Black & Orange

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  “One moment,” Ray burped.

  “I got antacids.” Paul smacked his breast pocket. “Oh, I loaned them to Justin this morning. Son of a bitch didn’t give them back.” He was going to laugh but let it go. Being a Bishop would require more reserve; he had to start practicing.

  “No more Wild Turn-Keys. For me. I hate those birds. In a bottle.” A ragged chuckle exploded from Ray’s lips and then he went silent. His body straightened, electrified with the need to be more sober, and he padded to the end of the hall. Ray plunked his knuckles against the shiny black surface of a door there. They waited. He plunked again, slightly louder.

  Footfalls echoed unnaturally. Ray adjusted his oversized suit coat and tie. He didn’t look shitfaced anymore. Actually, he looked how Paul supposed he himself did: afraid on a level that had snapped him back to infancy. Paul already felt cold when the air conditioning cycled on overhead.

  The deadbolts turned. The door opened, a block of obsidian slipping into a ravenous nothing. Two green eyes stared back, pupils dilated. There was no light beyond the eyes; emptiness soaked around the face. The voice sounded harsh, diminished chords in a mal-tuned pipe organ. “None other, save Bishop Margrave and Szerszen, may tread in the residence without written consent.”

  Ray attempted words. “Bizup Mar-gave killed in the morning...”

  Paul moved to hush him but Ray waved a cautionary finger back and forth, indicating control. Unconvinced, Paul spoke up, “I’m seeking audience with the Archbishop. Bishop Margrave passed away this morning. I was with him when he took his own life. Brother Traven here is my escort to the Archbishop’s presence.”

  The placid eye rolled to both men and needled them. Paul’s throat dried from tip of tongue to the root of his stomach—breathing wasn’t even a question.

  “Yes, Brother Quintana, the Archbishop was informed of your meeting.”

  “Then why’d ya ask?” Ray threw up his hands.

  Paul just stood there, frozen, heart thundering. The door swung open. He flinched, unable to question the tradition he was taking part in. He hoped it was a tradition. From the darkness a noose dropped around his neck. His guide, Ray Traven, a noose now around his own neck, shot a grimace before the ropes tightened.

  With a single yank Paul hit the floor with Ray. He could hear Ray’s teeth click. His body slid forward and the door closed swiftly behind. He tried to speak, to scream, but the invisible force just hauled him along. Rolling across a dank corridor, he kicked out, swung his body over to save his lip from being torn off. Air deprivation made the darkness crackle with fireflies. He clutched at his burning neck. Just to let a thread of air inside, he tried to wiggle his fingers under but the hempen rope sunk deeper into his skin.

  Screams came lofty and low. Laughter and hell-play ricocheted off the unseen rocks. Subterranean breathing; burning chest; burning throat; wheezing; working just for one lousy gasp. This was it. Paul knew his struggle would be the ghastly punctuation of his life—

  It ended quickly.

  In a dream the noose was removed by church sentinels. No, not a dream. They had removed the noose and set Paul in a chair. How long had he been sitting here? Had he lost consciousness? The lingering burn remained so intense he touched the tender flesh to be sure. Paul even saw the red length of rope coiled around the sentinel’s fist and this wasn’t reassurance. Ray’s body slumped over an old monastery table. A sentinel stood fast behind the red velvet chair, probably to catch the drunk when he eventually toppled sideways. Paul had never seen interior guards before and in the scarce torchlight he only distinguished banded muscle and black armor—barbarian warriors with assault rifles and ammo belts.

  From the end of the long table, a door squeaked like a rodent. The sentinels shuffled noisily to attention. A man walked in, but in the shadows Paul only saw a mouth gliding into the room. Like the guards, the mouth didn’t appear to have the capacity for expression; it was an axe-wound turned clammy in the grave. On the far wall, something rattled happily at his approach.

  The Archbishop took a seat and his soft, girlish face became a nest of torchlight and painted runic design. Shaped eyebrows were delicate over a barbarous nose and mirrored sunglasses. Sandeus Pager folded his gloved fingers. The smell of women’s perfume, Chanel maybe, drifted across the long table.

  “I apologize for any injuries, brother Quintana, but the trial of ropes has been performed since the rule of Kublai Khan.”

  Paul tried to clear his throat. “Archbishop, I—”

  “Tell me Quintana, do you really think you can kill your way to the top? There are other ways to sit at my side.”

  “Justin, he was depressed—”

  “Better yet, don’t speak just now.” Pager took off his sunglasses, folded their stems neatly and set them down. “I’ve already heard the suicide story from the sentinels. I laughed then. Don’t make me laugh now. Humor turns my reasoning very quickly, and I want to remain fair.”

  The Archbishop took out what looked like a bronze cigarette case and set it on the table. “You’re resourceful and young, and have a natural acumen with powers of the mind. Justin Margrave was several rungs closer to complete naïveté, but there are plenty other strong individuals in the Church of Midnight—even some acolytes better suited for my flank.” Sandeus made a face like he’d just heard glass shattering. “Yet, there was the Gauntlet. I really wish we could get rid of the fucking thing, but there it is, just like the trial of ropes—a tradition.

  “Since you scored the highest in the Gauntlet and are in good standing, I can’t very well dismiss your ascension. My authority would be questioned by the European contingency. They wanted to restructure and I had them fat, happy and quiet with Margrave’s trade deal. But the Columbians don’t trust me to continue. They trusted the man you killed. And now that’s over.

  “So it stands at this: I don’t want anybody questioning my policy, Quintana. Cole Szerszen finds you worthy of bishophood and though Cole might sometimes be a little too dreamy and farsighted about the Church of Midnight, I tend to trust him. Tend to.”

  “What—” Paul began but the Archbishop raised a glove. He opened his cigarette case and took out one thinly rolled cigarette. Paul knew he wouldn’t win this, so he waded through those muddy eyes. “What now?”

  “What now indeed!” Sandeus slapped the table and Paul jumped. Raymond stirred and a pained expression crossed his sweating, sleeping face. The cigarette came zigzagging over the table. A book of matches hissed over after them.

  “I have asthma,” said Paul.

  “You want the title, don’t you?”

  Pursing his lips, Paul took the cigarette.

  The Archbishop continued, “When smoked the marrow seeds rolled into the tobacco will spread evenly through your lungs. I pray your garden will blossom with balance.”

  “Seeds?”

  “Collected in the Old Domain and brought to us through the gateway last year, their effect is similar to peyote and gypsum weed, but a more aggressive hallucinogen. And, of course, more special. Think of this as dropping a foot into the Old Domain. You’ll never be the same after. It’s an honor to imbibe these seeds, Quintana.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Sandeus impatiently rubbed his chin. “Only Bishops who sit at the left and right of the Archbishop may reap the seeds’ power. But why sit here and explain when the answer’s in your hand. Smoke.”

  Paul took his eyes away from the savage male-female glare and stuck the cigarette in his mouth—he tore off a match, snapped it against the book and lit the end, took a deep draw. The sharp heat made him cough like a circus seal. It took him a while to recover. The Archbishop said nothing. Soon Paul realized there wasn’t any substance to the peppery smoke, certainly not a tobacco flavor, and he realized that his tongue had stopped perceiving flavor altogether and once he realized that, he also realized his body exploded with realizations—realizing the reality of realizing—was instantly insane? He became a mash of disturbed parts, w
hich throbbed between numbness and pleasure, strobe lights in his nerve centers.

  “How much do I—?”

  “All of it.” Sandeus’s voice crawled through Paul’s episodic fits. “Until you hit the cotton filter. Don’t you dare stop.”

  Paul’s smile went rubbery and refused to quit his face. He took another drag. One of the sentinels stepped forward and put a stone ashtray on the table. “So kind,” he told the big man in black armor, who sank back into the darkness. Not long ago this man had almost choked him to death with a hemp rope, but now, brotherhood.

  Eyes bugging, Paul took another strong, cartoonish pull on the cigarette. This was a profound experience. Enjoyable too.

  Something rattled in the wall again.

  Paul’s nose dripped snot, but when he touched the skin he found it dry as coal. As he tapped off wreaths of ash into the ashtray, he made a promise to get a hold of himself, if possible.

  “So pretty boy, do you still want to know what’s next?”

  Reality crashed. Real things had been at stake, career things, life and death things, and Paul’d completely forgotten. He was panting, “What Archbishop... what is next?”

  A long fillet knife with an ebony grip slid across the table. The knife circuited for a moment before stopping. The Archbishop’s eyes settled on Ray. “Cut this man’s throat.”

  Paul jolted and a hand pushed him down in his seat. He glanced at Raymond Traven, who still slept soundly. “Why would you ask that of me?”

  “Difficult? Every murder has a purpose and price, brother Quintana.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “We’re past what you want! We were actually never there. Understand?” The Archbishop leaned back in his seat, anger fading to irritation.

  Paul waited a few seconds and sucked in the last of the cigarette in a burst of red light, which smelled similar to how it felt. He crushed the scorched paper and cotton into the tray. The effect of the seeds had come on strong. The walls twisted and a mummy spoke to him from the ceiling. The words came out of the mummy’s mouth in black and silver ribbons with an aroma of shit braising in onion broth. Embryos with wagging wet tongues fell out of the walls and bounced rhythmically with Sandeus’s voice—

  “Here are your choices: cut his throat, or retrieve Alexander. The Tomes of Eternal Harvest call for a Bishop to know his time and place even in the face of distortion. Prove yourself.”

  “I’ll retrieve Alexander,” Paul mumbled, unsure what the hell that meant. Was it some nonsense his mind had popped into the Archbishop’s mouth? He wasn’t sure.

  Sandeus grinned through the fogginess like a shark through sparkling silt. “You’ve chosen the easier path.”

  The fillet knife was taken up so fast it seemed to lift into the air on its own—

  Paul shielded his face as something red jettisoned from Ray Traven’s throat. Pinpoints of warmth seethed on Paul’s shaking hands.

  The sentinel dropped the fillet knife on the table and backed off, stroking blood off his heavily muscled arm. The marrow seeds had juggled Paul’s senses and there was no fooling himself out of the wild synesthesia. The red smelling drops that came from Ray’s throat had a different personality, not the liquid-soft feeling one would expect. Paul was screaming at the life slaloming down Ray’s hairy arms. Ray thrashed for a minute before entering a series of twitches, then passing out; the barbarian’s cut had gone too deep for him to live long.

  “Are you ready?” Sandeus glided over without giving the dead man a glance. He hopped on the table, sitting in the blood as though a wading pool. Paul noticed now that the Archbishop’s salmon undershirt had white lace frills peeking out at the neckline. Covert lingerie. His perfume curled like the lace and traveled outward to pet Paul’s face—he violently shook away the notion.

  The Archbishop of Midnight laughed through his nose. Then, casually he looked at one of the sentinels, who understood the silent question and hurried off, rifle clacking on plate armor. After the guard vanished down the room, Sandeus slipped two fingers into Ray’s wound and pulled the flesh apart. “Per compliance with the Tomes, if you survive the initial onset of the seeds, the Archbishop of Morning must bless your new status.”

  The Priestess’s church, from the other world… “Church of Morning? But how would we—”

  “Contact someone in the Old Domain?” asked the Archbishop.

  The sentinel came back with a machine resembling some type of robot scorpion. A wicked nest of insulated wires ran along the perimeter of a phonograph plate, which was affixed with a bronze arm and jeweled needle. The machine was placed carefully on the table near the body.

  “Listen to music?” Paul mumbled. Fine, fine, fine, and fine. Just be done. Get me out of here, he thought.

  “Oh, but your task is to bring Alexander. I need venom to loosen the blood cells. Hurry up now.”

  “Excuse me. Did you say venom?”

  Sandeus Pager sighed and rolled his eyes. It looked terrifying. “Alexander is a snake, Quintana, a Western Diamondback. Didn’t you notice the tank back there?”

  Paul’s brain walked in place... a snake? He peered into the shadows and started. There was a glass tank against the wall. His eyes had not picked up on it in the gloom.

  In the meantime Ray’s blood spilled from its vessels in loud glug-glugs—the sentinels behind Paul muttered with helicopter lips—the Diamondback rattled its tail now or the memory of the sound had returned—the lacy fringe beneath Sandeus Pager’s suit groped around Paul’s face like ivy and slipped down into a shocking mask and—

  —brought Paul to his feet, sweating, head pounding. He said something formed as a question, though the meaning remained elusive. It must have been gibberish because the Archbishop only sat there calmly fingering Ray’s wound.

  Paul slipped around the monastery table. It stretched into infinity, yet the tank loomed over him and widened. He could smell the tank widening. Two large steps brought him closer, still conscious of finishing this and leaving here, getting the hell away from this place. Quickly. Paul flooded with adrenaline. The tank leered and snickered. Paul turned at a sound and he threw his hands to his throat to search for a knife wound. There was no wound that he felt, but his tears were so real they actually felt terrified for him.

  “I’m too high for this!” he shouted back at the Archbishop. “I can’t pick up any damned snake!”

  “Just grab Alexander behind the neck.” Sandeus tittered, looking to the guards, who chuckled from the dark smears at the back of the room.

  Gears turned inside and Paul went into a different mode. It wasn’t fight or flight. No, this was something bent and sharp and altogether usual for him, even high. This was kamikaze. This was suicide-bomber stock. This was I know what happens next, but I’ll do this and then it will be finished for good. He treaded over and pulled off the tank’s plastic lid. Silence chimed around him. His invincibility deactivated when he looked inside the tank. He wasn’t hallucinating any longer and that was even more awful than the loop of black and orange scales below.

  “Not a Western Diamondback. Alexander was brought from the Old Domain as well,” said a starchy voice behind Paul. “I didn’t want to scare you before.”

  The kindling of more laughter burned Paul’s ears.

  The snake moved. Its two black jelly eyes opened. Paul lifted a hand. The tail rattled alien chatter. He sucked in a breath and hoped for luck. Quickly, his hand moved into the tank. It grazed the side and his trajectory went off target. He took a slimy handful, mid-body, but he didn’t wait (fuck no) and jerked the snake out like a whip. Alexander lashed out and Paul could see black fangs bare as it rounded. He dropped the snake on the floor and it shot for his ankle—sidestepping, he then lunged, caught the snake again, this time at the rattle. His shoulder turned involuntarily and he flung it onto the table. Its bright orange designs gleamed like blood and honey as it slithered away in a tight S-shape. Archbishop Pager fell forward and pinned the snake behind the neck.

>   Paul’s heart felt punctured. Every beat hurt. “Now you’re going to tell me the snake’s venom isn’t even fatal, aren’t you?”

  “No,” replied the Archbishop, “I’m not going to say that at all.”

  Paul watched as Sandeus wrangled the snake and the sentinels hooked wires from the phonograph to Ray’s exposed vocal cords. Paul hallucinated that it was himself that sat there with his throat opened and wires clamped to the fleshy strands inside him. Paul started to cry and his tears began to scream.

  EIGHT

  Melissa Patterson had to tread lightly now. If Paul passed the trials and ascended to Bishop, her past would follow her around, ad infinitum. Things could get tricky with all her dishonesty to Cole. Lying wasn’t something that came easy for her, but she’d had good reason to make herself a twenty-five-year-old virgin; it wasn’t a good idea to test the jealousy waters with Cole Szerszen. Once she saw him slap the teeth out of some young guy who made the mistake of asking her the time. It wasn’t that he’d merely spoken to Melissa; he’d remarked how lovely her watch was and actually touched the band. Never the mind that the man’s flamboyant demeanor suggested he may have been gay; Cole didn’t balk at any threat. At the time Melissa hadn’t said much about past relationships, although he’d pressed her on the issue to the point of driving her crazy. After this blow up, it made sense to erase any old entanglements and become an innocent, awkward person—like Cole was. She especially had to keep her brief involvement with Paul Quintana close to the vest. Even if Paul fit into his plans, Cole couldn’t even say his name without sneering.

  With most of the Inner Circle packing belongings for this year’s hunt, the archive stacks felt like a dusty leather-bound tomb; every sound heightened the chance of discovery. She and Cole silently had focused, unrelenting intercourse. He trembled and she gripped his arm tightly to show him how powerful he was. He liked that, bought into it. The chair thumped the shelves, making too-loud thwacks and unsettling dust in gray dervishes. She tried to close her stance, make him retreat, and then—he spilled inside her.