[NeOPulP] Data Dump: Installment Two

1994. That year everything crumbled. All of the good things in Eric's life shattered into a million pieces. Eric was left walking barefoot on the broken glass. Fourteen years later he still didn't know how his life got so out of control. He remembered the days before the collapse, and sometimes it helped him get through the day.

Before all of the bad things happened, there were a lot of good things. Eric and Becky traveled all over the country. They spent six months on the road. Eric remembered that when they decided to go back home, the mileage showed that they had driven 18,000 miles. The distance seemed shorter than that, and time passed by like a blast of arctic wind. They had criss-crossed their own path a dozen times, and they had seen most of the United States in the process.

In February of 1994 Eric and Becky took a short vacation to the Key West. They had been there a week during bad weather when they decided they anted to see the rest of the country. And they didn't just want to see it, they wanted to experience it. They had payed for two more nights at the bed and breakfast, but the weather was so dismal they blew it off. The couple packed their bags an hour after the decision was made and left the Florida Keys to take a close look at the rest of the country.

Anybody who has ever made the long drive from the Florida Keys to the Natchez Trace knows how torturous a car ride can be. That morning the couple didn't notice the monotonous scrub pine forests that lined the Interstate and made the drive seem longer. They were too excited by their decision to hit the road indefinitely. They brainstormed places they had always wanted to go, and came up with a basic itinerary.

Only a month earlier Eric and Becky had been working overtime to make ends meet. Then Eric's aunt, Beatrice, died and he inherited a small fortune. Beatrice was his mother's sister. She took care of him as a young child because his mother had not been able to. His father looked after him from the age of five until the age of 12. Eric's father was killed in a car crash 1983. After that Eric went back to living with Beatrice until he was sixteen. Losing Beatrice was a lot like losing his mother, because he had never known his mother when she was sane. Beatrice had always been there for him.

Nobody in Beatrice's family ever knew she was well off. She lived a simple, humble life. Her death caught Eric completely off guard, because he had seen her a few days before and she looked healthy and happy. He was very shaken and distraught when he got the news. Then he found out about a $100,000 inheritance. There's nothing like $100,000 to help one overcome shock and grief.

Eric's Aunt Beatrice had preserved her last wishes in an iron clad will, which stated that Eric was to have access to the money immediately when she died. Eric's mother, Shirley, was Beatrice's only living relative. Shirley had been institutionalized for years because of schizophrenia and multiple personalities. Nobody stood in the way of Eric getting the money right away, and so he did.

Becky learned about it from being in the room when Eric got the call from the hospital. After he broke down and became emotional she knew exactly what the phone call had been about. She grabbed her husband and held him close until he managed to cope with the knowledge. They sat like that for a long time. When he had his feelings under control Eric asked Becky if she'd like some coffee, and he put his grief aside.

Two and a half weeks later later Eric made up his mind to take them on the honeymoon they never had. He reserved a room at Caylie's Bed and Breakfast, which was only a couple of blocks from the Hemingway house. He figured Beatrice would have wanted him to enjoy his life, and he couldn't think of a better way to honor her memory than taking a vacation with Becky. The drove from Tuscaloosa to Key West two days later.

On the way out of Florida from Key West, on their spontaneous cross country road trip, Eric thought about his childhood. He wondered what it would have been like if Shirley hadn't gone insane. He wondered how he would have coped with Beatrice's death if his mother had taken care of him. It occurred to him that the news may not have upset him at all. He didn't like that idea because Beatrice had been so much a part of his life for as long as he could remember.

Becky interrupted his silent reverie by pointing out a sign for Fort Pickens. They left Interstate 10 just north of Pensacola. From there they traveled south on I110 and then Highway 98, until they reached the coast. Before the string of hurricanes in 2005 it was possible to drive all the way to Fort Pickens, and that's exactly what Eric and Becky did. Becky wanted to see the old fort because of the time Goyathlay, who was called Geronimo, spent there. Anything Becky wanted Eric to do he did, and that's what she wanted to do.

After they pulled into the shell parking lot, Eric paid the National Parks Service fee. The admission was only a few dollars. He and Becky toured the fort for a little while. Eric took a pictures with his Nikon 35mm. Then they went down to water of the Gulf. They could hear nothing but the sound of the waves and the seagulls, and occasionally the wind when it picked up. It was still too cold to play in the water, so they just sat and watched the waves crash.

On the way back to the car Becky said she wanted to go into the cell where Geronimo was held. She wanted Eric to take pictures of her looking out of the cell's window. While she went inside he got his camera ready. He only had to wait a minute or so before Becky's face appeared in the window. Eric took a couple of pictures, and then told her to strike a couple of poses. She managed to look quite lascivious, even through the bars and the size of the window made it difficult to see very much of her.

Eric urged Becky to come back out so they could get back on the highway. He had enough of the Gulf of Mexico to last him a few years. As Becky moved out of the window Eric saw something else in the place where she had been only a second earlier. It looked like a face. Eric did not believe in the supernatural. He was absolutely certain there was no such thing as ghosts. He trusted his own eyes, however, so he walked up to the window to peer in. He didn't see anything.

At that precise moment Becky came walking out of the stockade. This time Eric did not trust his own eyes. From where he was standing Becky was surrounded by a soft glow, a glow that seemed to emanate from her and nothing else. Eric felt all of the hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms stand on end. Suddenly the atmosphere felt charged with electricity.

Becky had a completely normal expression on her face, as if nothing at all was out of the ordinary. Eric, on the other hand, was freaking out. The electric sensation begin to impinge on other senses. He could hear the faintest echoes of electric molecular, bouncing back and forth and up and down between low tones, high tones and tones that existed in a place that could not be described. It sounded like nothing he had ever heard before, and yet it had a familiarity that Eric could not quite put his finger on.

Before Becky took another step toward him he could see something in the air around her coalesce. All of the sounds he could not pin down were moving in unison with the almost tangible glow around Becky. For a brief instant Eric thought he had figured out what he was seeing and hearing. He thought he could discern a shape and form that he could only associate with energy, but which acted as though it fell within the boundaries of a carbon based life form. The glimpse was gone so quickly Eric wrote it off as his eyes playing tricks with him because of the many long hours he had been driving.

Everything he had just witnessed disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Becky finally finished taking that step that would bring her one closer to being beside him. Time returned to normal. If not for Becky walking up to him he would never have known time had slowed down. Only because she provided a reference point had Eric determined that time had stopped behaving in the accustomed, familiar fashion.

Becky saw the look on his face as she closed the distance between them. She asked, "Are you okay, Eric? Is something bothering you?"

Eric answered, "I'm fine, honey. I've just been driving so long my brain is playing tricks on me." He wanted to believe that, but this time his logical explanation felt completely wrong. He suspected that if he denied the truth to himself there could be consequences in the future. A thought such as that did not fit well with his personality, but he knew it was his thought. He put his hands over his eyes and rubbed them for a moment.

"Would you like me to drive for a while?"

"Please do. I feel drained," he answered.

Thinking back on that moment from 14 years in the future Eric could not help but question his actions. He hadn't intended to betray Becky, he just didn't believe what he had seen. He reasoned that nobody would have believed him anyway, not even Becky, at least not at first. As the episodes happened more and more frequently he turned his back on the people he cared about. He didn't warn anybody, because he cared too much about what people thought of him. He didn't want to sound crazy. Ultimately that decision cost him dearly.

Roll Call of the Lesser Devils: 41-46

41.
Motion seems to continue in the frozen galvonometer.  The ocean of internal reason strive to catch the sound of a voice in the moonlight.  The sky reveals only the voice of a bolt of lightning and the cry of a seagull.  The gull as it flies is closer to home in the skies, on the wind. Close the eyes that are tired, only sleep will heal too much knowledge. The soft woman longs to know she is desired.  Only love of nature can save the rose from demise in the cold glass, only the love of a woman can make her petals happy.  Neither were created for the sake of abuse. And death came crashing down on a small mind, it settled onto a prepared spirit. Some don’t fear death at the hands of those weak enough to declare war on beauty.  Their kind is owed a favor, repayment in caresses from the flames of hate.  This revenge gratifies those who do not forgive.  Those who violate the garden do not deserve to live, but their suffering is redemption enough. Surety of motion laps over the bridge to forever.  The wind seeks only to aid the reign of goodness and keep the gull in flight, the spirit spoken of by quiet men.  Only hearts believe in the certainty of faith, while those who lust only have animal needs. Then, the queen of light daintily traced her finger across the brow of consciousness waking the knowledge of the good and true that went undefeated, and of the ignorant and ugly of heart that lost all treasures.



42.
When the wind is your friend and your enemy
It doesn’t matter if you face the door.
Life is a race against time
To reach eternal security before all hope crumbles
Under the crush of coming doom.
Sometimes people don’t make it.
They are long forgotten



43.
diamond, fragment of the sky, in the most acute angle
reflects the gathering of the forces
that will ride when the mist thickens
the chosen will see that they are evil
mundane eyes will see only a thickening steam
before blue terror grips their chests tightly
no cry will escape their lips as the invisible assailants strangle them



44.
Another vision roils through
on the tracks laid down for the future devotees of ancient lore.
The traveler on the power lines breathes;
The air tastes like victory.
According to an esoteric few.
This human plane dies, withers and is reborn,
As peace and confrontation collide.
The greatest certainty of the one holy creation
Lies in the fact it can not be conquered.
The wine of indivisibility, the elixir,
The sign and signature of vitality,
Tis a drink that frees one to peruse the haunts of madness.
Sins are easily read, and remedied if that is so desired;
The levity of that action craves a secluded haven.
Children are safe in homes of caring
Caring born of truth and love.
Parentage weep not the bastion lives still.
Home will remain true to the tenets of the great songs,
Like a pine tree clinging to life on a cliff face.




45.
Pray prey
I dismay for my loss of words.
Read this hated game, this delay of truth.
Touch me, does me?
No leverage from now
Yet hear somehow
The ego goes unstolen.
Future is hidden
I follow you temptress,
Read these words,
They were meant for you,
From now in affection, to much later,
This is the way you say it must be.
 


46.
The wheel of finality rolls on.
Lies traced to new learners
That clumsy few,
While education grows weary
And the champions of ignorance gather truth
For no reason but to destroy it.
Time tested the warriors of olde,
And they were found to be wanting of knowledge.
That unseen opponent hurt them the most,
A paradox that they could not see,
A blind warrior fighting toe to toe with fleeting shadows.
Patriotism takes advantage of blind obedience.
Parents teach children violence is fine.
Once grown they still have their childhood memories
They keep the teachings of hate close to their hearts.
Once, a long time ago, the plow swept the sand aside
A conscious attempt to save a condemned child,
A pretention of lunacy
For the sake of giving a baby his father.
When the baby fell into the path of doom
The father knew the act was finished.
Discredited as a lunatic, the father went away.
The salvation of the young often comes at the price of the mature
But not this time, not in this place.
Today's warriors are dedicated to a bloodless war,
They remain at home to set standards,
More knowledge of the oh so new.
Years of journeys swept the eyes of errant soldiers.
They clawed at them hoping to forget what had been seen.
Real war: carnage, brutal victory,
Bloody bread for ravenous mouths.
The Beauty scoffed in her high emerald laugh,
From her tower haughtily watching the brave men die,
At the base of her tower they died.
For this the unseeing had pledged to serve.
The disease has never been cured,
And so it has ever been so vile.
 

[NeOPulP] Data Dump: Installment One

A brown Buick pulled up in front of a dilapidated house at the corner of Cherry and Violet Streets, on the north side of town. There were two people in the car. One was called Huey. The other one was Max. They were brothers, and neither one of them wanted to be where they were at that moment.

Huey and Max were in a particularly bad area of Houston. The condition of the houses was terrible. The whole neighborhood smelled like untreated sewage, probably because of all the untreated sewage. It had been a very long time since any real money had been spent on infrastructure, as evidenced by the crumbling pavement and the nonfunctional drainage. On top of all that there were residents in that neighborhood who would just as soon blow a man's head clean off his shoulders as they would sit down for a nice slice of pie. Huey and Max knew all that, and yet they got out of the Buick anyway.

Huey went around to the trunk of the car and opened with the car key. His breath made small puffs of frost in the cold winter night air. Max pulled a Colt 1911 A1 .45 from a shoulder holster concealed under his coat, while at the same time Huey pulled a street sweeper out of the trunk. They both chambered rounds and made sure the guns were fully loaded and that they had extra ammo. Then they walked side by side up to the collapsing porch of the house.

Huey took one look at the porch and decided it couldn't be the main entrance to the place. The porch looked as though one step onto it would have finished off the near state of complete collapse. He was right. Nobody had used the front door in a very long time. When they got close to it the cobwebs they could see between the screen door and the front door proved it. They needed another way in.

Max motioned left, and Huey shrugged before going around to the back of the house on the left side. Max went around to the back on the right side. Those sides happened to be on the north and south sides of the house respectively. They made the corners into the back of the square two story house almost simultaneously. They checked out the back porch, which looked sturdy enough. Likewise the back door looked like it was in good shape.

Huey looked at Max and gestured at the entrance. Max shrugged his shoulders and walked lightly onto the porch, somehow not making a sound with his cowboy boots in the process. He took one big step and landed a powerful stomping kick right next to the doorknob. The door frame splintered and broke and the door almost came off its hinges from the force of the blow.

Huey darted up the steps and into the open house, but he had to stop because it was pitch black. He took a small flashlight out of his inside coat packet and affixed it to a small mount on the shotgun. He cursed himself for not having done that before they ever approached the building. Max gave him a look that spoke volumes, and Huey was sure he would hear about the incident again, probably many times. Max always gave him a hard time over mistakes, claiming it was his right as the firstborn son.

With the flashlight firmly affixed to the shortened barrel of the gun, Huey took stock of the room. It was a kitchen, and it had been in use recently. Huey slunk through the room and the doorway on the other inside, stepping into a hallway that ran the length of the house. He walked right past the light switch, even though it surely worked. He figured there was no reason to light the place up like a Christmas tree considering what they were there to do. Huey looked back to motion Max forward, but Max was standing silently behind him.

To their left a staircase led to the second floor, and beyond that a doorway to the front room with a southern exposure. There were three doors on the north side, spaced out unevenly. The rear most door likely led to a dining room, the middle to a bathroom and the front to a sitting room. It was a common layout in homes from that period in the Houston area. They didn't bother with the doorways, but instead went up the stairs, Max in front of Huey.

There were only two rooms at the top of the stairs, one on the north side and one on the south side. Max picked the one on the south side, because the door was closed. Both of the men could smell a strong chemical odor in the air. They looked at each other and Huey shook his head, more out of disgust than negativity. Max took a step forward, grasped the door knob and opened the door. Inside was exactly what they knew they would find, what they feared they would find. Huey cursed loudly and Max sunk to the floor just inside the room. They both had hoped it wouldn't go down the way it did.

[To be continued...]

[NeOPulP] Discordia: Installment Eight

Chapter Eight:
Jesus’ Tale
 
    
Carlos Ruiz Mendoza loved his young son very much.  Members of a rival cartel murdered the child’s mother during a vicious feud in 1972.  For that reason Carlos sent little Jesus away from Medellin when the boy was only five years old.  Carlos feared for his son’s safety in a world where assassination and kidnapping represented a viable method of social advancement.  Besides the boy’s personal safety, Don Mendoza also recognized the liability factor of showing his love for the child.  Carlos knew that his enemies would use his love against him in a heartbeat if given the chance, and he could not take that chance.
    
Jesus grew up in Antigua, Guatemala with his Uncle Fernando.  Fernando Mendoza owned a multinational export corporation that shipped coffee all over the world.  Fernando was Carlos’ younger brother.  He earned his livelihood safely and legitimately.  Carlos knew that Fernando wasn’t cut out for the drug trade.  Because Fernando lived a normal life, his plantation in the Guatemalan highlands provided a perfect place for a young child to grow up.
    
The plantation occupied two thousand acres of prime arable land on the side of one of the three volcanoes in the Antigua area.  Armed guards stood watch at the front gate because of the bloody civil war that raged in the jungles, and elsewhere.  The guards helped guarantee the safety of the estate.  The plantation’s remote location and limited avenues of approach guaranteed the privacy.  There was only one small road in and out of the estate, and nobody entered or exited without permission.  The property itself contained dozens of small tracks and trails, for the purpose of transporting the coffee crop.  To a young boy, it was like a natural fantasyland.
     
Jesus grew up on his uncle’s land, untouched by the bloody civil war that took place on many fronts inside the Central American country.  He played soccer with the children of the Indian plantation workers.  He loved to run foot races through the banana trees, but most of all he enjoyed the game of hide and seek.  Jesus lived so happily, he thought he was the luckiest boy on earth.  He sometimes missed his father, but he was very young.  His uncle showed him enough love to make up for it.
    
Fernando employed the best tutors in Antigua to educate the boy.  Jesus spoke perfect English by the time he was eight years old, and showed great promise in mathematics.  The boy’s athletic abilities greatly impressed his uncle.  Fernando hired a full time physical trainer to teach Jesus all the best ways to exercise.  Some of Fernando’s friends worried he was pushing the young boy too hard, but Fernando knew better.  Jesus enjoyed the tutoring and the training because he had no daytime playmates.  His friends worked in the plantation during the day.
    
Jesus’ father rose through the ranks of the Medellin Cartel.  By 1981 Carlos Mendoza was one of Pablo Escobar’s chief lieutenants, and obscenely wealthy.  He decided it was time to reacquaint himself with his son, and introduce him to the ways of the world.  Carlos arrived at a small airfield on the coffee plantation in his private jet.  Jesus was finally reunited with his father after eight long years.
    
Success in the cartel changed Carlos Mendoza.  He completely bought into the ideology of the drug lords.  He believed that God intended for the cartel to exploit the resources they were given, and that the violence of the business was simply part of the natural order of things.  Long years of cocaine abuse and self-justification warped the old man’s thinking. 
    
Carlos’ Spanish heritage instilled in him a deep sense of familial duty.  He viewed the drug trade as a divine inheritance.  He believed that it was his responsibility as a father to initiate Jesus into the cartel.  The time had come for Jesus to become a man, and begin his apprenticeship in the family business.    
    
The father-son reunion took place on Jesus’ thirteenth birthday.  Carlos allotted twenty-one days for the task, and informed his son of the time constraints of their time together.  Carlos spent the next three weeks educating Jesus about the nature of the organization and the inner workings of the business.  He presented Jesus with facts about the cocaine trade.  Carlos lessened the impact of the more graphic information with his own brand of homegrown propaganda.  Jesus swallowed the lies he was told, because his father gave him the information.
    
Signs of insanity showed through in Carlos’ paranoid ramblings and deluded rationalizations, but Jesus didn’t recognize the indicators.  Jesus often fantasized about making his father proud while he was growing up, and he welcomed the opportunity to demonstrate his worthiness and his love.  Jesus’ unconditional love for his father blinded him to the moral implications of the things Carlos told him.  The teenager basked in his father’s attention, which was something he dreamed about his entire life.  He would have done anything his father asked.
    
Carlos and Jesus spent three weeks of pleasant mornings talking in the plantation’s dining room and library.  They went on long walks through the shaded coffee fields, and lounged around the pool during the hottest part of the day.  Carlos congratulated Jesus on his passage into manhood, and gave him rewards for being such a good son.  Jesus tasted alcohol for the first time, when Carlos opened a bottle of fine cognac for just the two of them.  It was difficult for Jesus to feel that anything was wrong in that atmosphere.
    
On the last morning of their time together, Carlos embraced his son and expressed pride in him.  He told Jesus that it was graduation day.  From that day forward Jesus would be a full member of the Medellin Cartel.  He quizzed Jesus about some of the finer points of their discussions, and all of the questions related to the cartel’s methods of dealing with their enemies.  The subject matter and the look in his father’s eyes frightened Jesus, but he answered all of the questions to Carlos’ satisfaction.
    
“Are you absolutely clear that the men who stand against us must be destroyed, at all costs?”  Carlos asked his son.
    
“Yes, father,” Jesus answered.
    
“Would you kill someone for our family, Jesus?”
    
“Yes, father.”
    
“Then come with me, son.”
    
The older man led them from the house to the garage.  They got into Fernando’s Mercedes Benz.  Carlos drove his son down a small gravel road that wound far into the recesses of the plantation.  The older man refused to answer any of Jesus’ questions, and admonished him to remain silent as they rode. 
    
After about twenty minutes they arrived at a small shack near the base of the volcano.  A man with a machine gun sat in front of the place.  Jesus knew that his Uncle Fernando never posted armed men inside the property.  He got a sinking feeling that something bad was about to happen.
    
Carlos gestured for his son to enter the shack, and Jesus did so.  Inside there was only a table and a few chairs.  Tied securely to one of the chairs was a man Jesus didn’t recognize.  The man had been severely beaten.  Both of his eyes were black, and swollen almost completely shut.  Dried blood was caked on his chin where it dripped down from his mouth.  The man’s lips were puffed and torn from being smashed between knuckles and his own teeth.  The man groaned when they entered, dimly aware of their presence.
    
“Look closely at this man, Jesus,” his father told him.  “We discovered that he gave information to a United States DEA agent.  They collared him six months ago, and to save his own worthless hide he betrayed his friends and family.  At first we didn’t know who the traitor was, so we fed false information to several of our people.  The filthy betrayer turned out to be this man.”
    
“What are you going to do to him, father?”  Jesus asked his father. 
    
The scene disturbed the thirteen-year-old deeply.  He had never witnessed human suffering before, much less intentionally inflicted injuries.  What his father taught him about enforcing the secrecy of the cartel made perfect sense when it was only talk.  He saw nothing right about the practice in reality, however.  It made him feel sick.
    
“It’s not what I’m going to do to him, Jesus.  It’s what you’re going to do to him.  End his suffering, son.  Take his miserable life,” Carlos ordered.  He pulled a small pistol from a holster inside his belt and handed it to Jesus.
    
The request sounded so simple, but Jesus didn’t know if he could do it.  It was one thing to talk about killing someone, but an altogether different thing to carry out the task.  His emotions seethed inside him.  The Catholic values his uncle taught him warred with the desire to win his father’s approval.  He could not bring himself to take the pistol from his father’s hand.
    
“What troubles you, Jesus?”
    
“You know I listened to everything you’ve told me for the past few weeks, but in church I learned that it is wrong to hurt people.  I don’t know if I can do something so terrible,” the adolescent boy confessed.
    
“Listen to me, and try to understand what I am going to tell you.  By taking this man’s life you will be freeing him from a life of pain.  No matter what sins this man had in his lifetime, he has had time to make peace with God by now.  You will be sending him to heaven, unless he is truly beyond salvation.  In any case, you won’t be committing an unjust act.
    
“If we let people like this man get away with informing on the families of the organization, then we are essentially allowing evil to take place.  Cartel members are tortured and executed every day in Colombia, and they are the lucky ones.  Others are kept alive in prisons so terrible they seem like hell on earth.  This man sent a number of people to terrible fates, but not openly, like a soldier would.  He did it through treachery and betrayal of trust.  His actions remind me of Judas Iscariot.  Taking this man’s life is not a sin, Jesus.  It’s the right thing to do,” his father lectured him.
    
The ideas all made sense again, when his father explained them.  Jesus took the pistol.  His father tapped a finger on the man’s temple, and Jesus understood.  He placed the gun beside the man’s head and pulled the trigger.  After the sound quit ringing in Jesus’ ears, he realized that in its place there was only emptiness.
    
The act haunted Jesus for centuries.  He never forgot that moment.  It was the moment when he lost his way.  All the regret and hindsight in the universe couldn’t change something once it took place.  Jesus hated the laws of nature, almost as much as he sometimes hated himself for the things he did.
    
After Jesus passed his “final exam” he left Fernando’s plantation forever.  On the day Jesus left, his uncle refused to look directly at him.  Fernando knew what happened, and he couldn’t bear to see the evidence of Carlos’ corrupting influence.  Fernando’s stance infuriated his brother.  A few years later Carlos ordered his brother’s execution, and seized possession of the plantation for his own purposes.  Jesus never found out.
    
Once the young Jesus settled down in Medellin he was totally immersed in the lore of the cartel.  He carried a gun at all times, and became a victim of the paranoia that infects drug dealers.  He attended low level business meetings for the purpose of learning proper etiquette.  He also witnessed several more executions, though he was not asked to pull the trigger again.  He became immune to the nausea he originally felt at seeing a man’s brains on the floor.
    
Jesus was considered an adult in his society, and he acted like one.  He found that he enjoyed the presence of pretty girls, and spent a lot of money keeping different ones around at all times.  Carlos viewed Jesus’ licentious behavior as a sign of weakness, and banned the presence of prostitutes in the Mendoza hacienda.  Jesus became highly skilled at hiding women in his private apartment, in stark defiance of Carlos’ wishes.  Sex helped him escape reality for a little while.
    
The Santa Lucia Preparatory Academy in Medellin welcomed Jesus into the student body in the fall of 1982.  Jesus never realized how much he enjoyed normal life until he moved home with his father.  Classes and homework appealed to him much more greatly than listening to old drug dealers tell war stories.  He encountered the beautiful daughters of wealthy landowners at his school, and the school immediately became his favorite place to be.  He even gave up whores, because none of them could measure up to the señoritas he admired during the day.
    
Jesus trained in the martial arts on a daily basis, and joined the track team.  He became very popular among the other students.  The girls wanted to be with him because of his athleticism and good looks, and the boys wanted to be with him to improve their own chances with the girls.  Jesus forgot all about his home life while he was at school, but the fantasy of normalcy would not last.
    
In the summer of 1986 Carlos sent Jesus into the Peruvian Andes to study special subjects.  An old Indian named Silvio, who was tough as nails, schooled Jesus in the art of assassination.  Jesus learned thirty ways to poison a man with readily available ingredients.  He learned how to throw any item that could injure or kill a man, anything metal with a point on it: axes, knives, forks, nails, needles and screwdrivers.  Silvio taught him how to fashion booby traps in nature, using vegetation, tree limbs and rocks.  Jesus developed a morbid interest in the subject, and was always hungry for more knowledge.
     
When the summer ended, Jesus was surprised to find out that he wouldn’t be returning to Santa Lucia’s.  Carlos gave Silvio complete control over Jesus’ life.  The old Indian was under strict orders not to release Jesus until his education was complete.  Silvio told Jesus that three months of playing in the mountains did not make him ready to hunt human beings.  Jesus protested strongly, because he missed the young girls of Medellin.
    
Silvio finally lost patience with Jesus’ whining.  The old Indian told Jesus that if he could prove his worthiness, then Jesus could return to his soft existence at home.  He took Jesus to a hut high in the mountains, and left him there with no food or water.  Silvio agreed to send Jesus home if he could survive a week.
    
Silvio hid in the rocks two ridges over and watched.  On the fifth day Jesus failed to appear.  Silvio traversed the distance to find the young man unconscious, suffering from severe dehydration and hunger.  Jesus was so proud he refused to admit defeat, even if it killed him.  Silvio spent two days nursing Jesus back to health, and then resumed the young man’s education.
    
Physical training took on a completely different meaning under Silvio’s tutelage.  Every morning Jesus carried buckets of water up a steep trail that was almost a mile long.  He chopped firewood for over an hour almost every day.  He slept on a straw mat on the hard ground, and bathed in ice cold water.  The training was meant to increase his capacity to endure hardship and pain. 
    
Silvio constantly made conditions more difficult, because Jesus never seemed to tire.  The old Indian moved their camp back to the hut, seven thousand feet above sea level.  Jesus learned to collect dew for drinking water.  Silvio taught him that any moving creature constituted nutrition.  Jesus survived off of bugs and slugs for three days, while Silvio ate rabbit and venison.  The Indian considered the look of hatred in the young man’s eyes a good sign, but he didn’t take Jesus lightly.  Silvio slept with one eye open.
    
When winter reared its ugly head in June of 1987, Silvio told Jesus that it was time to return to Colombia.  Jesus rolled his eyes when he found out that Silvio was going with him.  Jesus frowned when he learned they weren’t going to Medellin.  The education had entered a new stage.
    
They traveled to the most dangerous area of Colombia, the coca rich region near the Peruvian border.  They passed through government checkpoints unmolested.  Money determined loyalty in the region.  Jesus father provided them with bank drafts to get where they needed to go without any problems.
    
The funds got them through the government checkpoints, but it took more than that to reach their destination.  The cartel employed leftist guerrillas to guard the coca region, and money didn’t mean so much to them.  Silvio and Jesus spent a tense day on the outskirts of a town called Putumayo, waiting for leftist soldiers to confirm their identities.  When the guerrilla commander found out who Jesus was, he offered the use of five men as escorts and guards.  Silvio refused the offer.
    
Life in Putumayo was very tense.  The threat of violence hung heavy in the air.  Everybody there looked for an opportunity to advance his or her own position by any means available.  Disrespecting or cheating the cartel was absolutely forbidden, but that’s where the rules ended.  Silvio and Jesus found lodging near the center of town.
    
Silvio explained, “Your father has high hopes for you, Jesus.  He wants you to lead the cartel one day, and his dreams for you don’t stop there.  He knows that to rise to such a position requires absolute ruthlessness, and that is something that can not be taught.  It can only be acquired.  You are here to acquire ruthlessness, Jesus.  I have given you the tools you need, and now you just have to use them.”
    
By that time Jesus no longer had any moral objections to his duties in the cartel.  The boy inside him no longer existed.  The man inside him wanted to take the world by the balls.  Silvio told Jesus he was there to eliminate members of a rival cartel trying to muscle in on the Medellin Cartel.  Jesus felt like a pit bull loosed from its chain.
    
Over the next six months Jesus tracked down the top eight representatives of the Cali Cartel in the region.  He killed them one by one without any hesitation or complications, even though each man was more cautious than the one before.  Jesus displayed a natural talent for assassination.  He came to be known as “Little Death” among the natives, because of his age and his deadliness.  When the last Cali representative was killed, Silvio embraced Jesus and bid him farewell. 
    
Silvio returned to his home in the Andes.  Jesus made the trip back to Medellin, where the cartel gave him a million-dollar villa for his efforts in Putumayo.  Jesus’ time with Silvio changed him so much that he no longer had any interest in school.  Jesus took his favorite girlfriend out on a date to celebrate his return, but he couldn’t relate to anything about her life.  He felt like a stranger in the normal world.  He couldn’t return to the home he longed for, because it vanished with his innocence.  He settled for a night with two of Medellin’s finest prostitutes.
    
Jesus rarely saw his father.  Carlos treated Jesus more like a project than a son, and Jesus knew that.  When Carlos showed up at the villa in March of 1987, Jesus knew life was about to change again.  The old man informed Jesus that he had been admitted to Louisiana State University in the United States, and that he would be attending in September.  Jesus mouth dropped open.  Carlos told Jesus the Cartel wanted him to be an attorney, and LSU was the easiest place for him to start.
    
It turned out to be true.  Carlos’ secretary purchased all of the necessary documentation in Medellin.  She submitted it all to the university, who had a hard time saying no to a valedictorian, and son of a Colombian diplomat.  Jesus thought she laid it on a little thick, but he was ecstatic that she had.  He couldn’t wait to get away from the atmosphere of fear and paranoia in Medellin.  His father ordered hits on six judges the month Jesus went off to college.
    
Life in the United States restored a certain amount of Jesus’ sanity.  Some world nations denounced the United States as a violent gun-toting society, but Jesus marveled at the peacefulness and optimism he encountered.  After a couple of months at LSU, Jesus wondered if he could ever return to the constant struggles of Colombia.  He found freedom and stability to be very agreeable.
    
Jesus should have suspected that there would be strings attached, but he was enjoying the experience too much to worry about it.  He forgot all about the cartel.  The cartel did not forget about him.  December 2, 1987, one of Carlos’ close associates in the states showed up at Jesus’ dorm room.  The man took Jesus for a ride in a Ferrari, and spelled out the hidden details of Jesus’ college experience.  The cartel didn’t really want an educated lawyer.  They wanted a hit man with a perfect cover.
    
The cartel had identified three high value targets in the United States that they wanted eliminated.  One of the targets was an oil tycoon in Houston, and another was a federal prosecutor in Miami.  The third target was a United States Senator.  The oil tycoon, Richard Putnam, stopped doing business with the cartel after he got rich, costing the cartel millions of dollars in lost revenue.  The prosecutor, Mark Ruben, was very outspoken about his intentions to pursue cases involving cartel figures in South Florida.  Senator Fenway spent most of the previous congressional term pushing for a war on cocaine.  The cartel held the opinion that those offenses warranted death.  Jesus had his winter break cut out for him.
    
Nobody in Colombia believed that Jesus could carry out the assassinations.  The highest leaders of the cartel assigned the contracts to Jesus in a surreptitious effort to eliminate him.  Carlos’ plans for his son came to light while Jesus was in Putumayo.  The plans concerned the big men at the very top of the cartel, and they didn’t like to gamble on their future.  They assumed Jesus would be caught, and spend the rest of his life in an American prison.
    
On the 15th of December, the oil tycoon answered a telephone call in his Houston office.  The phone exploded when he picked it up.  Law enforcement officials were quoted as saying, “This is a terrible tragedy.  Mr. Putnam was an upstanding member of the community, and a devoted father and husband.  We will find out who was responsible.”  Authorities found video evidence of a telephone company representative entering the building, but were frustrated in their attempts to learn the black man’s identity.  Little else of value to the investigation was ever found, and the case was never solved.
    
Two days before Christmas in Miami, Mark Ruben died of botulism.  The Dade County Medical Examiner ruled the death “accidental food poisoning.”  The bacterium was traced to green beans the man ate at lunch.  The concentration level of the organism in the green beans was incredibly high, and health officials were at a loss to explain how it happened.  Authorities expressed relief that the bad beans effected no one else.
    
Senator Joe Fenway and his family spent the holidays with his aging mother, at the family farm outside of Cedar Rapids.  On the second day of 1988 the senator boarded his private jet to return home to the nation’s capital from Iowa. Joe Fenway left to take care of business, but his wife and children were to spend another week on the farm.  One hour into the flight the pilot reported engine problems.  The plane went down over Illinois, and there were no survivors.  The FAA eventually blamed the crash on mechanical failure.
    
The three deaths propelled Jesus to the top of the list of the world’s most dangerous assassins.  Only two of the deaths were murders, but Jesus would never tell the cartel that.  The senator’s plane crash was a bizarre coincidence.  Jesus was still trying to figure out how to handle the senator when he got the news.  The crash caused Jesus to breathe a lot easier.  He already felt he was pushing his luck with the first two.
    
Within twenty-four hours of the senator’s death, and without telling anyone else in the cartel, Pablo Escobar put a hit out on Jesus.  It was the first of three contracts taken out on Jesus Mendoza’s life that day.  Francisco Ochoa, the manager of North American operations and Escobar’s second in command, took out the second contract, twelve hours before Pablo did.  Jose Villareal took out the third. 
    
Escobar and Ochoa wanted Jesus dead because they feared him, and they feared his father’s plans for him.  The young assassin had proved more dangerous than they ever expected.  The cartel leaders also feared the fallout from the assassinations, but that was secondary among their reasons for wanting Jesus dead.  Villareal’s hit on Jesus was just another bizarre coincidence.  Jose simply hated Carlos Mendoza.  It had nothing to do with anything else.  Jose wasn’t even privy to the information about the assassinations.
    
Jesus was walking down Chimes Street, on his way to get an early morning cup of coffee, when a crazed Colombian gang member drove down the street with a machine gun.  The hit man yelled as he rode up slowly on the street.  The hit man was sadistic, and he wanted his victim to see death coming.  Jesus looked up just as the man sprayed him with thirty rounds from the barrel of an Uzi.  Jesus went down bleeding from a dozen wounds, and the Colombian killer sped down the street screaming triumphantly.  The police pulled the gang member over for speeding three blocks away.  They discovered the Uzi and enough drugs to put the man away for thirty years.
    
A total of thirteen rounds struck Jesus.  Two rounds grazed the insides of his thighs just millimeters from his testicles, one on each side.  Two rounds grazed his hips, and the wounds were diametrically opposed.  There were six bullet wounds to the small strip of flesh that covered his ribcage, three to each side.  The two bullet wounds in his neck were slightly askew, but on opposite sides.  The final bullet parted the very front of Jesus scalp, right in the middle of his forehead, but the wound was so shallow it didn’t bleed very much.  Jesus picked himself up off of the concrete and ran back to his dorm room.  He was very freaked out, and his thirteen bullet wounds burned like bumblebee stings.
    
The image Jesus saw in the mirror weirded him out even more than being shot at.  He looked like a human connect-the-dots.  The wounds could have been a constellation of stars.  He could almost hear an astronomer lecturing,  “The thirteen stars of the Jesus Constellation represent the time when he almost got his balls shot off.”  Jesus came to the conclusion that something supernatural had happened to him, and he did it all by himself.
    
Once Jesus calmed down he pondered the implications of the attack.  He imagined that the attempt on his life would assure his eternal silence about the recent assassinations.  He assumed he knew too much for the Cartel to let him live.  It made him wish he had told the truth about the senator’s plane crash, but he knew it was too late for that.  The die had been cast.  Jesus knew exactly what to do.  The involvement of supernatural forces convinced him he needed to see a voodoo priestess.
    
Without a moment’s delay Jesus put some Band-Aids on his gunshot wounds, got dressed and went out in search of a voodoo priestess.  He parked his Toyota Celica in a legal student space, which meant that it was almost a mile away.  The long walk in the cold January air cleared his head.  He recalled the story of an old black woman named Camille Valoire who lived in Houma, Louisiana.  She was reputed to be one of the most powerful practitioners of black magic in the Northern Hemisphere.
    
The long drive to Houma on that gray winter day went by like a hallucination.  Some unseen force compelled Jesus to reach Camille Valoire immediately.  His will was not entirely his own.  Jesus had never been to Houma or the priestess’ house before, but he drove all the way there without asking directions.  He parked at Camille’s house and knocked on her front door.
    
The old woman looked like a voodoo priestess.  She had a tiny bone through the septum of her nose, and wild dreadlocks that stuck straight up from her head in every direction.  Camille appeared to have lived for centuries, so deep were the wrinkles in her face and hands.  She stooped so badly that she gave the impression that she was looking for something on the ground, until she never straightened up.  Her eyes were narrow, dark and penetrating.  She studied Jesus with them when she opened the door.
    
“You must be Jesus Mendoza.  The dark man told me you would be coming, and he doesn’t lie about those things,” Camille enunciated cryptically.
    
“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here.  How do you know my name?”
    
“Don’t waste time on your doubts and fears.  What is the reason you came to see me, Jesus?”  The old woman hated to waste time.  She didn’t feel she had much of it left.
    
“I was shot thirteen times this morning.  I think you should take a look.  I believe I need the assistance of someone in your,” Jesus sought for the right phrase, “line of work.”
    
“Come in then, young man,” she invited him in and stepped aside.
    
Inside Camille’s shotgun shack it was comfortable and warm.  Jesus took off his coat while the old woman watched him intently.  Her gaze made his skin crawl, but the heat penetrated through the aching cold that settled into his bones while he stood outside.  He rubbed his hands together theatrically while he waited for Camille to say something.
    
“Aren’t you going to show me something?” she asked him impatiently.
    
Jesus took off his sweater and his shirt so the woman could look at the symmetrical bullet wounds.  Camille clucked in her throat at the sight.  She instructed him to remove the Band-Aids, and he did so.  The wounds did not resume oozing blood, and Jesus was glad for small favors.  She moved closer to him and touched one of the furrows in his side.
    
“You’re going to need to take off the rest of your clothes.  I’ll begin preparing for the ceremony immediately.  Once you’re naked, come into the back room,” she told him in voice devoid of humor.
    
For a second Jesus thought she was joking, or that she longed for the sight of a nude young male.  She left so abruptly that Jesus knew she was serious, and that his nudity wasn’t for her benefit.  He removed the rest of his clothes, and folded them neatly before tiptoeing to the back of the house.  The floor was cold on his bare feet, but the tableau in the back room chilled him in a different way.
    
The floor was covered in a large two-layered hexagram.  One layer was fresh chicken blood, judging from the bleeding chicken corpse Camille held in one hand.  The other layer was some unknown white substance.  At each corner of the hexagram a black candle burned.  In the center of the large symbol a much smaller circle had been drawn in a black powder.  The walls of the room were lined with shelves, and on the shelves were hundreds of jars.  Some of the jars contained items that alarmed Jesus.  He quickly averted his eyes from the jars.
    
The sight of Camille rattled his composure even worse.  She was naked, holding a headless chicken.  Her nipples were pierced through with human rib bones.  Though Jesus didn’t know the bones were human, the sight was disturbing enough.  Her breasts, free from the clothing, sagged almost to the floor.  Her pubic hairs were so prolific that the bush hung to her knees.  She had woven small bones into that hair also.  A large iron ring protruded through the hair at the level of her genitalia.  Jesus didn’t want to think about that.  Camille was busy painting symbols on herself with the chicken’s blood.  She didn’t bother to look at him.
    
When she was finished painting herself, she took Jesus by the shoulders and guided him into the black circle inside the hexagram.  A small bone materialized in her fingers, and Jesus had the sinking feeling she pulled it out of her long pubic hair.  She dipped the bone into the bloody neck of the decapitated chicken, and painted symbols on him as well.  She continued the process for another ten minutes, until Jesus was covered in symbols from head to toe. 
    
The light strokes of the chicken bone on his flesh caused his penis to stiffen into an erection, and his face flushed a brilliant red.  Camille never looked at his sex.  The erection didn’t go away when she moved away, nor when she began to chant in guttural tones.  Jesus felt strange, like he wasn’t in control of his body.
    
As the minutes dragged on, Jesus became aware of a burning sensation in his loins.  He had never felt so sexually aroused in his life.  The arousal was concentrated solely in the touch receptors of his genitals, removed from the perceptions he received from other places in his body.  The old woman’s chanting sounded like a rhythmic love song, and Jesus could feel his organ throbbing in response to the uttered tones and underlying beat.
    
Camille’s performance accelerated quickly into piercing cries delivered with quick, repetitive bursts of air.  Jesus climaxed uncontrollably.  The sound pulled the seed from his body in long strings, which dangled to the floor.  The involuntary jerking of his hips caused the semen to land on the floor with purpose.  When Jesus looked down he saw pearly white Sanskrit writing.  A name had come forth.
    
The hexagram and the letters on the floor began to glow.  Jesus glanced up from the floor and saw that he was no longer in Camille’s back room.  He floated in black nothingness, standing on an unseen platform outlined by the six-pointed star.  The Sanskrit writing rose before him and twisted in the air.  Jesus imagined he could see millions of potential lives in the thin strands, but he did not anticipate what happened next.  The writing shrunk down into a tiny shape that hovered before his face.  Jesus thought he could see a tiny person.
    
The shape expanded rapidly, and inched away from his face as it did so.  The human shape became unmistakable.  As it continued to grow Jesus changed his opinion.  It wasn’t human at all.  It had horns and a tail, and it was looking directly at him.  The figure swelled until the humanoid was larger than any human, and then the expansion ceased.
    
“Why have you summoned me, Jesus Mendoza?” the beast asked him through pointed teeth.
    
“Actually, I didn’t.”
    
The beast laughed heartily.  He looked at Jesus with amusement and said, “My current physical manifestation grew from your sexual excretions.  I don’t know how this came to pass, but I know where it came to pass.”  The devil looked at Jesus flagging erection.
    
“Who are you?” Jesus asked.
    
“My name is Belial.  It was the name you wrote before you, the name with which you summoned me.  What is it you desire, Jesus Mendoza?”
     
“An old woman named Camille conducted a ceremony.  It was Camille who summoned you,” Jesus attempted to make sense of the situation.
    
“And yet she’s not here, and none of her essence was involved.  I am only required to ask you this one more time, and then I am free to depart from your command.  I find it hard to believe you desire nothing at all, Jesus.  What is it you want, Jesus?”
    
The old woman had given Jesus exactly what he asked for.  He asked for assistance, and that was what he received.  Jesus suddenly understood that Belial was offering to fulfill his desires.  Jesus speculated silently about the devil’s motivations, and then decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask questions.
    
“Will you give me anything I want, Belial?”
    
“Of course, Jesus.  That’s why you called me here.”
    
“What do I have to give you in exchange?”
    
“At last we are getting somewhere.  What I require from you depends on what you ask of me.  Terms are always open to negotiation.  I am nothing, if not fair,” Belial professed with a sly grin.  “Why don’t you tell me what you want, and then I will tell you what I want in exchange.”
    
Jesus wished he had known he was going to bargain with a devil.  He would have brainstormed in advance.  He wracked his brain for an answer.  “I want to be immune to assassination, and I want to be the best assassin who ever lived.  But I don’t want to be evil.  I want to use my powers for good,” Jesus threw in as an afterthought.  He did some bad things in his life, but he believed in the cause.  He never wanted to be a champion of evil.
    
Belial dropped his sophisticated façade and ranted at Jesus in contemporary English.  “Are you kidding me?  Are you mentally challenged?  You summoned me, a devil, to make a deal, and that deal is to be a goodie-two-shoes assassin?  You woke me up out of a deep sleep for this, you freakin’ schmuck.  You better be freakin’ kiddin’ me.”
    
“Don’t forget about the immune to assassination part.  Yes, that’s the deal I want to make.  What do you want in exchange?”  Jesus inquired cheerfully.
    
“Let’s start the bidding at, say, you burn in hell for a gazillion lifetimes.  I think I can hook you up for that.  Yeah, that sounds about right,” Belial answered sarcastically.
    
“I thought you were here to bargain with me, but I don’t think you’re even trying.  I mean, I’m ready to do business, but you want an arm and a leg for a two-dollar item.  Can I speak to your boss?”  Jesus demanded irately.  The ploy paid off.
    
“No, there’s no reason to speak to the boss,” Belial returned anxiously.  “I am sure we can work something out.  Your talk about goodness threw me off, but never mind that.  Let’s get down to business.
    
“First of all, I can not make you immune to assassination.  I can give you certain advantages to make it more difficult for someone to kill you, but I can’t make you invulnerable to attack.  Secondly, you’ve got a lot of work to do to get yourself back into the good, pal.  I can’t make you a good guy.  Maybe you should consider putting the brakes on murdering people.
    
“Those considerations aside, I can enhance your natural senses and abilities so that you will be very difficult to kill, and a very lethal man.  You could have hearing acute enough to sense heartbeats and breathing at long distances.  You could even have the ability to hear thoughts.  I can give you superhuman strength and speed, and the ability to track your quarry like a bloodhound.  I can also throw in the ability to heal from injuries at many times the normal rate.  How does that grab you?”  Belial concluded his sales pitch.
    
“So essentially I would be like Wolverine?”  Jesus asked skeptically.
    
“Wolverine is a cartoon character compared to what you could be, pun intended.  You won’t have adamantium claws, though.  Sorry.”
    
“I’m not going to sign over my soul.  I’ve gone a long way to being a bad guy, by your own admission.  I’m likely to go to hell anyway, so why don’t you just give me the powers?”
    
“Do I look like I’m new at this, Jesus?  You may have been able to pull that off, if you hadn’t already told me you want to be a good guy.  Most deals don’t directly involve the soul these days anyway, so I’m willing to work with you.  I’ll give you the powers.  You will be as close to invulnerable as I can make you, and damn near the deadliest human who ever lived.  In return, you will have to work for us for a specified period of time, doing what you do best.”
    
“That sounds way too easy.  I’ve always heard that you screw people with the fine print.  Will I be damned?  I mean, you don’t need me to bargain my soul away if I’m already in hell,” Jesus countered.
    
“You won’t be in hell at all.  In fact, to sweeten the deal, you can work in the United States exclusively.  There are enough people in Louisiana alone to keep you busy for a long time.”
    
“Tell me more about the work.  How long, exactly, would I have to work for you?"
    
“You’ll have to work for us until you turn thirty years old,” Belial answered earnestly.
    
“I don’t want to be evil.  I’m not going to be killing innocent people, right?”
    
“You mean you’re giving that up?  No, you won’t be killing innocent people for us.  You’ll be killing people who have sold their souls, or who have in some way been excluded from God’s good graces.”
    
“And just until I’m thirty years old, and I won’t be in hell?” Jesus asked.
    
“That’s right, Jesus.  You listen well.”
    
“Then let’s do it,” he told Belial.
    
The devil gave Jesus all of the powers they agreed on, but Jesus didn’t ask enough questions.  He didn’t know that there was a dimension where people didn’t age, and that it would take him thousands of years to turn thirty.  He was shocked to discover that he could live in one dimension and work in another.  He didn’t know the peril of meeting death while in the employment of a devil.  Those things were the fine print of his agreement.
    
Belial hopped around on his cloven hoofs in unfathomable glee.  He had harvested another sucker for the forces of evil, and quite a handsome catch at that.  He kept Jesus around long enough to gloat.  Belial celebrated his victory with an obscene dance, and then sent Jesus to Discordia, with everything they agreed upon and a few extras Jesus didn’t want.  Belial’s celebration brought the devil as close to happiness as a devil could get, but Belial rejoiced too soon.
    
God never liked to see a devil cavort in jubilation.  Though Jesus displeased Him, still the Colombian was one of His children.  He tilted the odds in Jesus’ favor in every contest and encounter the assassin faced.  The contracts Jesus was given invariably involved evil men.  God felt no conflict making things easy for Jesus. 
    
After two thousand years Belial was no longer laughing.  Though Jesus hunted down people for the devil, more often than not the assassin performed his duties in such a way that the souls of his victims sought God’s forgiveness at the very end.  Jesus became a holy assassin, and he strengthened his abilities with magic and practice.  Belial became obsessed with collecting Jesus’ soul, and heaped work upon the assassin.  With every mission, Jesus drew a little bit closer to his thirtieth birthday and freedom. 
    
Pan offered Jesus a resolution to that contract in one mission. Jesus leapt at the opportunity.  Belial was insane with rage, but unanimously outvoted by the old gods and other devils.  That was when Jesus became Louis’ bodyguard.
    
“Wake up, Jesus.  You need to wake up,” Michael said from the doorway of his room, where the Colombian had gone to sleep.  The priest saw a look of incredible pain on the assassin’s face when he sat up in the bed.  “What is it, Jesus?  Are you okay?”
    
“I’m fine.  I was just having a nightmare,” Jesus answered.
    
“What was the nightmare about?” Michael asked.
    
“It was less a nightmare than memories, really.  I was just dreaming about my past.”
    
“Oh.  I was hoping you dreamed about a coalition of evil forces that surrounded the fortress with thousands of well armed soldiers, and perhaps dreamed some way to deal with the situation.  Go look out the window, Jesus.”
    
Jesus jumped out of bed and headed for the window.  He cursed himself for not asking someone to wake him up.  It was dark outside, which meant he slept through an entire day.  One glance at the moonlit world confirmed what Michael said.  The fortress was surrounded by thousands of soldiers.  Jesus could see moonlight glinting off of metal and polished leather, and he could smell the rotten stench of the grunts.  Somewhere under the distant trees there was an ominous rumbling.  The forces of evil beat heavily on large drums, to strike fear into the hearts of the Pentacle’s occupants.
    
“My nightmare continues,” Jesus sighed.
 

[NeOPulP] Discordia: Installment Seven

Chapter Seven:
One Road Rage, Heavy Catch Up

The 1964 Impala ripped through the roadblock like a plastique detonation. Jesus slunk down in the seat and drove like a low rider, while Rosie and Lena ducked as far down on the floorboards as they could manage. The guards at the checkpoint sprayed bullets and arrows through the front, rear and sides of the car. Miraculously no one got hit. The car tore down the gravel road at seventy miles an hour, gaining speed by the second.

Lena poked her head up to check out the action. An arrow protruded from the back of the seat, directly above where her head had been. She broke it off and threw it out the window. She peaked out through the shattered rear windshield, and that was when she discovered the bad news. Three guys on motorcycles were chasing them.

“First three guys in a car chase you while you’re on a motorcycle. Now you’re in a car being chased by three guys on motorcycles. Does this kind of thing happen to you often, Jesus?” Lena asked him cynically.

“This is the first time it ever happened in one night,” Jesus paused, “As far as I can remember. No, wait, there was one time in Houston, but that involved horses too. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Don’t bother. I was kidding,” Lena explained.

Rosie didn’t budge from where she was curled up below the front dashboard. She prayed the Lord’s prayer over and over. Every now and then she spoke the words loud enough to hear, even though she tried to keep it quiet. Lena didn’t hear her, but Jesus did. He didn’t blame Rosie at all. He figured that if prayer could help her, then more power to her.

At the next intersection Jesus slammed the Impala into a ninety-degree left turn at fifty miles an hour, throwing dust and gravel twenty feet in the air. A hundred yards later he jerked the steering wheel back the other way. They were aimed west, directly at the river three miles away. The motorcycles gained ground in the turns, but not enough to bring the car in range. All Jesus had to do was keep them alive down a three mile straightaway.

The motorcycles caught up with them a quarter mile down the road. Bullets lodged in the driver’s side door, and in the seat behind Jesus. The riders had noticed a lack of return fire, and they pegged Jesus for a sitting duck. Jesus had other plans.

“Take the wheel, Lena! Hold it straight!” he shouted at the girl in the back seat. He had already determined that Rosie was not in a good place, and wouldn’t be any help. Lena climbed over the front seat and took the wheel.

The bikers kept pace behind the car, and on both sides. They knew better than to pull up even, because the car itself was a lethal weapon. They emptied round after round into the car, but Jesus stomped on the gas. The old Impala gained momentum. Holes sprouted in the quarter panels, well to the rear of their targets.

Jesus leaned out of the window with the M16. He fired short, controlled bursts at the two motorcycles on the driver’s side. One of the riders swerved around to the passenger side, but Jesus nailed the other rider. The rider fell back out of the seat, and the handlebars of the motorcycle jerked sideways. The bike flipped end over end in the air, and exploded into a fireball when it came down. Jesus slapped another clip into the rifle.

The Colombian pulled himself back into the car, and yelled, “Get down, Lena!” Lena shoved herself down upon Rosie as Jesus slammed on the breaks and cut the wheel hard, spinning the car sideways. If the car hadn’t been so wide and low to the ground, then it would have flipped over. As the Impala spun out, the bikers behind the car on the passenger side came into view through the front and rear windows. Jesus opened up with the M16, and emptied a full thirty round clip at them.

The biker closest to the side of the road swerved to avoid the gunfire. He hit something in the grass, and the bike lay down on its side, dragging the rider down the road with it. Jesus wasn’t sure if the rider was shot or not, but it was obvious the man wasn’t getting up. The other biker took several rounds in his chest, but somehow he managed to stop the bike without wrecking. He must have died as the bike came to a halt, because he and the motorcycle fell over slowly. It was a bizarre way for a car chase to end.

“That was intense,” Lena told Jesus breathlessly. Her heart pounded in her ears. The night continued to get more exciting. She extricated herself from Rosie.

“You kneed me in the kidneys. I already hurt all over. Could you be a little more careful the next time?” Rosie whined.

“I’m sorry, Rosie. They were shooting at us. I didn’t have time to plan how I got out of the way,” Lena told her patronizingly.

“You’re so mean, Lena. Do you hate all women, or just me?”

Jesus backed the car until it faced west again, and then he gunned the engine. He was tired, and he had enough hostility to deal with from the entire world. He didn’t need an extra fight going on right next to him.

“If you ladies don’t treat each other with civility, then I’m going to put both of you out of the car right here,” he said firmly. The girls could tell he was serious. They rode quietly for a while.

Jesus changed the subject. “That must have been a main checkpoint into evil territory. They only keep motorized vehicles at major checkpoints. I am sure they weren’t considering the consequences of their actions when they followed us. The motorcycles were worth more than catching a few gatecrashers. The stupidity of evil never ceases to amaze me.”

“I think a lot of the bad guys get off on killing. They have no other purpose or goal for their life than kill or be killed, so they get obsessive about it. They couldn’t care less about their motorcycles, because that would interfere with their obsession,” Rosie hypothesized as she looked out the window at the passing scenery.

“How would you know?” Lena asked sharply. Lena meant the question to be nasty and rhetorical, but Rosie didn’t take it that way.

“I spent weeks at the mercy of the same kind of people, or did you forget? They kept me in a cage in the men’s barracks. My own thoughts were my only entertainment, when I wasn’t being abused. I contemplated my captors a lot. Evil makes people somewhat two-dimensional. I think it may be external, perhaps a part of damnation,” Rosie postulated at length.

Lena felt embarrassed that she put Rosie on the spot, and perceived that her own feelings of inferiority fueled her attacks on the girl. Rosie was beautiful, and evidently very intelligent. Lena hated those qualities in women around her, because that narrowed her chances of getting a good man. She decided to take it easy on Rosie, however. The girl had been through a lot.

“That sounds awfully accurate, Rosie. The bad guys never stop attacking once they get started. Maybe that really does come from something external,” Jesus reflected.

The sun began to rise in the east, and the gray shades of dawn spread out over the strife torn lands. Closer to the river a thin fog captured the growing illumination and formed ethereal shapes that drifted aimlessly. The gravel road took several unexplainable twists when it reached the downtown area. Jesus slowed the car at that point, relatively certain there would be no more trouble.

The track wound up the slight ridge that ran straight through the city. Residents of the city knew that the ridge was actually the natural levee, formed by the river instead of a geological upheaval. From the top the occupants of the Impala could see the fortress known as the Pentacle. Jesus stopped the car, and they drank in the sight of it for a few seconds. It was pleasant to see a place where people would help them, rather than try to kill them.

“I hope I can get some news about the guy I’m looking for,” sighed Jesus.

“There’s only one way to find out. Personally, I’m in need of a hot bath more than anything else in the world. Those savages never allowed me to clean myself. I actually began to look forward to being tortured to death. It had to be better than living like that,” Rosie shuddered.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to say anything, but you don’t smell good. I can’t wait to get out of the car,” Lena said, but not out of cruelty. The statement was merely true.

Jesus nosed the car down the long gentle slope to the fortress. Long-range sentries warned the forces inside the Pentacle about the car’s presence long before it could get within weapons range.
Two women armed with state of the art compound bows rode out on horses to meet them. The horses were magnificent and so was one of the women. The other woman could very well have been born to warthogs. Jesus tried not to stare at the ugly one. He instead directed all his attention to the pretty one.

“State your business in the Pentacle,” the less sightly of the two women demanded.

Jesus was forced to look at her to respond. She had warts. One of her eyes was ice blue, and the other looked black. Most of her teeth were missing, and a long scar ran from her forehead through one eyebrow and down to her chin. Jesus swallowed hard.

“I’m here to seek information on a man named Louis Comeaux. These two women are in my care. One of them is a newcomer, and we rescued the other from certain death no more than an hour ago.”

The two women on horses glanced at each other with knowing looks. The pretty one turned in the saddle and waved her bow high in the air. A group of four armed men rode out from the fortress toward them. Jesus controlled his impatience. The women were just doing what they were required to do.

The woman with the scar said, “We don’t trust newcomers and escapees. Both of them have been cozy with evil, very recently.”

“The newcomer came here as a result of my actions. She knows nothing about evil, and is here through no fault of her own. As for the ‘escapee,’ as you called her, I can assure you that any affection she may have once held for evil has been stripped from her,” Jesus argued reasonably.

The pretty (by somebody's standards) woman demanded, “Why did you ask about the man named Louis?”

One of the men rode close to her and whispered in her ear. She nodded her head and turned her attention back to the car. “Are you Jesus Mendoza?” she inquired.

“Yes, I am,” the assassin said with trepidation. He recalled many times when giving out his name resulted in an immediate firefight. He fingered the M16 apprehensively.

“You should have said so. Drive on up to the stockade. By the way, that’s a nice car, stud. Maybe you could take me for a ride in it later,” the scarred woman winked at the assassin. She was only poking fun, but Jesus felt vulnerable and exposed. He shuddered as he pulled the car forward.

The mounted soldiers parted their horses for the Impala. The people of the fortress had a few motorcycles, cars and trucks stored in a large barn inside the walls. They preferred to use horses because the animals were beautiful and full of life, qualities that were very antithetical to the nature of evil. The animals gave their riders inspiration.

Jesus knew how much those horses meant to their owners. Mounted cavalry would fight all the legions of hell for their steeds. Some of the horses were magically enhanced to communicate with quasi empathy, and horse owners were very clannish. Jesus didn’t know much about that, though. He was just a simple assassin on a quest to kill all evil.

“What are you thinking about, Jesus?” Lena asked him, and she looked right into his eyes. She saw myriad shades of gray and green inside them, and she thought the sunlight made them very beautiful.

“Just something I read a long time ago,” Jesus looked away as he spoke.

Jesus felt that he could not afford to become attached to anyone. He stopped the car and got out, and closed the door behind him. Lena quietly cursed the man. She huffed noisily and climbed out the passenger side after Rosie.

A very tall man of great size strode purposefully through the gate in the stockade and stopped in front of the car. “You are Jesus?” he directed at the assassin.

“I am.”

“My name is Michael Flannery. I’m Louis Comeaux’s priest. I prayed for your arrival most of the night. Louis wants to leave within the hour,” Michael spilled out all at once.

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question,” Jesus responded.

Lena interrupted, “My name is Lena. I’m tired, I’m dirty and I’m not happy to be here. This here is Rosie, and you can see her condition. Now where can we get cleaned up and bed down? I am assuming that the forces of goodness do have baths and beds. Am I right?”

“That is, uh, Louis said… Cara!” Michael finally yelled for help. He didn’t know that the acolyte had come up right behind him.

“Yes, Michael?” Cara answered him in a quiet voice. Michael jumped visibly in surprise.

“Can you see that our female visitors are taken care of?”

“I was about to do so before you yelled,” Cara told him. Her voice conveyed no emotion of any kind. She was always like that. She gestured broadly with her right hand, and the girls tromped in the indicated direction. Cara fell in behind them, and they all disappeared into the Pentacle.

“What about me?” Jesus asked.

“Perhaps you should speak to Louis. He intends to depart for Asmodeus’ palace this morning,” Michael told him.

“Asmodeus?” Jesus blurted out the question. He really didn’t want to know the answer to that question, but it was too late.

“Follow me. We have much to discuss.”

The two men talked as they walked across the front lawn of the fortress. Jesus appeared not to notice the intricately carved frescoes and ornate tiling of the Pentacle’s interior. They ascended the black marble staircase that spiraled up to the other floors, and neither one of them showed the least appreciation for the classical statues set in small alcoves every few feet. They were both too engrossed in the business at hand. When they reached the fifth floor, where Louis’ quarters had been relocated, Michael finished the condensed report and pointed to a wooden door down the hall.

“He’s in there,” Michael told Jesus. Michael sat down on the stairs to wait. He refused to get involved. Michael knew that Louis mood had grown dark since the dream in the middle of the night. The priest already tried to change the young man’s mind. Michael thought it was best to get out of the way and let someone else have a try.

Jesus walked to the door and knocked, and on the other side Louis said that it was open. Jesus straightened his back and entered resolutely. The young man stood over the bed filling a small backpack of earthly manufacture. Louis struck Jesus as childlike in appearance. Jesus shook his head, because Louis’ actions were childlike as well.

“Louis, I’m Jesus. I’m your bodyguard.”

“That’s great. Time’s a wastin’. Are you ready to go, Jesus?”

“You’re not going anywhere, at least not right now. I suggest you make yourself comfortable, because you’re going to be here awhile,” Jesus informed him.

“Oh, is that right? Who’s going to stop me? You?”

“Absolutely. My job is to keep you alive, and that means preventing you from doing anything stupid. I understand that you are shocked by this experience, and that you want to go home. Trust me, though, Louis, getting killed is not the solution.”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m pure magic. I don’t think I’m even human. Nice, right? First I get sent to this world o’ shit, and then I lose my humanity. I gotta tell you, I’m feeling more and more like a victim than a perpetrator. A little petty theft and some drug use is peanuts compared to what has been done to me. I’m ending this game,” Louis carried on bitterly, “and then I’m going home.”

“Louis, I want to go home just as bad as you do. I’ve lived here over two thousand years. I get sent to Earth to kill people, but I can’t rest until I’m back here. You have no idea what it’s like to go home and be unable to stay there. My life, my soul and my ticket home all depend on getting you out of here alive. I’m going to get you home, Louis, because that’s how I’m going to get home. But not today. First we make plans.”

“Didn’t you hear anything I said? I don’t need you. I’m pure magic. Now I suggest you get out of my way, before you get hurt,” Louis threatened.

“I’ll make a deal with you, Louis. I will follow you without question, no matter the danger, but you have to do something for me first. Prove it. Show me the magic. If you can do anything magical, anything at all, then we will leave for New Orleans right this minute. I’ll give you sixty seconds,” Jesus checked his Rolex, “starting now. Go.”

Jesus crossed his arms and stared at Louis. Louis looked away, and then fumbled with some of his clothes. He finally looked Jesus in the eyes, and tears welled up in the young man’s. He sat down heavily on the bed and covered his face, ashamed of his own emotions.

The assassin wanted to know more about Louis, for business purposes only. Jesus initiated his powers of telepathy to delve into Louis’ mind. It was the same ability he used on Lena while she was unconscious in the street. It was harmless, and it only took a second. He reached out with his psyche. He found Louis’ consciousness, but something struck at Jesus’ probe with fantastic force. Jesus staggered back into the hallway a couple of feet, and almost collapsed. Louis showed no sign that anything happened.

Jesus regained his composure, but he developed a splitting headache. He glance over his shoulder at the priest, and saw Michael gazing at him with concern. Jesus had just gained firsthand proof of Louis’ magical alter ego, and within the sixty seconds allotted. Jesus kept the information to himself.

One of the most important things Jesus learned in two thousand years on Discordia was the importance of planning. Failure to plan constituted suicide in a place like South Louisiana. Dangerous people inhabited every corner of the cities. Jesus knew that it wouldn’t matter if Louis’ could split the atom with his bare hands, their success depended on their intelligence.

Louis’ wiped his face and looked out the window. The sun was slightly more orange than he remembered, but somehow it was still a beautiful day. He crossed over to the window and studied the landscape in the distance. A strange idea entered into his head. For a second he wanted to save Discordia. He knew that it was crazy, so he put it out of his mind.

“I’m sorry, Jesus. I’m not normally the sensitive type. I thought I ran out of tears a long time ago, but I was wrong. You’re right. We need to take our time and think things through,” Louis almost whispered.

“I know we don’t know each other, Louis, but you will find out that I am one of the good guys. I’m not superior to you as a human being. I am one of the best assassins of all time, but my trade almost led to my damnation. I have teetered on the brink of hell for two thousand years. I see that as two thousand years of atonement for losing my humanity. If anything, your tears define you as the kind of person I wish I was,” Jesus revealed compassionately. It was a side of himself he rarely had occasion to call upon.

“When you asked me to perform an act of magic, I couldn’t do anything at all. I guess I look pretty foolish. Maybe what I dreamed last night really was a coincidence.”

“No, Louis, it was no coincidence. There’s something incredibly powerful inside you. I found that out for myself a minute ago. You need to learn how to control that power, and you don’t have much time. Every bad guy, every sadist, every devil worshipper and every two-bit shyster on this planet wants you dead, and I can’t take them all out.”

“Then what the hell do we do, Jesus?” Louis wanted an easy answer.

“Play it by ear. Right now I need you to promise that you won’t leave for New Orleans while I take a nap. Uncle Jesus is tired. Maybe something will come to me in a dream,” Jesus suggested inanely. He really didn’t have any plan beyond getting some sleep.

“I promise I won’t split while you’re asleep. Something’s bothering me, though. If every bad guy on the planet wants me dead, then why don’t they attack this fortress?”

“Louis, I could kill you for asking that out loud.”

The statement darkened Louis’ mood even further, but Jesus didn’t notice. The assassin hadn’t slept in four days. His mission with Louis surpassed every other assignment of his life in danger, complexity and importance. He desperately needed rest, because the point when every second counted could not be far away. He exited Louis’ room with a slight nod, which Louis solemnly returned.

Jesus conferred with Michael briefly. He extracted a promise to look after Louis. He asked about a place to sleep, and found that for some reason nobody prepared a room for him in advance. Jesus asked for the location of Michael’s room, and then descended two floors to make use of the priest’s bed. Jesus fell into the bed fully clothed, and drifted instantly into a fitful sleep.

***

[Taking a cue from Metalocalypse it's necessary at this point to say that any mistakes in this serial novel have been left in because they make the work more "brutal." That's not the truth, though. The truth is that I am a fantastic editor unless I'm editing something I wrote. In that case I am somehow temporarily blind, and bad at it to boot.]

[NeOPuLp] Discordia: Installment Six

Chapter Six:
Louis’ Dream
 
“The gods told us that you would be coming, Father,” said a man dressed in brightly colored robes.  “Seldom indeed does a true man of God venture through our doors.”
    
“I follow the will of the Lord,” Michael intoned piously, “no matter the cost.  I can’t say that I am pleased with the circumstances of my journey, but I will do the best I can.  At the moment I need information more than anything else.  I understand you’re the man to get it from, Uri.”
    
Uri wore robes the color of his order: emerald green, turquoise and saffron yellow.  He looked very old, so he was advanced in age before he ever arrived in Discordia.  He clutched a gnarled walking staff in his right hand, and he supported much of his weight with it.  The way Uri wrapped himself around the staff eerily resembled a tree frog on a small branch.
    
A large emerald sprouted from the middle of Uri’s forehead.  It adhered there with psychic energy.  It could never be removed as long as he lived.  The emerald distinguished him as the high priest of the Order of True Love.  The stone carried great power inside it, and the power passed freely between Uri and the stone.
    
“The things I don’t know remain as countless as the stars, but I will gladly share with you what little I am sure of,” Uri started his oration in a sagacious tone.  “A man named Louis Comeaux will arrive tomorrow.  Ancient evil, gods and devils, victimized him in every way possible, finally contributing to the murder of his parents.  Louis chose to ruin his life, but he had help making the decision.  The evil immortals craved Louis total destruction, but God and the forces of goodness would not allow it.  Louis was too soiled to enter heaven either, so he is on his way here.  He has been directed to find True Love.
    
“The ultimate reason all of these things happened remains vague, but through the magic inside me I have seen hints of answers.  Louis is just a young human, but there is something inside him, something ancient.  I have studied True Love’s emanations for four thousand years, and I have a theory about Louis.  If he can recover the stone, then the ancient thing inside him will awaken.  I can feel the presence even now.  Pure magic flows through Louis’ veins.  It could be a force for great good, or a force for great evil,” Uri intoned through his thick, weather toughened lips.
    
“I thought that his quest for true love was spiritual.  You mean it’s a stone?” the tall priest asked incredulously.
    
“Oh, yes.  Didn’t you know?  It’s a giant emerald.  Its power fuels most of the magic of Discordia,” the old man explained.
    
“I’m beginning to have a clearer picture of what all the fuss is about: a being of pure magic wielding the source of all magical power.  We don’t know for certain what lurks inside of Louis.  Evil tried desperately to destroy him.  They must have feared something.”
    
“Perhaps it wasn’t fear.  Perhaps the only way evil could be sure of the outcome was to destroy Louis.  Maybe Louis remains alive because God preferred to gamble.  Maybe you are here for a cosmic roll of the dice,” Uri countered cryptically.  The Catholic priest didn’t catch the flash in the old magician’s eyes.
    
“If Discordia mirrors Earth, how will Louis find the stone in the vastness of seven continents?” Father Flannery despaired.  He remained fixated on difficulties instead of accepting improbable solutions.
    
“I know it’s general location.  Asmodeus has it.  It’s in his palace somewhere,” Uri remarked casually.
    
“Asmodeus is a devil.  I thought gods and devils were banned from travel to Discordia,”  Father Flannery groaned.  He floundered in a sea of misgivings.  Everything seemed impossible or contradictory.  Nothing made any sense.
   
“In Discordia the rules are: there are no rules.  Every law has its loophole and every house its back door.  The truth you’re told is often a lie, and all lies are weapons.  I know you got your information from an angel, and an angel would not intentionally lie to you.  The sad fact remains that there are things angels aren’t allowed to tell humans.  Knowledge exists out there that was never meant for human minds, and a lot of that knowledge deals with Discordia.  Nobody but God knows all the answers.  Old gods, demons and devils will lie every single time they talk about Discordia, and angels just won’t tell you anything useful.  If you have questions about this dimension, then you just joined the club.  We all have lots of questions, and we’re always short on answers.
    
“Believe one thing though, Father Michael.  Asmodeus has True Love.  Louis just has to take it from him,” Uri laughed a deep, hearty laugh.  “I haven’t felt so relieved not to be a part of something in hundreds of years.”
    
“Some of your information is very specific, Uri.  Did you learn all these things with the magic of Discordia?”
    
“I may have given you the wrong idea.  I used magic to look into Louis after I heard about what was going to happen.  Your angel may have told you that true immortals treat this dimension as a great arena.  This quest that God handed down to Louis was planned out as an entertaining game.  It’s all meant to amuse the immortals.  God loves His children, but for His own mysterious reasons He allows these games to go on.  One of the immortals told me about it, and I investigated the information to the best of my ability.”  Uri bowed his head at the conclusion of that revelation, as if to discourage further questions.  It didn’t work.
    
“What immortal told you about it?  Are you free to tell me?”  The priest sought as much understanding as possible.  The more Michael learned, the more he felt he needed to know.
    
“I have no need to keep the knowledge a secret.  A god called Ishtar told me about Louis, and the people who will be Louis’ allies.  Ishtar and I have a close relationship.  Ishtar works for the good of humanity on Discordia, and has aided me in the past,” Uri said in an almost defensive tone.  The old man knew that some Christians condemned old gods offhand.
    
“I don’t know what to trust in this place.  All I can do is help Louis the best I can.  I have enough information to do that, at least,” the priest shrugged, unable to think of any more questions.
    
Father Flannery looked up at the darkening sky and shook his head.  Humanity suffered so much pain.   Sometimes he couldn’t grasp it.  He trusted in God, but the path of the righteous was often a very difficult one.
    
“I think you should know at least one more thing.  All of this information was disseminated freely to the powerful magicians of both sides.  Evil will know everything that you and I know.  The devils are immortals, and have access to the same information that the gods of goodness do,” Uri cautioned the priest.
    
The two men stood on the roof of the small fortress called the Pentacle.  The fortress housed three hundred troops loyal to the ideals of goodness, and the Order of True Love.  Even though the fortress stood on the edge of enemy territory it was fairly safe, mostly because of the Order.  Every member of the group commanded respect and admiration for the strength of their magic, even from the forces of evil.  The troops were no joke either.  There were two warlords in the Pentacle, and dozens of long timers among the soldiers. 
    
Father Flannery was shocked when he found out that the warlord who commanded the troops was a woman named Moira the Red, and that every member of her personal guard was also female.  He later learned that gender meant little on Discordia.  Since women no longer played the role of mothers, many of the dimension’s most ferocious warriors were women. 
    
Another curious fact was that women fighting for goodness outnumbered evil women by almost four to one.  One sexist belief about that, held among more simple-minded men, was that evil men killed the women who didn’t please them.   The truth was almost as bad.  Demons and devils considered the sacrifice of females a special treat.  Almost every culture treated the murder of women as particularly heinous, so evil immortals found it delightful.  Women who ran afoul of devil worshippers were captured, and then slowly roasted alive during barbaric celebrations.  When that truth came to light, the rescue of women from the forces of evil became a higher priority than the rescue of men.  The armies of evil usually executed men quickly and mercifully.
    
Most of the freed women vowed revenge once they were safe, and a woman scorned could frighten the devil himself.  It was said that the commander of the garrison, Moira the Red, lived through three months of torture when she arrived five hundred years earlier.  Her brutality in combat spawned legends, and frightened even her own people.  She wielded a great morning star called “Nutcracker,” and most men winced when they caught sight of it.
    
Father Flannery stared down on the oddly dressed soldiers drilling in the courtyard below him, amazed that there was so much he never knew.  Before the angel Peter showed up in his apartment, Michael would have dismissed the idea of Discordia offhand.  Once he experienced the place he could no longer deny the truth, or plead insanity.  He noticed that some of the soldiers wore football jerseys under their makeshift armor, and others wore Roman style tunics.  The reality of Discordia was crazier than anything he could have dreamed up.
    
Michael took comfort in the knowledge that all of the people he could see recognized the error of their ways and rededicated their lives to good. He glanced at the clouds overhead one last time and turned back to Uri, who appeared to have fallen asleep leaning on his staff. 
     “I have only one more question before I retire for some much needed rest.  Where is Asmodeus palace, Uri?”
    
“It’s in New Orleans, of course,” Uri answered.
    
“Oh.  Of course,” Michael spoke up mechanically.
    
The priest felt like a fish out of water in the place.  He was totally ignorant of even basic reference facts.  He didn’t expect the knowledge to come easily.  He sympathized with all the poor souls who wound up there without a clue as to where they were.
    
When Michael and Uri finished their conversation, an acolyte of the Order showed Michael to a room and provided him with fresh clothes.  There was a hot shower down the hall, and Michael used it gratefully.  He felt no regret as he laid aside his clergyman’s suit and collar in favor of the loose fitting garments.  He didn’t recognize the origin of the clothes, but he imagined they were African.  It was another mystery he chose to ignore.
    
The next day Michael prepared to meet Louis entering into Discordia.  He cleaned himself up and kneeled beside the bed to say his morning prayers.  He prayed for the soul of the young man he was supposed to meet that day.  He also said a prayer for the assassin and the prostitute that were to travel with them.
    
After morning prayers Michael made his way to the main dining hall.  The relative emptiness didn’t surprise him too much.  Poor eating habits crossed dimensional barriers effortlessly.  Most of the troops skipped breakfast.  Unbearable curiosity overcame Michael while he ate his toast.  He was dying to find out how anybody managed to grow wheat in Discordia.  He picked up his plate and walked back to the kitchen to ask a cook.
    
“If Discordia is so violent, then how do farmers grow crops?”  Michael inquired of a portly man stirring a large iron pot.
    
The man gave him an amused look.  “Every now and then someone summons delicacies from Earth, but most of the food comes from alchemy.  It may be hard to turn lead into gold, but it’s easy to turn soil into flour.  Even I can do it.”
    
Michael felt foolish.  He knew that it would take time to adjust to a place where magic played so large a part.  He had been taught that magic was of the devil, and now he was eating food that came from magic.  He adjusted his way of thinking somewhat.  It wouldn’t do to believe he was eating bread that was of the devil.  The thought made him chuckle.
    
Father Flannery found it strange that few people spoke to him, and others avoided him openly.  The members of the Order of True Love proved the exception to that rule.  As Michael finished his breakfast a female acolyte saw him in the dining room, and glided through the room to his table.  She was dressed much like a nun of Mother Teresa’s order in India, but the color of the acolytes robes were different.
    
“Good morning, Holy Father,” the woman said pleasantly.  She was a mature woman, and not unpleasant to gaze upon.
    
“I appreciate your respect, but there’s no need to call me Holy Father.  I’m just a man.  Call me Michael.”
    
A confused look passed over the woman’s face, but she recovered quickly.  “Very well, Michael.  My name is Cara.  I volunteered to assist you in any way you may require.”
    
“It’s nice to meet you, Cara.  Maybe you can tell me why nobody will come near me.  You’re the first person who has spoken to me since I left Uri on the roof, yesterday evening.”
    
“They feel guilty in your presence.  Even though you are among good people who are making amends for past transgressions, they all arrived here because of their sins.  You alone are without sin, and your presence makes people feel dirty,” Cara explained.  “Most of them could not look you in the eyes.  It is a terrible thing to find yourself in a place God has abandoned, and most of these people are still dealing with that.”
    
“I hadn’t thought about that, but they are wrong in their assumptions.  Though it wasn’t my sins that brought me here, I am no better than they are.  And God may have forsaken this place, but He has not forsaken them.  As long as any person draws breath, there is always hope of returning into God’s good graces,” Michael iterated in an authoritative tone. 
    
He could see his destiny looming on the horizon.  If he survived long enough, then there was an entire dimension in need of his guidance.  For a moment he daydreamed about leading the entire dimension to salvation.  The peculiar look on Cara’s face brought him back to reality.
    
“Uri told me that we know the exact point at which Louis will pass through the dimensional portal.  It’s almost time for me to go.  Can you show me where it is?” he asked the brightly robed Cara.
    
“Of course.  That’s why I am here,” she said simply.
    
They set out from the dining hall and through the front door of the Pentacle.  Whenever Michael saw something he didn’t understand, he reminded himself that magic whispered on the wind.  The fortress would have taken at least a year to build on Earth, and would have required the use of heavy equipment.  Michael got the feeling that heavy equipment was a scarcity on Discordia.
    
Before they passed through the front gate, Michael turned to Cara and asked her, “Will we be safe where we’re going?”

“Don’t be afraid,” she reassured him, “the place is not far from the fortress.”
    
The walked north across the clearing that surrounded the fortress.  On the far side an ancient remnant of natural levee rose twenty or so feet from the level ground, and twisted off into the distance like a snake.  They walked up the side of the incline, and at the top Cara pointed to an area of trees on the other side that looked eerily like the grounds of the State Capital on Earth.
    
Cara read Michael’s mind.  “In some places the dimensions bleed together.  There are clearer examples than this park.  Always remember the location of such anomalies.  Evil loathes the feel of Earth, for God blessed the Earth when He created it.”
    
In the distance lay the body of water that was Capitol Lake on Earth, but on Discordia was just overflow from the river.  Cara pointed to a place beside the water.  “In those trees by the bar pit there is a convergence of lay lines.  That’s where Louis will cross into this dimension.  The High Priest told me to watch over you, but you must meet Louis alone.”
    
Michael didn’t bother to ask why.  He descended from the top of the natural levee and crossed the park to the trees Cara had pointed out.  He stood around for a few minutes, and then settled down under one of the gargantuan oak trees.  He leaned back against the trunk and closed his eyes, and drifted off into a light sleep.  He was awakened by an unusual sound.
    
About fifteen feet away, under the next closest tree, a gaunt skeleton of a young man lay on the ground heaving.  Above him the dimensional portal winked shut with a sucking sound and a loud clap.  Michael stood up and studied the young man.  Louis Comeaux resembled a concentration camp survivor, and Michael immediately had concerns he might be malnourished.  Louis noticed he had company, and Michael could see the fright in his eyes.
    
Michael approached him calmly and squatted down next to him.  “You must be Louis.  I’ve been waiting for you.  Let’s get you someplace more comfortable.”
    
“This is great.  This is all just great.  So either I’m in a hell dimension now, or I’ve lost my mind completely.  You gotta love the choices,” Louis lamented.  Then he screamed at the top of his lungs.  Michael nearly fell over.
     “Please don’t do that, Louis.  I’m here to help you.  The first thing we need to do is get you back to the fortress, and get you fed and cleaned up.  Can you stand?”
    
“Back to the fortress?  How lucky am I?  The place has fortresses,” Louis muttered.  He closed his eyes and rolled over onto his back on the ground.
    
“Louis, you need to come with me.  Can you stand?”
    
“Fuck you,” Louis said nastily.
    
“That isn’t very nice, Louis.  Look, if you won’t stand up, then I’m going to have to carry you.  Do you really want me to carry you?”  Michael asked condescendingly.
    
“You just try it.  Put your hands on me and see what happens.”
    
Michael found the threat from the skinny young man genuinely amusing.  He grabbed Louis by the armpits, and slung him over one shoulder.  Louis struggled against the giant Irishman, but he didn’t have enough strength to disturb Michael’s grip.  Louis yelled obscenities as the priest set off for the Pentacle.
   
“Would you prefer to walk on your own?”  Michael inquired politely after about a hundred yards.
    
“Yeah, man.  Put me down.”
    
Michael lowered Louis to the ground.  Louis merely smoothed out his shirt and straightened up to accompany him.  Michael had expected him to lash out, but Louis didn’t want any part of the big priest.  When Michael started walking, Louis kept pace beside him.
     
“You look familiar.  Who are you?” Louis prompted for information.  He accepted the reality of his situation, and sought to make the best of it.  Louis had seen the priest in front of St. Joseph’s, but would never realize that.
    
Michael began his explanation, “My name is Michael Flannery.  I’m a priest.  God sent an angel named Peter to talk to me.  He told me about you.  I entered this dimension to help you, Louis, because God asked me to.”
    
“That’s sounds fishy to me.  If God wanted me to have help, then why didn’t He save my life?  For that matter, why did He take my parents away?”
    
“God didn’t kill your parents, Louis, people did.  God didn’t get you strung out on drugs, you did.  In fact, He did save your life.  Here you are, alive,” Michael pointed out.
    
“Lucky me.”
    
They crossed the length of the park and hiked up the low ridge left behind by eons of sediment deposits.  Cara meditated in the lotus position at the top.  She opened her eyes when Michael and Louis approached.  When she saw Louis a look of shock spread over her face.
    
“We were told nothing about this.  What happened to you?  Were you held prisoner and starved?”  Cara fretted in utter seriousness.
    
“That’s very funny,” Louis answered in embarrassment.  He turned the color of fresh beets.
    
“She’s being serious, Louis.  You look terrible,” Michael informed him.  “I think you should give her an explanation.”
    
“I’m a heroin addict,” Louis confessed.  “That reminds me.  I’m going to need a fix soon, or else I’m going to be very, very sick.”
    
“I heard about heroin when I was growing up, but I’ve never seen the effects.  It is truly more terrible than I ever imagined.  Don’t worry, Louis.  We will make you well,” Cara told him.  The compassion in her voice touched both of the men.
    
“This is Cara, Louis.  She’s one of the good guys.”
    
As they walked back to the Pentacle, Michael brought Louis up to speed on Discordia, magic and True Love.  Louis’ condition worsened before they ever got to the fortress.  The stress of everything that happened to him combined with his appalling physical condition, and he collapsed a half kilometer from the front gates.  Michael gathered Louis’ frail form in his arms and carried him the rest of the way.  Louis made no protest as he lapsed in and out of consciousness.
    
A couple of soldiers rushed over to give them assistance, but Michael refused.  Louis wasn’t heavy enough to be a real burden.  The Order had prepared a room for Louis.  Cara followed as Michael carried him there. 
    
The room was on the third floor, with a view overlooking the river.  The Mississippi was magnificent, even in Discordia.  Michael didn’t take notice of the scenery, however.  The priest laid the young man gently on the bed and knelt down to pray.  It was Michael’s answer to almost everything.
    
“I feared as much,” Cara said softly as she examined the young man.  “He was very near death when he crossed dimensions.  The gods agreed to save his life, but they were under no obligation to restore him to full health.  The heroin burrowed through his body like a worm, poisoning everything it touched.  His sickness is too great for me to heal.  I must find Uri, and quickly.”
    
Cara hurried from the room.  Michael moved to a chair by the window.  He listened to Louis’ shallow breathing and watched the river flow by.  It was almost noon outside, and the hot orange sun beat down through the haze of Louisiana humidity.  Some things didn’t change, no matter the dimension.
    
The sound of footsteps in the hallway signaled the arrival of Cara and Uri.  The old man bent over the bed and placed his hands on Louis’ chest.  A deep frown spread over Uri’s face.  He straightened up and gave Cara instructions that Michael couldn’t make out.  Cara left the room again very quickly.
    
Uri pulled a leather pouch from somewhere inside his robes.  He opened it and poured a fine white powder from it.  He inscribed several symbols in thin lines on the bed surrounding Louis, and then moved to the floor.  When Uri was finished, Louis and the bed were fully encircled by runes set within a double circle.  Uri moved to the foot of the bed and began to chant.  Within a minute Cara and several other acolytes filed in and linked hands around the outside of the room.  They joined in the chant until the sound throbbed and took on a life of its own.
    
Michael observed in awe as the runes shimmered and became three- dimensional.  The symbols rose off of the bed and spiraled in ever increasing rings above Louis.  The double circles glowed and emitted fluorescent pink light that swirled up through the ceiling as the chanting reached a crescendo.  The emerald on Uri’s head shined brighter than the sun outside. 
    
Black shapes rose out of Louis’ abdomen.  Michael strained his eyes to make them out.  They didn’t appear to be tangible, but instead were composed of dark, transparent vapor.  He finally discerned that they were long, narrow serpents, and they were reluctant to leave their host body.  The chanting increased in volume and intensity until the clustered collection of ethereal reptiles tore free from Louis’ body.  The snakes began to burn with an otherworldly fire, in midair above the bed.  An ungodly screeching emanated from the blazing, writhing mass.  Then all evidence of the ceremony vanished without warning, and the room became peaceful again.
    
No words passed between the members of the Order.  Cara remained behind as Uri left the room, and all of the others followed.  She moved closer to the bed and placed her hand on Louis’ cheek.  He slept soundly, just as he had through the entire ceremony.  Cara kept her eyes on Michael as she bent over and kissed Louis on the lips.  Louis opened his eyes, and Cara pulled away from him slowly.
    
“Hi there.  What’s going on?”  Louis asked sleepily.
    
“We removed the poison from your body.  You will recover fully in time.  For now, the most important thing you can do is eat,” Cara told him in a businesslike tone.  She spoke more like a nurse than a mystic.
    
“Now that you mention it, I am starving.  Other than that I feel fantastic.  Wow, you are incredibly attractive,” Louis bubbled like a schoolboy.  He sat up and reached for Cara, but she pulled back fluidly as if she expected it. 
    
Louis’ words caused Michael to notice Cara for the first time.  Her sandy, golden hair framed soft, pretty features.  Her robes concealed her figure, but her shapeliness was unmistakable beneath the garments.  Michael attributed his failure to appreciate Cara’s beauty to twenty years of priestly celibacy.
    
“I’ll have someone bring you a feast fit for a king.  Eat and drink as much as you feel you need,” she instructed Louis, and then she gave a diminutive bow and departed.
    
Louis noticed Michael in the chair by the window.  The young man groaned, and lay back against the pillows once more.  He mumbled, “For a second there I forgot I was in hell.”
    
Michael sat forward and corrected the statement.  “You aren’t in hell, Louis.  You’re in a place called Discordia.  It’s not good, but it’s not hell.”
             
“I remember all that.  I have to find a magic emerald, or I’m doomed.  You told me a powerful devil called Asmodeus has it.  So how am I supposed to get it, Michael?  What’s the plan?”
    
“That remains unclear.  You passed out before I could tell you everything.  We expect to have the services of a very powerful and dangerous assassin.  I’m not sure when the man will show up, but I have hope that his input on the matter will help decide a course of action.  Until he arrives, your job is to get better,” the priest told him.
    
As if on cue, two members of the kitchen staff arrived bearing platters of food.  The platters were heaped with venison, pork, chicken, and bread.  There were also dishes containing candied yams, gumbo, broccoli casserole, jambalaya and crab au gratin.  The feast rivaled the best Thanksgiving dinner.  Michael developed an appetite of his own.
    
Louis thanked the cooks profusely, unaware that the food had been prepared through transmutation.  It tasted the same as regular food; Louis couldn’t tell the difference.  He dug in with abandon, shoveling huge bites of meat and potatoes into his mouth. 
    
Michael let him eat in peace.  After Louis wore himself out and leaned back on his pillows, Michael moved the trays back for him and tried some of the food.  The gumbo was so delicious he decided to ask for some the next time he was in the dining room.  By the time Michael looked up from the food, Louis was fast asleep.  The priest tiptoed out of the room and closed the door behind him.
    
Louis parked his BMW in front of the Spanish Town bungalow and got out with a smile on his face.  He opened the gate to the front yard, and walked right up to the front door.  He could see a million stars in the Baton Rouge night sky, and the moon hung romantically on the horizon.  It was a beautiful night.  Louis inhaled deeply of the sweet, clean air, and then he unlocked the door to his house and went inside.
    
The sound of cooking reached Louis’ ears from the kitchen.  He took off his sport coat and hung it in the foyer closet.  He sat his cell phone and keys on the table next to the front door, and then went to greet his lovely wife.  She stood in front of the stove stirring something that smelled wonderful.  When she saw him she gave a little squeal of delight.  She ran over and hugged him tightly, and kissed him sweetly on the lips.
    
Paula always looked good when Louis got home from work.  She had on a low-cut, backless black dress, silk mesh stockings and four-inch pumps.  She knew it drove Louis crazy when she cooked him dinner wearing sexy outfits, so she did it on a regular basis.  She liked making her husband crazy.
    
With some weak excuse about needing to stir the pot, Paula pulled herself away from him and returned to her place in front of the stove.  Louis walked up behind her and nuzzled the place where her deep red hair met the base of her neck.  She moaned, and her brilliant green eyes rolled back in her head.
    
“Not now, honey,” she told him meekly, “I don’t want to ruin the vanilla pudding.”
    
The pot simmered and bubbled over the low flame, and the smell of vanilla confirmed the contents.  Paula kept stirring while Louis pulled up her dress and caressed her flanks.  She gripped the stove with her left hand and bent over slightly, but her left hand maintained a constant circular motion with the spoon.  Louis pulled down the zipper of his pants, and in a moment entered her smoothly.  Four minutes later a timer went off on the counter behind them, indicating that the pie in the oven was ready and that Louis had just come.
    
Paula stood upright and straightened her dress.  She pulled on an oven mitt and took the pie out of the oven.  Then she took the pudding off of the heat and poured it into little serving dishes on the counter.  Louis saw that she had finished fudge and chocolate chip cookies before he arrived.  Dinner looked perfect, as always.
    
“Could you help me set the table dear?  I’ll go ahead and make your plate while you’re at it,” Paula offered in a voice full of love and devotion.
    
Louis decided to use the good silverware.  He wanted their evening to be special.  Of course every evening they spent together was special.  He remembered to grab a couple of the linen napkins before he left the kitchen.  It wouldn’t do having nothing to wipe their faces with.  He set the table, lit candles and dimmed the lights.  He sat down just as Paula came in with their plates.
    
Fudge and cookies covered in hot caramel was Louis’ favorite dish.  All of the hard work at the office paid off when Paula did special things for him.  He made a big show of complimenting her on the dinner.  Appreciation worked both ways.
    
Halfway during the meal Louis noticed that his wife had pulled the straps of her dress off her shoulders and was waiting for him to notice.  He played coy, licking caramel off of his fingers and pretending not to notice.  When he glanced up she gave him a lusty look and exposed one of her breasts.  He returned his eyes to his food, continuing his little game.  The next time his eyes wandered to Paula she had her dress completely off.  Louis decided he had to touch her, but he could not stop eating.
    
Louis nibbled at a piece of fudge in alarm.  He wondered why he could not stop.  He turned to Paula for answers.  She had a needle and spoon out in front of her.  She picked up a little packet off of the table and poured the contents into the spoon.  It was heroin.  She used one of the candles on the table to cook the solution, and then she set the spoon down and drew the dope into the needle.  Louis smeared caramel on his spoon and licked it off while he watched her.  He was desperate to say anything, but unable to figure out how.
    
Paula grabbed her right breast in her left hand and squeezed tightly.  Her nipple stiffened and enlarged.  Her breast turned purple and all of the veins stood out.  She plunged the needle into her flesh and missed the vein, but she kept digging around.  It was to no avail.  She decided to start over, so she pulled the needle out and plunged it into her breast from a different angle.  She missed, so she dug in and out trying to find the vein.  She continued having the same problem, and repeating the same action, time and time again.  Her breast began to turn black.  Blood ran down her ribs and across her stomach.
    
Louis felt a little sick.  All of the food began to crawl around inside him, trying to find its way out.  He knew the solution to that.  He started on his cherry pie.  He scooped a whole cherry onto his spoon and nudged it around with the tip of his tongue.  The cookies and caramel in his stomach cheered for him to eat it. They demanded that he eat it.  He finally took the cherry between his lips and sucked on it.
    
Paula stabbed herself for the twelfth time, and then decided she needed to try the other breast.  She switched the needle to the other hand and went to work.  Soon she was slippery with blood, but she couldn’t get the heroin inside her.
    
Louis realized what was going wrong.  Paula was doing his heroin.  He pushed the table away, and all of the silverware and fine china went crashing to the floor.  He tried to stand up, but he couldn’t.  He lifted his hands in front of his face.  They were riddled with tracks and abscesses.  He followed the path of the scabs and bruises up his arms.  They were covered in festering sores that drained thick white fluid.  He found a particularly big one and squeezed it, enjoying the pain of forcing the pus out into the light.  He knew there was something he needed to do, but he was too busy to think about it.
    
Paula finally got the drug into her veins.  She dropped the needle on the floor and leaned back in the chair.  She ran her hands all over her naked body, smearing the blood onto her face and neck.  Louis looked up from his infected arms and saw what Paula was doing. 
    
Without any warning at all the light in the room changed completely.  The candles went out, and the lights in the kitchen disappeared.  Everything took on an electric red tint, and the source was a red glow to the rear of Paula’s chair.  Louis watched her playing with herself in the red light.  He watched her plunge her fingers inside herself and then bring her fingers to her lips to suck on her own juices mingled with blood.  Louis knew that something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
    
What looked like a muscular white man walked forward out of the red glow, until he stood beside Paula.  A closer look revealed that it was not merely a man.  He had tiny black horns, and his well-styled black hair was alive.  He wore no clothing at all, and he sported a stiff erection.  He looked directly at Louis and sneered.
    
“You’re dreaming this, Louis.  You want to know the fun part?  Paula is dreaming this too, on Earth.  Watch what I can do,” the devil told him.
    
Paula writhed under her own manipulations in the straight backed chair.  The devil reached out and touched the middle of her forehead.  She opened her eyes and saw the figure standing next to her for the first time.  She continued to pleasure herself while she stared at the sexual organ in front of her face.
    
“I’m going to get her soul, Louis, just to ruin your sleep.  By the way, my name is Asmodeus.”
    
Louis couldn’t stop looking at Paula.  He asked her why she wouldn’t stop, but though his lips moved no sound came out.  He wanted to warn her.  He could see the woman had no idea that Asmodeus was a devil.  Louis tried to stand up, but he couldn’t feel his body.
    
“I’m running this dream, Louis.  I’m in control.  I’m going to tell you a secret.  Paula here is dying to be a bad girl.  She’s been good so long, she’s bored and she thinks bad is good.  How do you feel about that, Louis?”  Asmodeus took obvious pleasure in taunting him.
    
“Paula, look into my eyes,” Asmodeus commanded the green eyed beauty.  She obeyed him.  “Be a bad girl, Paula.  Be a very bad girl.”
    
Paula moved her mouth forward and engulfed the throbbing member in front of her.  She delighted in the act.  She moved one hand up to aid in the process.  Asmodeus placed both of his pale hands on top of her head and took control of her motion.  He stared into Louis’ eyes with contempt.
    
Horrible visions flashed through Louis’ mind.  He saw Paula helpless, impaled by a monster with long phallic tentacles.  She tried to scream, but there was no room for sound to escape.  She tried to move, but she was held in place.  The tentacles burrowed through her insides from every orifice, tearing her apart internally.  Blood dripped out of her pores.
    
The visions threw a switch deep inside of Louis psyche.  He instantly knew the truth of what was happening.  He fell asleep on Discordia, and created an innocent dream of food and sex.  But then Asmodeus stole into the dream, took control and changed the content.  The dream was really taking place on a different plane, and Louis had seen Asmodeus’ plans.  The woman was dreaming the same dream, and she was in grave danger through no fault of her own. 
    
“So you finally woke up, Louis?  If you could only see yourself the way I see you.  You are pathetic,” Asmodeus spat at him venomously at him. 
    
Panic registered in Paula’s eyes.  She heard what Asmodeus said.  She saw Louis sitting in the chair watching them.  She tried to pull away, but Asmodeus was too strong.
    
Rage flowed through every fiber of Louis’ being, and it brought with it a feeling of incredible strength.  Rays of emerald green light tore small holes in Louis’ chest, and the holes expanded and increased in number.  Louis felt his flesh falling away, and stepped clear of his body.  The room disappeared, and suddenly the three were in a place with no boundaries.
    
Asmodeus witnessed every second of Louis’ transformation.  The old devil looked shocked at first, and then concerned.  He cast Paula away from him. The woman disappeared into nothingness, screaming as she fell all the way back into her body on the material plane.  Asmodeus turned to face Louis, fully attired in leather armor.  The armor was fashioned from hundreds of layers of human flesh that had been seasoned, tightened and treated countless times. 
    
Asmodeus grew in size, and a halberd appeared in his right hand.  The horns on his head turned blood red, as did his skin.  All semblance of humanity fell away from the devil.  Tusks sprouted from his face in all directions, and his eyes turned jet black.  The beast radiated hatred.
    
“You dare confront me on the astral plane?” the creature thundered out.  It advanced on Louis’ glowing form.
    
Louis’ no longer had human thoughts.  Louis Comeaux was only one small facet of the being that faced Asmodeus.  His true name was Aleph, and he had waited many thousands of years for reincarnation.  Yahweh knew him, and all of the older gods as well.  In the material world Aleph remained fettered by Louis’ body, impotent inside the confines of the flesh.  Once free from the shackles of material reality, Aleph regained the strength of his glory days. 
    
Somewhere in the heavens, old gods laughed hysterically.  None of them gave Asmodeus any of that information.  The devil had no idea who he faced.  Asmodeus still thought he was dealing with young Louis Comeaux.  The moment was priceless.
    
Aleph drew his arms to his chest and clasped his hands together.  His green glow darkened deeply.  Asmodeus turned his attack into a full charge, but Aleph remained unconcerned.  At the moment the halberd would have impaled him, Aleph cast his hands up and opened them to the heavens.  The entire plane was flooded with brilliant white light, and all of it flowed out of Aleph.
    
The halberd melted into a shimmering rainbow with butterflies flying around it.  Asmodeus screamed in agony.  The light raised blisters all over the devil that grew in size and popped.  Every time one of the blisters popped, light burst out of it and splashed all over the devil, raising more blisters.  The pain shrunk the devil in size, as he twisted and contorted in an effort to escape the rays.  Asmodeus regained enough strength to draw in upon himself.  He teleported out of the astral dimension and back into his body, narrowly escaping total, eternal destruction.
    
A change crept over Louis’ sleeping body when Aleph escaped into the astral plane.  He stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating.  Louis was technically dead, but something so trivial as reanimation meant nothing to a creature of Aleph’s power.  A faint light floated above the bed.  Aleph was so strong that his astral essence manifested on the material plane. 
    
When Aleph cast the light of creation upon Asmodeus, the walls of Louis’ room exploded.  The outside wall shattered out into space three stories above the ground.  The internal walls burst outward into the surrounding rooms and the hallway.  Huge cracks appeared in the ceiling, but miraculously the floor did not cave in.  Almost as a final, whimsical touch, all of the bedposts broke and the mattress collapsed to the floor.
    
Louis sat up and rubbed his eyes.  He surveyed the damage all around him, thoroughly unamused.  A number of people skipped through the rubble to find out what happened.  Cara made it to the scene first, and she looked at him with undisguised fear.  Michael climbed over a partially collapsed wall that blocked the stairway and hurried to Louis’ side.  Everyone else kept their distance.
    
“What happened Louis?” the priest asked him in alarm.
    
“I had a nightmare.  Asmodeus was there, and he was doing things to a girl I met on Earth.  I got really mad, and I changed into something else.  That’s when I almost killed Asmodeus.  He got away, though,” Louis admitted.
    
“I mean, what happened to the room?”  Michael asked again.
    
“I think that is what happened to the room.  If that’s not what happened to the room, then it’s one hell of a coincidence and I don’t have an answer for you.”
    
“Dear God.  Do you feel okay now, though, Louis?”
    
“I feel fine, Michael.  Don’t worry.  I’m not sleepy anymore.” 
    
Louis picked himself up off of the ruined bed and staggered toward the stairs.  Michael followed him, once again climbing over the partially collapsed wall.  All of the other onlookers stared in disbelief, except Cara.  She composed herself and scrabbled after them.  Louis descended all the way to the ground floor, and walked out into the night.  His two companions joined him there.
    
“You should eat again, Louis,” Cara urged him.  Her intentions were good, but her statement didn’t go over well.
    
“No, I may never eat again,” Louis told them, and he didn’t bother to explain his statement.  He continued, “I’m going to kill Asmodeus.  If the assassin isn’t here by morning, then I’m leaving without him.”