He watched his atoms dance in the naenotic glass, his colors bleeding through their lines, and his eyes going black. A crystal caught in a vein trailing up his medulla oblongata; his head jerked back as it dissolved into his blood-stream. A drop of lysergic ambrosia ignited him to life as a lightning bolt crashed outside of the plane window, and hung in the air like a negative flash, a black bolt of shape and contour, hovering amidst a somehow suddenly white night sky. He stared for minutes, waiting for it to disappear, but it did not. His reflection overlaid the diminished world below, and he realized that the lightning bolt itself was painted upon his face, an ebonic reminder of his origin scorched upon his visage, a disguise so that he might fit in amongst the Qabalists with greater ease. They respected grandeur – far more than was tactically intelligent.
Erik briefly regretted not bringing Elronde’s neutralizing serum with him, to dissolve the symptoms of the large diethylamide crystal that had developed at the top of his spine during his seemingly endless infusion with the compound under the order of theocratic torturers, but the regret passed as the plane soared through a sparkling thundercloud, flashes of luminescent lightning blowing up mere meters from the naenotic portholes through which his attentions had been fastened.
His thick, black hair hung down to his eyes, obscuring the top half of the bolt painted across his visage – the sig rune – an ancient Norse symbol that once adorned the face of the psychopathic maker: Jakob Irvine; a Qabalist slaver who had murdered his parents. The monster had worn this rune first upon his own face, believing it to give him mystic power, though his preferred color was the fabled blue of a long dead sky – a hideous pastel, belonging not in this rotten world of gray, black and brown.
Erik wore a variation of that symbol now, his own face in white and the bolt itself black, thick at the top and descending to a tiny point at the bottom, riding along jagged edges. His super-massive pupils broke through pools of white greasepaint behind his dark hair. This disguise was necessary in order for him to fit in amongst the cultists presently surrounding him – to make himself a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So far it had seemed to work, though he did not rely on the illusion to hold for as long as he’d like.
He turned to face the others upon the expedition, toward what he had been led to believe was a Qabalist base somewhere west of California – an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It sounded like a myth – but he suspected that trait was taken advantage of by the types of people in his immediate company to keep it a secret. There, his associate Elronde had informed him, he would find his missing partners – Morgan and Pixel – kidnapped by the Qabalists while he was believed dead at the hands of the Neo-Islamic Mujahedeen.
Much to his surprise, and disdain, all five of the other passengers amidst the flight were staring at him. The leader of the group was clear – a young woman who could not possibly be older than twenty, bearing a reversed swastika upon her face, the colors pale blue and black – the same vomitous pastel that had once adorned the face of Erik’s maker. The vile symbol hovered between her eyes like a rotten pendant, grafted to her silken and hopefully soon-to-be-dead flesh. She appeared Nordic by genealogy, Aryan by choice. Flowing, long blonde-hair hung across her breasts and down her back, contrasting to the deep blue of her irises, which were much darker than that of the obsolete symbol flawing her face presently.
It was her associate, the man to her left, who had helped Erik aboard. His name was Randolphus – ridiculous, really. Randolphus had convinced the lady Swastika that Erik was a possible recruit, though in truth he was simply doing Elronde a favor. Because of some of the past exploits of the Negatives, and Elronde’s dealings with the man, Randolphus had believed both Erik and Elronde were Qabalists; the intentions of actions taken by the Negatives were oft mistaken by ignorant observers of their actions. The fool had jumped to garner the debt of those who had been responsible for the violent deaths of so many in the few years prior.
Randolphus glanced out the window from behind thick black goggles. One of his eyes was glass, and didn’t roll in symmetry with its opposite; that was why he wore the glasses. His hair fell out due to radiation poisoning a long time ago, and time had been cruel to him. An S was plastered across his forehead, broken with a beam cutting it vertically, creating a $ - some kind of archaic, capitalist mysticism. The Qabalists and the Capitalists had been entirely interchangeable for as long as Erik had been sentient, and often found themselves rather voraciously allied. Randolphus’ eyes turned toward him, and he grinned at Erik, his gold teeth blending in with those that had yellowed with age.
“So, Daniel,” Swastika said to Erik, calling him by his false name. His eyes took her up and down. She was clearly wearing a gun, but she wouldn’t be stupid enough to fire it in the plane. Although he’d never ridden in one, he had made sure to research the risks before stepping foot aboard the craft, so that he would know his own limitations in the event of unforeseeable circumstances, such as though that might be about to present themselves. “Your symbol… what was it called again?” The doubt in her voice made it clear that she was testing him.
“The sig rune,” Erik promptly replied, hoping the short answer would satisfy her.
“Ah, yes. And tell me, why did you choose it?”
He pondered how to respond. Up to that point, he’d been fairly quiet. He didn’t suspect it would appear suspicious to the Qabalists, as so many of them had a high appreciation for hermetic eccentricities. If he said too much, he’d give himself away. If he didn’t say enough, who knew what might happen; perhaps he’d be thrown off the plane without a parachute, cascading down toward the ocean, smacking against the surface and exploding in a brilliant sheen of crimson murk and ivory splinters of bone, shark food left to irradiate on the surface of the Pacific.
“I have my reasons,” he told her, hoping that the aloof response would somehow ignite in her the kind of idiotic respect that her philosophical peers have for stubbornly mysterious behavior.
“Tell me a few of them,” she replied, insistent. She wasn’t blinking. Erik knew he didn’t have long to make a decision as to what to do, and if he had a contingency plan in the event of this sort of interrogation, the rush of ambrosiac diethylamide washed it away with other memories, like sand in the stream of Lethe. Without thinking, he began to speak, and improvise.
“The sig run symbolizes lightning hitting the earth, the connection between the heavens and the world below. By wearing it, I can harness that power.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” she replied, still not blinking, although the false smile painted across her face grew broader, and somehow more authentic.
“My passions have found themselves in stranger places since I started wearing it,” he replied, edging his voice with a degree of annoyance, but not enough to threaten her. He was still hoping that her respect for self-righteous narcissists would kick in. “Forgive me if my convictions have faltered.”
“All of our convictions falter,” she said. Then, sending a rush of adrenaline through his spine, she added, “We know who you are, Mr. Silas, and why you’ve come. What I don’t know is why my superior respects you so much, considering the stupidity required to fall for such a ruse as this.” Erik said nothing, knowing nothing to say, and Swastika stepped forward, smiling, staring into his eyes. “Your pupils are dilated,” she added, “blacker than that tacky lightning bolt painted across your face. You might not have expected me to know what that symbol means, but I do. Nihilists like you rarely have enough foresight to take proper, meaningful precautions.”
Erik wondered who her superior was as she stepped away. He continued to stare, saying nothing, not letting his face give away his mind. He hoped that she was bluffing, playing some kind of mind-game, as though of her ilk are wont to do – yet, still, he had been undeniably caught. She knew his last name.
“Erik Silas – the fabled Anarch – the wanted terrorist. Do not deny it.”
The other three Qabalists stood up. Their attire was
more uniform than the lady’s own, less extravagant. The symbols that they wore were sewn onto their clothes, but not painted to their faces. They wore trench coats of brown and black, and at her insistence toward him, they stood attention and removed from their coats thick, onyx tasers. He recognized the weapons, having fallen prey to their cruel voltage on three occasions in his existence thus far.
“Yes,” he said to her. “You’re correct.”
“Your friend Elronde betrayed you,” she said coldly, apathetically, tossing it out as though the statement bore her no weight. Erik didn’t believe her. Elronde had saved his life on many different occasions, and been instrumental in a number of devastating operations designed to destroy the power structure that was ultimately controlled wholly by Qabalists such as these. He could have left Erik to die in the City of the Alamo or elsewhere if it had been in his heart to betray. Erik was used to being lied to about his associates, at least when coming from the mouths of his enemies. He ignored her remark, although she didn’t seem to catch on. She seemed to believe that he believed her.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asked calmly. This wasn’t the first time that he had accepted the end. Somehow he believed it wouldn’t be his last.
“No,” she replied. “Why go through the trouble of getting you on the plane if we were just going to toss you into the ocean? There are other plans for you. Don’t ask me what they are, I have no idea. I only have orders.”
“Are Morgan and Pixel alive?” Erik questioned, snapping at her with a tone of command.
“Who?” she asked, grinning impishly. Her hand rose into the air and his eyes followed it, confused for a moment as he tried to determine what its purpose might be. Her fingers came together, snapped quickly, and suddenly electric teeth punctured his flesh, sending jolts of high-voltage lightning searing through his carbon. The world faded to white-hot static, crackling between his veins.
2. Together
Upon waking, Erik found himself tied up. Through blurry eyes, he saw a powdery white, and a sky blue reminiscent of the lines painted upon the forehead of the Swastika bearer who shocked him into unconscious but a few waking moments ago. Slowly, his dilated pupils managed to shrink themselves to a clinging sobriety, and what he saw when his vision fully focused was the last thing he ever expected to see again. Like a naenotic reflection becoming real, the bleeding shapes and contours before him formed into the face of the man who murdered his parents, and who brainwashed him for ten years of his life as they ran a Qabalist slave trade. The last time Erik had seen him it was at the bottom of a cliff, from the top of which Erik had thrown him. He had thought the man long dead.
“You,” Erik said, disgusted, practically gasping the words.
“You!” Jakob Irvine replied cheerfully, as calm and Satanic as ever.
“I can’t believe someone else hasn’t managed to kill you,” Erik growled at him, his voice low, yet spiked with sharp hatred. Although he found that his greatest strength was his ability to subdue his most passionate emotions, when around this hypnotic cretin, Erik could not contain the repugnance that he felt for him. It escaped him, like steam from a kettle, uninhibited.
“Beliefs are vapid and useless. I know you would agree upon a less visceral waking sight than my beautiful face,” Jakob snidely remarked, sounding either sarcastic or delusional; Erik could not tell. Irvine’s face was a long way from beautiful. He had an overly-large nose, trollish, and enormous cows eyes, as blue as the bolt painted upon his face. Jagged, broken teeth poked between his thin, worm-like lips. Atop his bridge-troll visage, patches of diseased blonde-hair poked through a scalp covered in sores and scars, spewing acidic grease down his face, blending with perspiration to tear streaks across his sig-rune greasepaint. The mutations he’d suffered from irradiation in Erik’s absence over the last few years had left him looking like a ghoulish circus clown.
Beneath them, Erik felt the moan of wind bouncing against the plane, sending it reeling through electric skies toward a destination that he knew he was fated to arrive at. Irvine had been on the plane the entire time, he suddenly realized. If he had known, he might not have walked right into this trap.
“I suppose I will have to kill you again,” Erik spat toward Irvine.
“Non-sense,” Irvine replied. “There will be many deaths, but none of them will belong to us. We shall merely inflict them together, as was always obvious.”
“I hate you,” Erik snapped. “You are the very thing I live to obliterate.”
“We are not different at all,” Irvine continued softly, the pastel of his sig rune singing in the fluorescence. The colors amped up as a wave of diethylamide crested along Erik’s lower vertebrae. History tried to repeat itself, but he refused to let it.
“I have had this conversation too many times to count. It no longer interests me; death before continuation.”
Irvine laughed, his mouth a quivering black vortex in the center of his sig rune. The colors started bleeding through their lines. Erik couldn’t even hear him laughing as the world went mute. He hallucinated the image of Irvine’s face soaring toward Hawaii, their destination, through the poisoned Atlantic air; it smeared in his mind like the wretched paint across his face, Irvine’s twisted, negative reflection.
“You haven’t changed much, Erik,” he said. “You’re still as arrogant and as ignorant as ever. You are too stupid to see the big picture, much less to take advantage of such foresight. Your entire sojourn up to this point has been a long effort in miscalculation. You clearly believe yourself to be brilliant, almost ineffable, protected by your pathetic force of literal nothingness. Yes?” Erik said nothing, waiting for Irvine’s present weakness to start showing so that he might take advantage of it. “You painted my own trademark across your face; that was your first mistake. Did you not think that it would draw attention to yourself amongst my peers? What did you think happened to me? Did you think I was dead, forgotten, lost to your magnificent chaos?”
In truth, Erik had. He had worn the symbol as a way to spit in the face of Irvine’s place in his own creation. He knew that Qabalists were abound, but had no idea that they were so organized, and the last time that he saw Irvine, he was bleeding out of his eyes and broken ribs were poking through his flesh. Erik planned on finishing the job this time, given the first opportunity. He decided to make it as violent as possible.
“Bearing my symbol was mistake one. Mistake two was actually coming to rescue your friends. My new protégé has a cruel sense of humor. It’s one of her best qualities. Your friends are where we’re going. The second that you step off of this plane, I can have them executed a mere fifty feet from your very own eyes. They will die the moment that they see your face, and they’ll know you have betrayed them. But this is only a hypothetical disincentive, should you choose not to co-operate.”
“Kill them,” Erik said. “Better dead than in chains.” He meant it.
Irvine laughed again, clearly finding Erik ridiculous. “I do believe you mean that. My point is this, you fool. Your façade amuses me. You are not an anarch or a doom-bringer. I practically raised you. I know exactly what you are. I know your insecurities; I know your mind because half of it belongs to me. It isn’t society that you’re rebelling against, or some dreadful cause that you’re fighting. It’s me, you brat! It’s me, and you know it!”
Erik didn’t want to accept it, but he knew Irvine was right. Perhaps because of the LSD flowing through his blood, he didn’t even bother to argue against this notion, internally or otherwise. “You have weaknesses and desires. You are not just a cause, or possessed of some dark spirit. You are a man, just like every other man. We have all of the same organs, my friend – all of the same urges; hormonal, and not philosophical; the kind of urges that cannot be denied.”
“You are wrong,” Erik replied. “I have cleansed myself of human filth. I am a missionary and nothing more; nothing.”
Irvine continued to ignore Erik’s defenses. “Your urges are clear to me. You c
learly have a strong desire to murder; hence the hundreds of thousands dead by your command. You care not for the rights of others. I’m not judging you, of course – these are your best qualities. Where do you think you learned them from, if not me?”
“Shut up,” Erik demanded.
“You find order and purpose to supposedly be wrong, thus you’re crusading against it, and yet you simply absolve your actions to a different face of order. You, Erik, are a jackass – a fool. You have completely missed the point of existence. This world is five billion years old. You plan on destroying it?”
“Just the people on it. The best way to destroy humanity is to help it destroy itself, not to maintain people like farm animals the way that you do, sewing the rewards of their hard work and stupidity.”
“And you’re here to put them out of their misery?”
“Only out of my misery.”
“Then why not kill yourself? I don’t think you want to put them out of your misery. I think you want to drag them right down into it. Would you say that’s a fair assessment?”
“Nothing is fair with you,” Erik replied. “I can expect to be spoken to like I’m a child, as though you actually have something useful to teach me. That’s the only thing I know for sure to expect from you.”
“You shall fail in your self-righteous crusade, and yet even if you were to succeed and destroy humanity and Qabalism in one fell swoop, something just as self-focused and manipulative would arise eventually, be it in a million years or ten million. You are beating your face against a brick wall, accomplishing nothing. No end shall come of your narcissistic delusions of grandeur.”
“I am only here to destroy. That is my purpose, and it shall not be altered.”
Strange Violence Page 14