Geist, p.25
Geist, page 25
“I did.”
It couldn’t be. Victor had watched the Dollmaker die, torn apart by his own victims, and yet, here Leng stood. His corpse, or what remained of it, was mutilated and ravaged by burns, stripped of humanity and independent though: a slave to darkness.
Only now did Victor understand. Here, in the world of cinematic thought, any lie could be reshaped into truth. The heartworms were incapable of speech as he knew it; however, Leng was tethered to their will, serving as the tongue of unfathomable hunger.
“We congratulate you on reaching our audience,” the director projected its deep baritone like a ventriloquist. “Behold, the Far Messiah, whose belated maturity is nonetheless a momentous occasion. Truly, you have exceeded our expectations.”
Victor was speechless. Despondence turned to horror. His every emotion was at the whim of this ungodly god of desire. Every thought was vulnerable to agony and ecstasy.
Beatrice tugged at his wrists, enough to keep him grounded.
“Kid’s unavailable at the moment,” Charles stepped forward. “You know, psychotic break and whatnot, but I can take a message.” He scowled at the director as if trying to buy Victor time. “Not the first time you’ve held an audition, huh? High turnover for the antichrist gig?”
Victor remembered his purpose. That he wasn’t alone.
“Your insight is as remarkable as your insolence.” The director’s laughs boomed across the fetid sea. “Just as your reputation precedes. We’ve heard of your devotion to the Fated Child. Our elder brother does not give praise lightly. Such a battle it was.”
“P…pestilence?” Victor managed.
“Far cry from the ravages of despair,” Beatrice said, “I’ll give you that. Take it you two are close. One big happy family of eldritch horrors?”
“Our ‘elder brother’ was deeply flawed and fixated on decay,” the director said. “Malaise which germinates in the mind. However fertile as the disease may be, it is revolting to the masses. Such was the folly of lepers. A weakness we do not share.”
Minutes passed and blurred together as Victor gathered the fragments of his sanity. Piece by piece. Not enough to challenge the Director of Famine. Not yet.
“Right,” Beatrice mocked. “Just saying, you look a lot squishier than the last ‘omen of the end.’ You’ve got Victor’s soul. Cough it up.”
“Indeed.” The heartworms loomed over their hapless audience, chittering their teeth. “We have tasted his essence. As we have all of you. But his is to be savored. Not to be squandered in the face of hollow threats.”
Beatrice sighed. “Yeah, we can’t do shit. I’m aware. But Victor kicked your ass, what, last week? He can do it again. Easy. We just keep him in check.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed with savage intent. Determination welled within him as a storm of purpose and spite, waiting for the moment to strike.
“You do not speak for the Far Messiah,” the director roared, its words reverberating throughout the cavern, every syllable an explosion. “You fools are only alive because of that dotard in the Opera House. If not for his constant meddling—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Victor screamed. “Leng told me about your little Faustian pact. You toyed with Edgar’s mind until he broke. You dragged us down here. Why?”
A moment of silence passed, underpinned by shock on all sides. The Director of Famine gave a low hiss yet did not speak as if rethinking its bargain.
“We did not summon you,” the host watched its tone. “Our will is but the collective unconsciousness of man. It would be more apt to say, the masses prayed for your coming. We merely assisted them in actualizing that miracle. We are the Keepers of the Gate. Or, as your apostles perceive us, gods, that shall usher the Kingdom of Ends. This is but a half truth. Just as the Director of Pestilence sought to test man’s resolve in the face of despair, so too do we judge what he hungers and to what lengths man will go in hunting game.”
“Stretching the definition of famine, aren’t we?”
“Famine is not simply poor harvests and empty stomachs,” the director said. “It is deprivation in all its forms. Decadence begets decay. Even the privileged fast and deny themselves true sustenance. They gorge on shallow pleasures while the destitute starve in the gutters, and the vermin of the mind breed and multiply. Desire remains unfulfilled on every facet of society. This has been proven by the deeds of our chosen.”
“Edgar and Leng?” Victor scoffed. “So, you cherry picked two of the most unstable bachelors in Holy Gothica to judge mankind? That’s a very skewed sample.”
“Tread lightly, child of man,” the director warned. “They were not chosen on a whim. We blessed them with fragments of our power. We observed how they would use such gifts. And through our chosen’s eyes, we saw naught but ignorance and empty thrills. The world of man breeds murderers as our womb does madness.” The host bowed in mock humility. “We had no intention of entangling you in the ensuing labyrinth of murder, although the crisis was fascinating to witnesses. No matter. Your purpose is of a higher nature.”
“Explains why you didn’t mind fuck me directly,” Victor spat. “That was all Leng. You just gave him the tools and ‘directed’ his snuff films. How thoughtful.”
“What is the life of a harlot in the face of man’s future?” the director asked, its cysts squirmed with indignance as the souls within screamed in agony. “Even now, the sacrifices incubate within us and fuel what hope mankind has. And you still cling to selfish idealism?” The sickly glow intensified until the heart was a shadow in the mustard gas. “The world tilts on an axis of suffering, and yet the light of pleasure knows no time of day. Hope cannot exist without pain, just as the fruit of happiness is never quite in reach. Such is the natural order. So it has always been. So it shall always be. The bittersweet cycle is sustained by predator and prey alike. By the grotesqueness of humanity.”
“Christ,” Victor sighed. “You sound like my high school journal—”
“Enough with your insults!” the director snapped; the tide spiked, threatening to flood the shore with acid. “In spite of your defiance, or perhaps because of it, you have triumphed over the other chosen. Such a crusade, let alone its victory, was unforeseen. Here you stand. Our verdict has been made. By your hand shall the world be reborn. That is your purpose.”
“So,” Charles kept his voice low. “We going soundtrack?”
“Skip to the fifteen-minute mark.”
“On it.”
Charles placed the headphones over Victor’s ears. The mixtape whirled to the mark, and the stoner slammed the stop button, cranking the volume to max, waiting for the signal.
“Know this,” the director continued, as light churned within its fetid growths. “Mankind is well aware of the world’s dying state. History’s course will lead to suffering beyond reckoning. On behalf of the masses, we implore you to embrace our power. The Kingdom of Ends is the only means of salvation. There you shall rule as the Far Messiah evermore. Deliver them to where there is no darkness. Let us begin the righteous purge.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Did you think this through at all?” Victor mocked. “Your view of humanity is tainted by the madmen you’ve chosen. And now, you’re appealing to my sense of morality while eroding my conscience. You are unworthy of representing the masses. As the Far Messiah, I rebuke you and your judgment! End the famine and give me my soul back. Now.”
“You dare—!”
“PLAY!”
From the first note, Victor’s vision glazed over with blue fractals. Power flooded his mind. An industrial aria drowned the director’s influence with quaking bass. Riffs shrieked into the Womb of Sins, amplified by Victor’s thoughts, rippling across the waves. He cracked a manic grin as the abyss contorted into a concert hall. The cacophony was warped to Victor’s will. Rock opera was more than a replacement for the Music of the Spheres. Strings and electric guitars, pianos and keyboards, all bound together in a dual mix of deafening performance.
Then came the lyrics, once sung by Yuko, now the vocals of a geist.
Death is not our end. From the altar of memory untainted, I will be your shield. Let my light guide you forth, in all its flawed splendor, and know our imperfections are what made our bond true. I am the Crimson Courtesan, the reaper of lesser men, your muse in the face of oblivion. Never lose sight of what we had, and I shall never falter in my duty. So the bell tolls, not for our love, but those who would rob you of happier ends.
For I am your Anima Firmatis.
“Come,” Victor shouted. “Camille!”
With a burst of willpower, the geist tore its way into existence, wreathed in static and cobalt flame. Face hidden by a widow’s veil, only Camille’s ruby lips were visible, stark against ivory skin. Flowing from her corset was a can-can skirt and lingerie; tarnished and torn, barrage of faded violets and scarlets. A rose was pinned to her breast, thorns and roots piercing her skin as blood flowed from her breast. Camille drew a bladed fan, roughly Victor’s height. With every motion, peacock feathers fell from her dress, tallies of unworthy suitors, until the geist spread her four raven-black wings, looming as a guardian of undying love.
“Oh!” Charles jeered. “Whatcha gonna do now, ‘O Blessed King of Bad Acne?”
Before the director could utter a response, Camille swung her tessen wide, slashing through Leng’s corpse like a knife through grizzle. The great worms had lost their tongue. They recoiled in shock, baring their fangs, a feeble attempt at posturing.
“Is that,” Beatrice gawked, “Yuko’s...?”
Victor watched the director quiver in fear. “I know you won’t kill me. You need me. He who shall usher the end of all things. Maybe someday, but not today. Give it back.”
The Director of Famine let loose an ear-splitting howl. The waves swelled in a deluge of daemonic fury, rushing at Victor with all the force of a hurricane. Adrenaline flowed into his mind, channeled into raw power by Yuko’s memory. Victor stretched his arms wide, channeling his will through Camille, ignoring the wind flaying his bones—immune to pain. The geist unfurled her wings, summoning a vicious gale, and the sea parted; its corrosive waters sundered into twin walls, splashing and searing the director’s flesh.
“Well?” Victor asked. “Do you need more incentive?”
The director could not speak, only hiss as its wounds scarred over. Victor waited but did not relent, a pause between lashes. Otherwise, the pain would blur together, lessening the effect. Cysts writhed against the director’s willpower, lights yearning to break free, but the great worms unhinged their jaws and lunged at the shore.
Victor raised a hand, and Camille took flight.
She danced in a razor-heeled ballet—dodging the maws, encroaching on the heart—and sliced a pustule with surgical precision. Ectoplasm burst from the open sore as the Director of Famine howled in a mad panic. Victor needed only to watch. One by one, Camille released the sacrifices from their prisons until they breached the Womb of Sin, cauterizing its tissue with sheer radiance; comets on the orbit of justice. Without its morsels, the director withered and shriveled, wheezing like a winded lung. Beatrice and Charles dove behind a boulder of bone, shielding their eyes. Victor did not look away, basking in the blinding light, embracing the souls of harlots. Against the flares of redemption, the heartworms were stripped of flesh, layer by layer, until the Womb of Sin was nothing but a wasteland of blackened bones.
As the light softened, Victor knew one thing. Like pestilence before it, famine could never be destroyed, only quelled with plenty and contentment. The Music of the Spheres reached his ears, composing the aria’s outro. The souls lingered in the sunless heavens, fading to new heights of salvation, ushering a gentle shower onto his face.
The air was cold yet rejuvenating, filling his lungs with life. Slowly, Victor slipped free of buckles and bondage and lay down on the shore. Soft rain and a breeze washed the corruption away. Tendrils and leeches slithered from his wounds, worming into cracks in the scorched earth. As for where the fissures led, Victor could not say. Skin and sinew regrew without pain, tingling into being, baptized in the waters of catharsis. After tasting his own daemons, pride, and scorn, Victor felt the burden of messianic duty more than ever. Slowly he stood on his own, cherishing this gift; a second chance. In the end, Victor’s friends had saved him.
A welcome change of pace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Opera House was in better spirits than Victor had left it. Depression was beginning to lift as cobalt twilight enveloped the theater. Masks of silver and gold lined the balconies, as clouds of moths, once pests feeding on velvet curtains, fluttered and played, eying him with solid black eyes. Wooden creaks interrupted Victor’s thoughts as the Impresario wheeled down the center aisle to greet him, flanked by columns of leather seats.
“Truly remarkable,” the Impresario said. “You had me genuinely worried. To gamble against the Director of Famine was as reckless as it was ingenious.”
“What can I say? Learned from the best.”
The Impresario chuckled. “Do you suspect something?”
“Only that you’re not as anal-retentive as I thought,” Victor said. “Famine mentioned a ‘dotard in the Opera House,’ and even Pestilence knew about your guidance. Whatever your master plan is, it seems to be working.”
“As your will to order incarnate,” the Impresario said, “I am incapable of breaking the commandments of divinity. However, certain ‘clauses,’ as it were, are always open to interpretation. Such is the law of law itself.” He paused as if hiding a twinge of guilt. “I trust you understand that I must lecture you as well. About your own darkness.”
Victor felt a wave of shame. “Yeah, that….”
Even now, free of the director’s influence, the notion of godhood was an aphrodisiac for his ego. The impulse was Victor’s alone. A furnace of thought raged in his mind. Reforging his will into the steel of determination. Emotional repression didn’t change the truth. It was exposed to the elements now. Victor was the Far Messiah, in no small part due to his own desire for greatness. Holy Gothica was a mirror of his own imagination. To what extent, however, was still unknown. That frightened Victor most of all.
“I am equally to blame.” The Impresario snapped his gloved fingers, and the projector buzzed to life. “Just as Famine blessed Leng with his own geist as the champion of chaos, so too did I bless you with Dante. Neither of you had confronted your daemons, let alone acknowledged them. Frankly, you were incapable of such a task. Therefore, I hastened your enlightenment.” He pivoted his wheelchair to Victor’s side, facing the twilit stage. “If I did not—”
“I would’ve been killed a while ago.”
“That was then.” The Impresario drew the Moon Arcana from his tarot deck, and a familiar form shimmered to life on the silver screen. “This is now.”
Victor gazed in awe at what Dante had become. Its rabbit ears were restitched with visible thread, long and drooping. Its mask was restored with silver and sapphire tints, as its sole eye blazed brighter than ever. Coattails fluttered as scarlet banners in the wind, while its chest was bound with buckles, belts, and braces; haphazard yet secure. With a grimoire chained to its waist, the geist held its halberd in its right hand; however, relics of madness still lingered.
Dante’s horns were filed and nearly flat but still protruded from its thorned crown. Black bloodstains marred its trench coat, and its left hand was forever tainted: a set of wicked knives, fused to its flesh by iron grafts, like crude pliers gripping a pair of teeth. The geist was neither a guardian angel nor a devil on a leash but something even more powerful.
A mortal soul which had withstood the depths of Hell.
“Did you…?”
“No,” the Impresario replied. “This is your own doing.”
Victor sighed in admiration. “Guess my mental health is finally recovering?”
“A welcome change for us both,” the Impresario said. “The Inferno will no longer be a threat as you know it. In this, I find both comfort and unshakable dread.” His face was shadowed by the grand pillars. “In the past months, civil unrest, strings of murders, and sheer depravity have surfaced as symptoms of something even more dire. The Far Messiah may have rebuked two harbingers of the end. However, the wounds left in their wake fester as we speak.”
“Figures,” Victor said. “You can’t just beat up concepts and save the world. Still, I’ve definitely bought the world more time.”
The Impresario bowed his head. “Pestilence, Famine, it matters not which abomination rears its head. Whenever the directors emerge from the depths of hell and man’s desperation, I will rise to oppose them. Such is the Eternal Recurrence.”
“Wait,” Victor interjected. “Are you, like, the Director of Order?”
“In a manner of speaking,” the Impresario said. “If the directors ‘make films’ of mankind’s thoughts and deepest dreams, then I run the projectors, allot the runtime, and fade to black as I see fit. After all, I am the proprietor of the Opera House.” He waved a hand, and the screen dimmed. “The only theater where such productions can be hosted.”
“You’re a better patron, that’s for damn sure.”
“And you are oddly appreciative tonight. May I ask why?”
Victor glanced away. “Just counting my blessings. Esoteric bullshit aside, you always steered me on the right path. Even if I didn’t see it at the time.” He watched the flames dance along the walls. “Out of morbid curiosity, though. The directors seem awfully intent on keeping me alive. I mean, they want to break the world and me along with it, but what would happen if something went wrong? If I died here?”
The Impresario grimaced. “To start with, you would die in the Waking World. Or be reduced to a vegetive state at the very least. As for Holy Gothica? There are many kinds of apocalypses, Victor. The directors seek to end civilization in its present form. Even to them, the annihilation of existence is less than appealing.”
