See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

Without Blasfemia, it was easier to fit everyone into the sedan.  Zochino and Christina rode in the front, Xihuani and Jorge in the back.  They were quiet as hell.  Nobody could hear anything above the siren anyway, but perhaps they hoped to minimize distractions – to sense danger coming.  Or maybe the shock of losing a member of the squad had them all feeling more vulnerable than before.

Searchlights washed over them again and again – automated things with no sensible arc to their movements.  And who even knew how to search for assassins, among all the people who had leapt into motion when the chaos began?  The colors of the world, the shadows of the little angels like bats in the night, the roaring siren fading in and out – it was the vibes of a fireworks show, sliding over the windshield.

Had they really lost a member of the squad?  Blasfemia had always been something apart from the rest.  They were college students; she was a radicalized farm girl, making news for iconoclast terrorism.  They sought her out, in their revolutionary zeal, and collectively talked each other into killing the pope.  Now that they were done with the human weapon, their shared bloodlust was bottoming out, replaced with bone-chilling dread.

The tires of the sedan were designed to minimize damage to the plaza bricks, thousands of independently firing and retracting rubber-tipped spines ringed each wheel.  Unfortunately, the engine was also designed to minimize damage, maxing out at fifteen kilometers per hour.  It was a slow ride to the astropuerto.

The leader of a passing phalanx of soldiers flagged them down.  Zochino stopped the car.  “Be cool.”  He rolled down the window.

“You need help, officer?”  Zochino spoke almost the language of Dio 6, vaticanes, with almost no accent at all.

The soldier raised his visor.  Despite being in charge of ten men, he looked like a boy of seventeen.  Had they called up the trainee classes?  “We need to scan your ID, father.  I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, I can barely hear you over the siren.  You need what?”

“ID!  To scan your ID!”

Zochino nodded, playing the part with a perfection that can sometimes come at the point of a sword.  “Of course.”  He handed the ID of an early victim over to the soldier.  The man scanned it with his mobile, a complex stream of codes and lights reflecting in the shiny surfaces of his helmet.

“Now the others, Father Teodoro, if I may.”  He hadn’t noticed the flag that the real Teodoro Saenzi was missing – a less colorful and obvious flag than the one indicating death.

“I’m sorry.  The noise!”  Zochino gestured vaguely at the sky.

Unknowable radio babble caught the guard’s attention and he waved them by.  After all, looking for six people, not five.  The passengers started breathing again.

They had smuggled themselves to Dio 6 on an astronave shipping grain, and used carefully researched back paths and side halls to creep out of the astropuerto unnoticed.  Their return plans hadn’t accounted for one significant unknown – the capitol’s reaction to a major alarm.  They didn’t know those security protocols at all, and had to hope the return route was still open.

Christina spoke, when the soldiers were small enough in the rear view.  “Sorry I doubted you Chino.  Even if we get caught, no way I could do better.  I wonder if we…”

“Should go back for Blasfemia?  Definitely not.”

“Not that.  I wonder if we did her wrong, by bringing her here.  Maybe she lost it, but maybe she never had it.”

“Crazy?,” Zochino asked.

“Cognitive disability,” said Jorge.  “Has she ever really understood what we were talking about, or did we just fool ourselves into thinking she did?  Maybe we fooled ourselves about a lot of things.”

Christina said, “Crazy.  I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about Jorge.  Anyway, she only sees what she wants from one minute to the next, like a fucking shark.  If we didn’t bust her out, maybe she could’ve had a long life in the looney bin.”

“Don’t care,” said Xihuani.  “I’m sorry, but I can’t.  Let’s just go, please!”

Zochino felt the accelerator under his foot, already flat to the floor.  Useless.  “We could run as fast as this thing drives, but then we’d get there all fucked up and out of breath.  Just a little longer.”  He looked at the vehicles and crowds in the streets, and projected the best way to get past it all – to the extent it was possible.  They’d find out soon enough.  He was frustrated at how much faster he could think than the sedan could drive.

The slow ride, the noise, the lights, the elaborately decorated everything – it struck Xihuani as resembling a theme park for kiddies.  What happens when the theme park is overrun by ogres, and kiddies are on the menu?  The ride crept up the tracks and down again, past the biergarten and the petting zoo, and at last…

Zochino parked the car on a crowded thoroughfare, where many people had no choice but to park, and negotiate with soldiers for a way through.  Only he had no intention of negotiating with anyone.  They joined the crowd, while staying left long enough to disappear behind a tall hedge, then jump a rail.  For all they had been through, no one was injured, and they found it easy to clamber down the curved side of the canal.  They were very exposed then – anybody who happened to look could see them – but it wasn’t so easy from that chaotic street.

They made it to the bridge, which could conceal them as they entered a culvert that ran under the astropuerto.  Free from watching eyes for another good stretch of time, it was a big relief.  Jorge ran out of breath and asked the others to wait up.  As they stood around him, looking on sympathetically, he wondered aloud, “Would it be safer if we just lived down here for a few weeks, and smuggled ourselves out at that point?  I really don’t want to do this next part.”

Zochino shook his head.  “There’s no way to know what the best time will be, but staying on this planet can be nothing but bad.”

“Mmhm.”

Xihuani paced, seemingly immune to sore feet.  “You’re right, you’re right.”  She flexed her hands over and over.  “No safe time, no safe place.  Nowhere in the world.”  The electric lights of the plaza world were receding in the distance, replaced with nothing but the light of their mobiles.  Glints on skin.  The alarm still nearly as loud as at street level, but very different, echoing through the tunnel.

She was giving Jorge a case of nerves, which over-ruled his need for rest.  They moved on.

The culvert opened under a utility courtyard between two equipment silos, with not a soul in sight.  They checked the door they’d used to access the spot from the inside, and the lock was still foiled from their earlier efforts.  From the courtyard, the sound of the alarm was weaker, but something else about it felt off.  They were quick to get indoors, but Jorge paused there, last through the door, and looked at the sky.  Was it his imagination, or were larger forms falling from it now?  Larger angels?

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

Razzmatazz was not the hottest nightclub in the grotty little California town, but it was jumping. In a way, being second rate was a good thing.  These weren’t all coked-up children of privilege and gymbunny starfuckers; they were people who came to get high or get laid, or some combination of the two.  Less bullshit, more flavors of decadence to choose from.  The night was young and the walls weren’t sweating yet.

Josefina was there to dance, but her skin jumped with anxiety, her eyes wheeled in their sockets.  Despite her youth, those eyes always seemed tired.  Physiognomy, or a result of constant stress?  A feeling of disjunction followed her through the world – that she did not belong in reality.  She had to loosen up, and the only way that had ever worked was ecstasy.  The pills were already dissolving in her stomach.  She imagined she could feel them, that her stomach itself was a glass bottle of hydrochloric acid, a hand dangling from her esophagus giving it a little swirl.  The pills fizzed like the product in an antacid commercial, losing their cartoon dinosaur shapes.

Noise laid a comforting hand on her thigh.  The woman had naturally blonde hair, long and fairly straight, but wore no makeup, hadn’t dressed up at all.  She was still in a stained Del Taco t-shirt and khakis from work, unflattering to her rubenesque figure.  Without darkened lashes, her eyes looked tiny, with a reptilian glint, and without lipstick, the big but thin-lipped mouth looked like that of an albino ape.  Noise always bore a faint smile, deriving a crass amusement from the world of vice.  This was largely vicarious, as she never developed much taste for drugs and only got a laid a few times a year.  Mostly she was a chain smoker, always with a cigarette behind one ear.  “Hey Josie, you feeling it yet?”

“No, no.  I can’t.”  Josefina didn’t look at her, but Noise wasn’t offended – used to her ways.

Peace lay a comforting hand on her other thigh.  He was big round Cayuse man that had moved south from Oregon as a child, and joined one of the ambiguous brown people cliques at Josefina’s junior high.  He was a calming presence in her life.  Whatever his delinquency or foolishness, it was taken at a casual pace, arousing no anger from anyone who heard his soft, resonant voice.  Like Josefina, he had very long hair – mostly straight, but frizzed from a trace of natural curl.  Josie’s hair was dark and her skin light, while Peace’s skin was a shade darker and his hair lighter, like God turned down the contrast on him.  He wore an illegible death metal t-shirt, an open hoodie, and absurdly loose-fitting blue jeans.  Nobody would mistake him for a law-abiding citizen, yet he also did not provoke suspicion.  One could imagine no harm coming from his thick hands, even as he used them to feed MDMA to his friend.  “You’ll get there, Josie.  Clark and Mister Dougie don’t sell no bunk.”

“Thank you, Peace.  I can feel something, but I’m not there yet.”  She almost confessed that she felt a bit ill, but knew that would get her friends pouring bottled water down her throat, and she wasn’t ready to hydrate yet.

“They better not,” Noise cackled.  “I wanna see Josie go crazy.”

“I’m always crazy, Noise.”

“You know what I mean, girl!  Shit.  And what is this crap they’re spinning?”

“Morcheeba,” said Peace. “It’s ’90s stoner stuff.”

“How do you even know that?  I don’t care.  It’s putting my ass to sleep.”

“Go burn one?,” he offered.

“No.  I don’t wanna miss it when Josie gets up.”  She was clearly considering it, turning the lighter over in one hand, again and again.

“I’ll wait ’til you get back,” Josefina said.

“Liar.”

Whoever was working the lights was not feeling creative.  They’d left bands of different colors over the floor in discrete regions, spotlights staring straight down.  People changed colors as they crossed the floor, as bored with the music as Noise.  The closest color to the stoners was a wall of De Palma red.  They sat on one of the few benches at the back of the floor, under a looming maze of blue-grey geometric chunks – sculpted foam meant to quell noise complaints.

Josefina contemplated the bodies, ignoring eyes.  What did she want from them?  She felt like a vampire choosing its victims – but an incompetent one that would usually end the night thirsty.  Ladies and gentlemen and some other kinds of creatures in the mix, all dressed like myriad species of gangsters and sluts, the fashion not precisely mapping to assigned genders.  Their movements spoke of relationships – this woman connected to that woman and that man and his friends, that man connected to the bar staff and bouncers, and so on.

Nobody was alone – she would have to inveigle her way into another clique if she wanted to dance.  Peace would only dance with somebody he was courting and didn’t want to mess up their friendship, and Noise’s idea of dance was to grab a guy’s ass and stand there like a fire hydrant.  But Josefina would not go completely neglected that night, having slut gear under the hoodie, ready to go.  She was wearing a black bikini under her clothes, and would probably get away with stripping down to nothing but that, as the club heated up and the bouncers lost track of the chaos.

Her attention kept coming back to a drug dealer – a possibly older man, white, and wolfish – like a less interesting cousin to Christian Bale, dressed like Mac Miller.  He had come alone, though some people in the crowd knew him, and glanced by him for product, or to make a nominal amount of nice, to stay in his good graces.  In her experience, a man alone was a dangerous wild card, but this one was a professional, never jerked an elbow in anger, and seemed well-liked.  Further, he subtly moved his body to the music, with no thought to how he looked without a partner.  Unselfconscious, in a way that promised a good dance.  Still, would he want to be interrupted at work?

The drug hit and her head lolled dramatically.

“You should drink some of this,” Peace offered.

“HaHA!  It’s happening.  Get up, girl, get up!”

Josefina waved off the water, and stood up slowly, carefully.  Noise got a hand around her ass and pushed her into the crowd.  She crashed through a couple, pulling them apart, and caught angry looks.  But it was official.  She was dancing.

–

See this previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  For a thought on David Lynch, see this article.  And see this article to read the story from the beginning.  Meanwhile…

–

Down cavernous corridor through the haze of rose-hued chandeliers the assassins could barely see them – more guards, perhaps, but surely witnesses to their latest massacre of priests.  Zochino shouldered his rifle and let off a burst of suppressive fire.  The youths had been college students just a few months ago, but radical schemes gave them a quick education in the arts of war, and they advanced in the opening his volley had made for them.  The hall was encrusted with elaborate gold – frames for massive paintings, pedestals for sculpture, sculptural elements at every joint of the walls ceiling and floors, and cabinets for relics – which gave some amount of cover.

Christina was always the most bold, leaping sidelong into the next hall, laser bolts shrieking through the air all around her as she launched a burst of her own.  She survived, and Jorge and Xihuani moved into the opening to finish the job.  After another run and gun, the whole squad advanced into that hall and took new positions of cover.  There was a half dozen places for trouble to emerge, but they needed to be sure they’d finished the job.  Dead men lay in heaps, so many dark lumps behind a screen of smoke.

Blasfemia just abandoned her cover and walked down the hall, whistling.  It was the only sound besides the bubbling squall of grieving putti.  The ones in that hall, at least, had recovered their senses enough to buzz around seeking escape.  Most took the largest exits, back into the throne room where the pope lay dead and desecrated.  A confused straggler crawled on the tiles, almost like a human child.  Were its wings singed?  It pawed at Blasfemia’s feet as she walked by, slowing her progress.

“Get off me, baby!  Disgusting.”  She raised a boot and crushed the putti with a stomp.  It was the size of a human infant, too large to fit under her foot, but somehow it just disintegrated into a pile of meat under her power, chunks trailing strings and sprays of blood.

From his position, Jorge was revolted.  He understood that no real harm had come to the spirit creature – it was merely banished to the spirit world – but it was still a shocking sight.  Blasfemia was a natural exorcist, with the unusual power to banish spirits by violence.  Perhaps the fact she had struck the death blow on the old pontiff was the reason for the resounding shock to the angels, or perhaps as the old priest suggested, they cried every time a pope died in office.

Laser blasts shook her out of the distraction – somebody firing from cover down the hall.  They shouted in the language of the Dio 6, which she barely understood.  It was defiance, no doubt, rage at having his cushy young life as a papal guard subject to unprecedented violence.  Well, little soldier, what did you think that weapon was for?  Blasfemia mocked him, “Blah, blah, blah!”

The squad showered his position with fire, disintegrating his scant cover and most of his body in seconds, then regrouped. Zochino gestured for them to follow, and cut across the throne room to get back on course.  By now the putti were all in flight, like panicked doves hauling a few plump kilos on stubby wings.

Christina slapped Blasfemia’s arm.  “Put your fucking hood up and get the rifle ready.”

“Oh yeah.”  She was still royally distracted, but beginning to make some sense of the world again, and complied.

The evening sky was filled with light pollution, a royal blue haze admitting only a phantom glimpse of the starry void above.  Every pavement stone was a dedication to holy works, every ornately chiseled holy building transformed by shafts and sprays of lamplight into cerulean ghosts.  The lights at the plaza level were more amber-hued, blending with the red stone to irregular shades of orange and blood.

Thousands of putti and millions of angelflies buzzed madly through the sky, and people cautiously emerged from every shadow to find out what was going on.  The assassins mirrored the body language of the curious as best they could, while still following Zochino’s lead.  Nobody else was moving with such purpose, so it was a poor disguise indeed.  Nonetheless, it held out long enough.  They reached the grand stabling, where myriad strange vehicles were filed in stalls or suspended from skyhooks.  The only security present had never felt the need to question priests, and were distracted enough by the strange air to let them pass with little notice, and they were quickly alone again, in dimly lit passages, the concrete beneath them now an unadorned smooth grey.

Blasfemia smiled wearily at the stalls.  It was a shopping trip.  Would they reach the skyhooks to take a flying cabriolet?  Motorcycles?  Autoesclavos shaped like headless horses?  A simple wheeled sedan?  Take the pope’s personal carriage, as they had taken his life?

Zochino looked up to the skyhooks.  “Those are the best bet.”

Jorge said, “They are harnessed celestial spirits like the astronaves, and might rebel at our touch.”

“Alright, it will be quicker to boost a sedan anyway.  Xihuani?”

Xihuani was their best mechanic, and got to work on opening the nearest stall, as the others stood guard.

“Aww, man.  Why you gotta be so boring?”  Blasfemia was still shaking blood out of her sleeves.  “The pope’s cab is in this place somewhere.  We could tell it what to do.”

Christina agreed.  “You’re talking out your ass, Jorge.  Just because those flying rats figured out the old man was dead, it doesn’t mean they can magically sense that we did it.  Were they swarming us?  No.  Let’s take a flyer.”

Blasfemia said, “Yeah, maybe we can splat some of those bambinos on the windshield, haha.”

Zochino got in their faces, judgmental glare suiting well his clerical disguise.  “You know what the odds are we get off this fucking planet alive?  This isn’t a game.”

Christina spat.  “Don’t be a coward, Chino.  We all knew we could die.”

“I’m just being practical.  I want to get away with this as much as you do.”  He looked at the dark rafters, imagining the stars beyond.  “The easiest world to disappear will be Laia 4.  Lots of big cities with corazono neighborhoods.”

Blasfemia cocked her head at him.  “We’re going to Corazon 2, Zochino.”

“Are you mad?,” he looked at her again.  “We’d be caught there in a heartbeat.”

She shook her head.  “We’re going to get Josefina.  I’m going to get Josefina.”  She stopped fiddling with her sleeves and balled fists.

Christina turned her sharp features on Blasfemia.  “If you wanna go die, do it alone – after we get to Laia 4.”

“Oh, now you’re with him?”

Zochino said, “You were all with me.  I got us this far; I’m the only one that can get us out.”

Christina rolled her eyes at his self-importance.  “He’s right about this, Blasfemia.”

Their attention was drawn by the clunk of the stall’s locks hitting the concrete.  Xihuani had finished her work, and Jorge opened the side-rolling door.

Blasfemia said, “No.  No!  Xihuani, get me a ride too.  I’m going my own way.”

“I still have to get this one started.  I don’t have time!”

Zochino was getting heated.  “Blasfemia, I don’t want to see any of us die.  If we don’t stay together until we’re free, it’s over!”

“No, man.  Xihuani, get me a fucking ride!”

Jorge nudged Xihuani toward the driver side door of the sedan and stared forlornly at Blasfemia, hoping she’d snap out of it.

Zochino said, “We’re staying together.”

A great keening blast arose in the air, a chord of bending, whining notes that flattened as they peaked at brick-shaking volume.  It cycled again, then again – an alarm that had not sounded in centuries.

Blasfemia backed away.  “I’m going to get Josefina.  Fuck you guys.”

–

See my previous post for a communication to any who would join me in writing.  Meanwhile, a wee bit of this bullshit…

Blasfemia withdrew one knife from the pontiff’s chest, but left the other in his heart, a hand still on the grip.  The spasms of dying muscle sent a jolt of dark pleasure through her hand, the scarlet ribbons coursing down his chest thrilled her eyes.  His head rolled dramatically, with an air of finality stealing the gaze from her handiwork.  “No no no,” she said, “Stay with me, papi.  You need to feel this.”  She dropped the loose knife and slapped his cheek with her free hand, little smacks.  “Come onnn.  Know why this is happening.  Don’t forget her!”  The pontiff died abruptly, and his dead weight dragged itself free of Blasfemia’s blade, collapsing on the floor.  “Josefina!,” she yelled, and stabbed him again – perpendicular to the fatal wound, marking his corpse with an X.  She crouched over his body like an ardent lover.

The witnesses – the band of assassins – all bore different burdens within their hearts.  Zochino had spent his entire young adulthood in study of political philosophy and its history, and became as obsessed as the dreamers of old with the idea that a more perfect system must someday be born.  Cristina had come to see all the sanctimony of her pious homeworld as bars in a cage, had grown to see all priests and police as icons of her oppression – just so many targets.  Jorge was a scholar of the spirit world, who saw how The Church’s angels press-ganged innocent entities into their host, twisting embodiments of nature into foot soldiers of celestial fascism.  He felt their pain and sought their liberation.

Xihuani had only wanted the people of her world to live their own culture free from the foreign influence of The Church, but it all seemed so remote, as she stood drenched in cold sweat on an alien world.  They all beheld a savage murder, the culmination of a hatred divorced from all sense and ideal.  Xihuani, at least, could not feel her ideals anymore, not in the slightest.  They would return to her later in some quiet moment, if she survived the consequences of their terrorism.

None of the assassins had been truly prepared to see Blasfemia’s passion consummated like this, and it broke the energy of their movement.  Zochino had already been feeling the absurdity of their quest as they stole into the Tiemplo Santo Pietri.  Who wanted to kill the pontiff?  Who wanted The Church gone?  Just a few isolated radicals.  The main run of the people truly loved and trusted the institution.  Without popular support, any revolution was doomed to fail.  They were bringing the wrath of several worlds down upon themselves for no lasting benefit, just for a single moment to satiate their bloodlust, to feel like they could do something important.

He was the first to speak, an attempt to dispel the haze of war, to restore sense to his comrades.  “Blasfemia!  Put those things away!  We need to get the fuck out of here.”  Nominally the leader, he might have ordered Christina to restrain her, but Blasfemia’s knives were the claws of a bear enraged.  They would kill anyone in the hot moment.

Blasfemia paid no heed, rocking on the knives, barely resisting the drive the keep savaging the corpse.  Christina rapped the ground with the butt of her rifle, just out of reach, and whistled sharply.  “Crazy bitch.  Move it!”

A strange murmuring sound rose in the world around them.  Had it begun when the first knife entered the old priest’s heart, and only then grown loud enough to overcome the blood pounding in their ears?

“what is that,” Xihuani muttered, terror stealing her breath.

“The angels.  They’re crying,” said Jorge.

“Bullshit,” said Christina.  “They’re animals, like a bunch of flying fish.  They didn’t notice shit.”  She still readied her weapon.

Jorge shook his head.  “He was bound to the celestial hierarchy.  You know the Church wasn’t lying about that, right?  We took a linchpin out of a bridge.”

Zochino readied his rifle.  He hoped he would not have to kill them.  They had passed hundreds of them in the cathedral halls, clustered in slumber at the rafters, or lolling around the floors in mindless play.  They were alien things, but they did rather convincingly resemble winged human infants.  “Ximura,” he used Blasfemia’s birth name, “come with us.”  He hustled to the door, deftly skipping through the bodies of papal guards, and paused at the threshold.

Blasfemia cocked her head at the words.  Who was Ximura?  Two people ever used that name, two voices in her memory.  One whose memory made her spit.  One whose name had just been in her mouth, spoken in hatred.  Why would she ever say Josie’s name like that?  Sweat beaded around her dark eyes, and she finally freed herself from the corpse’s embrace, staggering.  “Josie?”

She looked at the blood-soaked knives in her hands, and they responded to her will, the blades shifting shapes, twirling to shake off the red, and dulling to soft curves.  They were never meant to be weapons – just adjustable farming tools.  She hadn’t engaged in agriculture for a hectic little eon.

Seeing the blades go dull, Xihuani picked up the courage to get close.  She even put a hand on the brute’s shoulder.  “Ximura, Josie isn’t here.  You just killed the pope.  We all need to hide, just hide away forever.  Right now, honey.”

Blasfemia flicked away sweat with long curling eyelashes, and her coal-black eyes burned again.  “Hey.  Hey I did what we wanted to do.  Where are you going?”  She called over Xihuani’s shoulder to Zochino, not shy about shouting.

Zochino grimaced in frustration.  “We need to go!”

“Where’s Josefina?,” she asked.

Xihuani said, “You know this.  She went to her abuela at the north pole.  Why are you asking?  Please… Snap out of it.”

Blasfemia sheathed her tools and went to Zochino.  “We’re going home, to Corazon.  How?”

“We’ll be lucky to get out of this building alive.  Are you ready to try?”

“We can do whatever we want, man.”

He shook off his annoyance, but was glad the squad was ready to move again.  “Maybe the mewling putti will distract the guards.  Pull up that habit.  We’ll cross the plaza to the stabling, steal a ride to the astropuerto–”

“It’s no good,” Jorge said.  “The Church’s astronaves are part of the Hierarchy too.  They won’t fly for us.”

Christina scoffed.  “They’re less than animals.  They don’t know shit.  We could ride them up God’s asshole and blow the Universe to Hell.”

“Could that be true?,” Xihuani asked, obviously ignoring Christina’s take.

Zochino’s sweat felt like ice water.  “Did you know that was possible before we came here, comrade?”

“I didn’t imagine.  I knew it would have an effect.  Maybe I hoped they’d all just lose their wings.”

Christina grabbed him by the scruff of his collar.  “We kinda need wings to fly the fuck out of here, Jorge.”

Zochino waved a hand to hush them, and in that moment the squalling of unnatural babies sounded like an industrial farm full of goats.  “Animals fly around with fleas all the time.  Christina’s right enough.  Everybody on me.”

Blasfemia felt the coagulating blood glue the sleeves to her arms, and rubbed them idly, disgusted, annoyed.  But she followed the squad, not knowing what else to do with herself in the moment.  They’d go home, she’d go north, and she’d find out where Josefina had gone to hide.  It was the only thing that made sense, with her rage finally spent.

They were a little flock of priests and nuns again, walking briskly in the temple halls, heads bowed, rifle-shaped parcels under their sleeves.  But one nun’s habit lay askew at her shoulders, curly hair hung heavy, sweat making serpents of it – a frame for a bestial face.  They marched past clots of putti, the winged babes thrashing on the tiles with eyes squeezed shut and mouths agape in tantrum.

A golden door opened at the end of the hall ahead, and priests rushed out, to make sense of the chaos.  On seeing their fellows of the cloth, they waved for their company.  Zochino let Jorge out in front – his seminary studies gave him the vocabulary to talk with these clerics.  He met their approach with palms down, eyes trying to meet theirs – draw attention away from the squad’s numerous suspicious details.

“Brothers, what has come to pass?”

The most senior of their number pushed up his glasses.  He was also taller than anyone present, with an eagle’s nose.  “This happened when Pope Sincerus VI died.  Be still.”

His head jerked back, charred brain sputtering into the air, and as his friends came to grasp the situation, they were already being gunned down with laser bolts.  It was Christina who had pulled the first trigger.

Zochino glanced down a hall in alarm.  “That way.  We gotta kill ’em all fast!  Go!”  They could leave no witnesses, if they wanted to reach the astropuerto in peace.  A general alarm would be the end of that.  The vision was taking shape in the young man’s mind.  Chase down one group of witnesses to slaughter them, behind them two groups, behind them a hundred, behind them the world bearing witness.  They had only gotten as far as they had because nobody in a thousand years imagined anyone would be foolish enough to strike at the pontiff.  The scheme had been foolish, and it was unraveling.

–