Geist intermezzo, p.23
Geist Intermezzo, page 23
“So,” Charles spat. “Suicide?”
“Hell no,” Beatrice said. “This is just like the others.”
Victor felt something crunch under his boots. He looked down and saw an envelope on the cobblestones, caught under his shoe. He knelt, recognizing the writing all too well, with the archaic phrase, “IRA,” written on its pallid paper.
The sin of wrath….
“Another victim,” Victor choked, tucking the letter into his pocket. “But why?” If anything, the company had a huge success, only to be reminded of the painful mystery at hand. “We better get moving. I bet you someone’s next on the killer’s list.”
He glanced over his shoulder.
A squad of stormtroopers pushed the masses aside, each bearing a pale armband with the Imperial saltire. No doubt here to investigate and arrest the “usual suspects.”
“C’mon.” Beatrice departed with urgency. “Let’s head back.”
#
Long hours passed in the Sunset Pagoda. Victor sipped at his drink, staring at the scratches on the oaken table. No warning, just there. All the victims so far had wound up on the poles, drained of their blood. Ingrid was no exception.
“Victor,” Beatrice barked. “I know you’re trying to act all stealthy. But we’re not idiots. This shit concerns all of us. Read the letter, all right?”
Charles nodded. “We’re all in this together, dude.”
“You’re right.” Victor nodded, stifling his sobs. “I’m sorry. You guys are right. But listen, this Dollmaker…I have a feeling he’s after me, first and foremost. At least, as far as his motive is concerned. If you guys want to call it quits—”
“Shut up,” Beatrice spat. “This psycho targeted Charles and I, and you’ve gotten off scot free. At least physically.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re our fucking leader, for better or worse.”
Victor shuddered, and read the letter aloud.
Dear Victor,
Bravo. You saved this cesspool of a world. You took out my bishop, knight, rook, or whatever, but I’m not in check quite yet. Though to be fair, Ingrid wasn’t even under my control. More like a third player in a three-way chess game, really. I think we can both agree she deserved to die. Anyone who’d throw away this world, all for the sake of a misplaced sense of idealism, is full of shit. Naive. We know how this world really works, right? Or at least, you can comprehend where I’m coming from.
That’s what I respect about you.
You had the chance to return home, and yet, you just keep on keeping on. Like some kind of knight errant. Even if we’re enemies, that doesn’t mean I don’t like you. Think about it. My master calls some everyman pawn into this world, only to find him growing into an ace in the hole. It’s hilarious, and it’s awesome. Bottom line, props on catching Ingrid for me, but I’ve got to kill more hookers.
Take care,
The Dollmaker
Victor crumpled the letter in the throes of rage. He couldn’t believe it. The Dollmaker— whoever he was—would stop at nothing to further his goal. He tugged at his hair, trying to dig deep, but anxiety numbed his mind until nothing but hatred remained. Victor seethed, until….
“Hey, man,” Charles said. “You okay?”
“No,” Victor said. “We need to find this psychopath.”
Beatrice nodded solemnly. “This isn’t over. It never was.”
“I know.” Victor looked away. “Deep down, I always did.”
“Well,” Charles said. “Child soldiers aside, the bastard who started all this is still out there. Probably the same guy who threw me and Beatrice in the TV world, too.” He slammed his fists. “Dammit, back to square one.”
Beatrice gritted her teeth. “Fucker’s gonna get my boot up his ass.”
“Still,” Victor sighed. “You guys don’t think Ingrid deserved to die, do you? No one should go out like that. And part of me suspected her, sure. But….”
“I doubt she would’ve lived a happier life,” Charles said.
“True,” Beatrice said. “Some people you just can’t save, Victor.”
Victor heard someone else shamble past the doors and into the billiard room. He turned around as Leng wandered into the bar, all sleazy and half-hunched.
“Oh, hey,” he waved. “Thought I might find you guys here.”
“So, you honestly came back?” Victor asked.
Leng shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “You guys did this city a huge favor, taking on Ingrid. Holy Gothica is honestly a safer place, thanks to you guys. I mean, anyone who wants to blow up this place for their own self- gratification is just messed up.”
“You’re telling us,” Beatrice scowled.
Leng’s brow furrowed. “Why the long faces? You guys did good.” His eyes widened. “Wait, did something else happening happen? Like a—”
“Another dead body?” Victor cracked a broken smirk. “Maybe so.”
“Oh, shit,” Leng spat. “I mean, I could guess she wasn’t it. Solid alibi. Her motive and all. Still, dead? Like…telephone pole dead? Ingrid’s gone?”
“Listen,” Victor began. “Did the Inquisition have any other leads, beside Doctor Murdoch? Both suspects are dead. Please, anything helps.”
“Well….” Leng scratched his head. “I’m not an Inquisitor anymore, so….” He sighed. “Listen, there’s a lot of things about the case that I don’t know. You’ve seen what happened with Thaddeus. The Inquisition isn’t exactly known for its transparency.” His eyes darted away. “But, I’ll let you guys in on a little something. Thaddeus always tried to trace things back to the source, especially with crime and heresy.”
“So?” Charles asked.
“The Dollmaker Murders were no exception,” Leng said. “Though honestly, memory’s a little fuzzy that far back on his theories. I’m sure I could dig something up. Eventually.”
“Really?” Beatrice asked. “How? Aren’t you…?”
“Excommunicated?” Leng replied. “Yeah, sure. You’re also talking to the guy who covered up the Fourth Textile Fire. I cut corners like a circular saw.” He gave a sad smile. “Anyway, I’ll tell you what I find. Gimme a bit though.”
“Thanks, Leng,” Victor said.
“No worries.” Leng walked past them. “Anyway, I’m gonna go straight to bed. Had a long day. Need a nightcap,” he muttered, climbing up the staircase.
Victor sat back down. Charles and Beatrice glanced at each other, troubled. Awkward tension filled the air. Truth was ever elusive. There were many things Victor didn’t understand. Regardless of where this road led, Victor knew it would be a fogbound odyssey.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask.” Charles laid a hand on his shoulder. “Did something happen to you when…you know, we almost got TPK’d?”
Victor heart plummeted into his chest. Total Party Kill, he repeated in his head, over and over. He remembered his friends’ supposed deaths. Charles and Beatrice, dead on a hospital cot. This entire misadventure was a delusion of purgatorial survival. It was a schism of possibilities. One in “reality,” where his friends were dead, but he was safe from nameless horror. The other, a fantasy world of the darkest sort, where he confronted insane odds, but not alone.
Tears trickled down his cheeks.
“Victor?” Beatrice asked.
The conflict tore at his mind. While life wasn’t worth living alone, was the illusion of friendship worth this pain? Holy Gothica was a maelstrom of unpredictability, but there was one fatal flaw in evil’s plot—hope. Hope that he could endure until a happier end.
One person was guaranteed to be alive. One who had died neither in the Waking World or Holy Gothica. Charles, Beatrice, and Thaddeus—they all had the potential of death, whether in dreams or reality. That fear was powerful enough to anchor him to the impossible.
“Dude.” Beatrice snapped her fingers in his face. “You cool?”
A thought impaled him. By flesh and steel, Yuko was alive. The only one he truly had left. The next thing he knew, Victor ran up to the third floor, slamming his fist against the door of Room 336. Yuko opened it at once, dressed in a see-through gown of scarlet silk.
“Victor?” she asked. “What’s wrong? I just heard about Ingrid.”
Victor flung himself into her arms, sobbing. She sat him at the foot of her heart-shaped bed and laid a hand over his chest. “Easy,” she cooed. “Breathe....”
He shuddered, cradling his skull. “L-listen,” he hyperventilated. “Something happened in the Inferno.” He told her everything. “I’m not from this world,” he finished. “But, I might be in the hospital back home. And….”
“Your friends might be gone?” Yuko asked.
Victor reached for a tissue box on the nightstand. “If they are….”
“But what if they aren’t?” Yuko asked. “Life is full of things we don’t know, Victor. Things full of anxiety, and sometimes they’re terrifying, but….” She smiled. “What’s the point in knowing the truth sometimes? Maybe it doesn’t exist. Or it’s not worth it.”
“Subjectivity has its place,” Victor admitted. “But not with my friends’ lives.”
“You can’t live life in existential terror either.” Yuko laid a smooth hand to his bristled cheek, locking her gaze with his. “Maybe sometimes it’s best left untouched.”
“Yeah,” Victor sighed. “I just don’t know right now.”
“There’s something else, though,” Yuko said. “About us.”
His stomach dropped. She was right. Victor quivered and shook. He couldn’t explain it. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, screaming out in denial, ramming into his skull.
“Victor….” She squeezed his bicep. “Is it about the prostitute thing?”
The final thought was a beacon of radiance. An icon of honesty and affection, a shining orb of care. It welled up his throat, forcing itself into words. Tears trickled down Victor’s cheeks, as he strayed from her touch. “I love you,” he blurted.
A look of flattered terror crossed Yuko’s face. “Oh! Oh, okay.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit! Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” Yuko tried to cover her shock. “Honesty is never a burden with these things.” She dragged off Victor’s long coat and rubbed his shoulders. “Just relax. Please.”
He obeyed and dozed off, fading into the depths of slumber. He heard the music playing in his skull; a requiem of gentle voices and somber tones, a lacrimosa of innocence. Then came the cobalt lights and a projector’s light.
“Welcome back,” the Impresario said.
#
The Opera House was luminous yet somber—neurons shined from its chandeliers and murals, welcoming Victor back to this mental sanctum. This world seemed livelier, happier even. The Impresario sat before the stage and its velvet curtains, lips curled into a smirk, as he sipped at a celebratory glass of chardonnay, the bottle by his side.
“To think this is where it all began,” the Impresario said. “You have bested a climactic foe in your journey. And perhaps your last, should you wish it to be.”
It took a moment, but Victor caught on to what the proprietor meant.
“And I made my choice,” he said. “I chose….”
He wasn’t just proving this to himself. This was something far greater. A matter of honor and dignity. To do the right thing, even if it would bring him only agony and loss. At least, that’s what he told himself. Was the “truth” he’d witnessed so horrible that Holy Gothica was a favorable home? Would he rather live in this nightmare, so long as he wasn’t alone?
“Yes?” the Impresario smiled.
“I have a question,” Victor managed. “When I fought the Director. I saw something. A vision. Or maybe it was a glimpse of reality.” He looked away. “Please, answer me this time.”
“Your friends exist in this world,” the Impresario said. “They are—”
“That’s not what I mean,” Victor spat. He hoped that it was all a divine ruse, but felt responsibility crushing him under a deluge of guilt.
The Impresario sighed. “You are too persistent for your own good, sometimes. I hold that in the highest esteem. I just wish you were simply persistent over the right things. You have saved the world from a true calamity, but is this the last trial you will face?”
Victor’s glare pierced through the Impresario.
“Is there something wrong?” the strange proprietor asked. “Something leaving you perhaps…dissatisfied? Something more than a mere ‘final boss,’ as you’d call it?”
“Yes,” Victor said. “And I’m going to speak up.” He had a foot in two worlds. He was at a crossroads. “Are they gone? What are they now? Lies? Illusions?!” He shouted. “I don’t know what to think anymore! I don’t know what I am anymore.”
The Impresario poured another glass of port. “As I said, your friends exist in this world. The immaterial cannot keep form in Holy Gothica. Not outside of the Devil’s Hour. Therefore, your friends deserve at least more than a little merit. What you make of it is up to you.”
“So, we’re just playing Schrodinger’s Cat? With their lives?”
“You are.” The Impresario looked away. “And yet, hope is within the grasp of every man.” He clasped his wrists, eyes narrowing. “What does Dante tell you?”
For the first time, Victor was able to see through the waking fog, eyes fixed on his mentor. He did not falter, even as the Impresario’s smile became genuine.
“They’re alive.” Victor dragged himself back to Holy Gothica.
#
Rolling out of bed, Victor came to the window. Dawn crept through the gaps in the Iron Sky, illuminating even Yoshiwara. He leaned against the railing, watching the motley people go about their lives, and mulled over the Impresario’s words. Hope was something everyone could find, even if they couldn’t grasp it at the moment. Little reasons to keep on living.
However, their darkest thoughts summoned a beast of the apocalypse, one who spoke of the end of all things. One born of the suicidal desires of all men. Could Victor really help those people? What good was it, to dwell on politics and existentialism?
They were monoliths of human nature, not meant to be moved by one man, even by the “Far Messiah.” Chosen or not, Victor was just that. One man. Every instance of an individual’s absolutism led to dictatorship, benevolent or otherwise, if given enough power.
Victor’s knew where that path led. He’d seen such tyranny first hand. To be the Far Messiah did not mean to lead humanity to salvation. It did not mean to shepherd a dying flock to a truth without meaning. Quite the contrary. He knew now what it meant to be a savior.
The Impresario was just horrible at explaining it.
The echoes of Victor’s legacy could join the annals of history, if his will was true enough. His purpose was to be a good person, even when no one else was looking. Not out of some decree of destiny, but out of his own integrity.
Thus, Victor accepted his duty to save Holy Gothica.
In his own way.
END OF INTERMEZZO
About the Author
Diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at a young age, Fallon O’Neill has been writing since his sophomore year of high school. These scribblings and vignettes would eventually become the earliest drafts of his debut novel, Geist: Prelude. Dedicated and passionate, Fallon has worked his novels with the Blue Moon Writer’s Group for over seven years, culminating in winning second place at the Will Albrecht Young Writers Competition of 2012, and publication in the eighth issue of the Blue Moon Art And Literary Review. His favorite pastimes include grabbing a beer (or four) at the local bar, blasting soundtracks into his skull, and watching German movies from the ‘20s to keep the existential dread at bay.
Table of Contents
THE STORY SO FAR
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Fallon O'Neill, Geist Intermezzo
