don’t get out of this fire!” He offered Wolf his hand and hauled him to his feet.

  CHAPTER 37

  Caine found the gory scene in the kitchen moments after it ended.

  “Caught in mutual zugzwang,” cackled the trickster as he blithely snatched up the keys and the book called Power from Porcelain’s headless corpse. He was stepping over Ragnar’s carcass on his way out the door when he heard the baby. “Could it be so easy?” He rolled the shaman’s body over and found the baby tucked safely in his arms. “Checkmate!”

  ***

  “Is that Reverend Martinez?” Barber said as he nudged Porcelain’s head with his foot. “Gerry made me go to his funeral. I thought he was dead.”

  “He is now,” said Wolf. “So he was the man behind the mask. His face is almost as ugly as mine.”

  “Yeah. Hard to believe a preacher was involved.”

  “No, it isn’t. I think spirits tempt whoever will listen. Clergymen—the ones who are serious about it—make listening to spirits their life’s work. He just listened to the wrong one.”

  “I think there’s something in the Bible about testing the spirits to be sure they come from God.”

  “Huh,” said Wolf thoughtfully. “I guess he didn’t read that part.” But Wolf would. He scoured the Bible for years after that, digging out its hidden tricks and using them against the evil he fought.

  “How do you suppose this happened?” Barber motioned to Sven’s mangled corpse unnaturally shaped into an ouroboros.

  “I’m sure there’s some egghead explanation for it,” said Wolf disinterestedly. He knelt next to Ragnar, the shaman’s eyes glazed over with death. He closed his friend’s eyes and folded his hands over his chest. “Rest well. And may your spirit find whatever heaven it dreamed of.”

  Outside, the fire inched closer threatening to overtake the house at any moment.

  “That fire is close. We gotta get out of here.” Wolf did one last quick glance around the house looking for signs of Power or his child.

  “Any sign of your baby?”

  Wolf shook his head. “No.”

  Barber shook his head sadly and then they ran for the barn and Wolf’s Charger.

  “You gotta go,” said Barber when they’d reached the car. “I don’t want you to complicate things. One survivor tells what happened. Two become conspirators. Go home. Stay by the phone. You’ll be getting called with the news. Try to act surprised.”

  “Frank, what are you doing?”

  “I’m saving your ass this time. No arguing, just listen.”

  Wolf nodded. “Alright, Frank. Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. Maybe if Miriam had made it. Maybe if your baby had made it…”

  Wolf squeezed Barber’s shoulder and drove for Clines Corners and the interstate home.

  ***

  Albert Caine sat in his office after dropping the infant off with people he’d lined up. They were a desperate couple he originally intended to raise the child that held the Lord of Murder. But now they served a much higher purpose. His purpose. And they would care for the child until it was time. He ran loving hands over the flesh-bound book called Power and with one last contented sigh, placed it in his glyph lock safe. It was his time now.

  He had played along with Porcelain and his idiotic desires. And why shouldn’t he? Chaos was chaos, it didn’t matter where it came from. He fully expected to have to steal the book or take it by force. It was ultimately why he summoned Hugo and Creepy. But things happened, unexpected and wonderfully bloody things. Everything he needed had dropped into his lap like the Almighty actually wanted him to succeed. And now, he was no longer an ambitious pawn. He’d made it to the other side and been crowned. Now it was time for the nex
t phase: he would leave the game altogether and become a chess master. He would ascend to divinity and usurp the throne of God.

  Across the room, a chess piece rattled and moved to take his bishop.

  “Oh really?” he cackled and sat at the table. “Then let’s see how you handle this!”

  ***

  Tracy Thorsson bolted upright in bed. Ragnar was dead. She felt it like an ache in her chest. She let herself cry for the first time in years. Tears of sadness and relief fell in salty rivulets down her cheeks. Without Ragnar around to maintain her strength, she didn’t know how long she could resist the manipulations of her tribe. The ways of the ancestors had returned and they desired Tracy’s gifts to an obsessive extreme. It was the reason they never let her leave even after she broke tradition and married Ragnar. As her medicine grew so too did her people’s lust for it. And now she had lost the only shield against it she’d ever had. Her tribe hated Ragnar but they feared him more.

  His medicine was potent. He wielded it with grace and ease. He had shown Tracy a lot in their time together, taught her more about the gifts she possessed than she’d ever learned from her father, the council, or any of the elders. He even gave her the marks burned into her hands when she had progressed far enough. It was Ragnar who had shed light on the ways of the ancestors, not her tribe. And she already felt lost without him.

  “Tracy.”