Benedictions of the City

Ah, at last the final chapter is put up. I actually had it finished a bit before this, but my natural laziness got in my way as far as posting it up went. Preacher finally reveals the full extent of his glorious plan and also confesses his true love. It's a very heartwarming and gentle chapter, I can assure you dear readers. Now that I've finished this perhaps I'll figure out a way to make myself work on my next large story (yeah, good luck to future me on that score).

Chapter 7: God in the Machine

We are currently standing upon a large elevator platform that is suspended over the great machine that powers the portal. Two walkways exit the platform, one that leads back to the stairs and another that leads to a 'T' intersection. One part of the intersection contains a set of intricate controls, dials, levers, and knobs that I am currently working on most diligently. The other end of the 'T' ends abruptly in a suicide drop that overlooks the heart of the massive machine we are suspended above.

Ice sits meekly upon the elevator platform, the spear clutched in her hands and her head bowed in defeated exhaustion. Kent kneels by her, cooing soft words of comfort and solace. Trixie, at the very least, is proving to be actually useful for a change. Yes, quite useful indeed.

"Okay!" Her voice echoes up from the set of walkways below. I do believe she is on the seventh level, we being up on the twelfth. It is quite a climb to come and offer praise on bended knee to this great machine. "I found the yellow lever with a red knob!"

"Excellent and well done, most clever, if underdeveloped, girl child," I call back. "Please be finding it within yourself to pull the lever back two positions, and then twist the red knob counterclockwise one quarter turn."

"Right-o!" There is a loud crunching and churning sound and below me the machine springs to glorious life. I whisper off a series of prayers and thanks to the great machine and most importantly The City.

"Ah, we are up and running! It won't be long now!" I turn and shout over the edge. "Child, you had best get back up to this level."

She comes bounding up the stairs soon enough. She glances unhappily over at Ice and Kent, seeing that her leader is still battered from the loss of her troops and that Kent is too busy worrying over her to give way to lecherous attention. So, as I had fully and duly expected, let me assure you dearest of listeners, she did approach me for entertainment.

"So, we about ready to get this show on the road?"

"Ah, yes, precocious child, oh very much yes indeed." I smile at her and give a wink as I nod towards the other end of the 'T' intersection. "I intend now to look into the eye of a god as it awakens, are you interested in this amazing sight?"

She smirks at me. "A god, huh?" She shakes her head as she trails along in my wake. I step up to the edge and stare down into the now slowly opening metal pit below the walkway. Steam gushes up around us and I hear the happy gurgling of the great machine as it shakes itself free of exhaustion and gives praise to its purpose, as must we all.

"Praise be to The City," I tell Trixie as she pauses next to me, "for She has provided well this day."

"That's the god, huh?" Trixie leans forward, taking a precautionary grip on the railing as she looks down at the chugging and hissing machine. "So the machine runs and then opens the portal, huh? I've seen stranger stuff, I suppose, once I saw a gateway that was all about sunlight hitting a certain rock surface at dawn. Before we stepped through that one I was pretty sure my nose would be bruised."

"You won't need to worry about that here," I assure her.

"Oh?" She glances up at me and smirks indecently. "Why? Do we get a big glowing gateway or something else sorta less spooky?"

"Well…some of us do." She had been quite clever, oh so childishly clever, to take a grip of the railing. But, alas, the poor dear kept seeming to want to return to her fragile and vulnerable human state. Such a soft little undeveloped body that, I can assure you discerning listener, is quite soft indeed.

My claws had no trouble at all slashing open her wrist. She managed to scream then, but I was already shoving her off the edge. She plummeted down into the waiting mouth of the hungry god below me and I did hear the true magnificence of his machinery as it was properly lubricated with her ground and drained remains.

"You bastard!!!"

Let me assure you of this, devious listener, I had been fully expecting the assault of the pedophile after the needed dumping of the underdeveloped meat. I had tried to educate him to better himself, but he was hopelessly mired in the narrow minded lusts of his false belief system.

I spun to receive his charge, springing forward and snaking downward in a sudden twist as I dove between the bars of the safety railing. This, I feel implored to alert you impressionable listener, is a dangerous feat, and should not be attempted without much due diligence, practice, and reverence to The City.

Kent had been over eager and blinded by his Rage into a clumsy assault. I grabbed the edges of the walkway and spun under and around them, catapulting myself back up onto the walkway, only now behind the charging fool. He cursed, realizing his danger and his mistake, alas, like most sinners, he realized them all too late.

I provided a sharp kick to his back that, combined with his immodest forward momentum, sent him plummeting off the suicide dive and into the hungry maw of the god below us. I heard it roar in satisfaction as, properly fed, it began its full activation.

I turn, with a nodding smile as I stroll back towards the main platform. Around us great gears turn and clank as massive chains are pulled along seldom used pathways. The great platform gradually begins a grinding ascent, the whole piece elegantly rotating on its axis as we spiral upwards. Ice has risen slowly, her face confused as she shifts to her battle form of crinos. She raises her spear menacingly.

"You…Preacher…why? Why have you done this!"

"Why? Why to operate the great machine, of course." I shrug at her. "You requested my aid, aid I did freely give. The machine god needs sacrifice, he requires fresh blood with which to oil his gears. I fail to see how we could have activated him without the sacrifice." I laugh, it is so silly of a thought. Really, trying to activate the hungry god without feeding him? Oh, it was quite funny, I assure you, and I did laugh. "I did this so that you could have what you wanted before you when it came time for your choice."

"What I wanted?" Her beautiful cold blue eyes narrow. "You say this is what I wanted! You think I wanted you to murder my pack!?! You murdered Trixie!"

"She was underdeveloped!" I scream the words in not so subtle frustration. "By Gaia! I begin to wonder at the sanity of the lot of you sometimes! How could The City have intended anything but that fate for the poor small breasted waif child? That is not what I asked for, is it. Is it!?!"

I am screaming an awful lot, and it ill behooves me. I take a deep breath and collect my thoughts. I clasp my hands and bow my head to beg forgiveness for my rude outbursts.

"Ah, dear frozen sculpture of beauty, do forgive me," I sigh, "it has been a most vexing few days." I begin to slowly pace around the rotating disc upon which we stand. She matches my motion, keeping the same distance between us as we continue our steady ascent up. "I feel I have been nothing if not solicitous and kind in my efforts to bring about your wishes."

"My wishes?"

"Of course." I gesture overhead grandly. "We are going up, my dear and beautiful one. At the top we will have the hungry god open for you a very nice and proper gateway to a distant Realm that will enable you to go home. I am indeed forced to put such temptations before you even though I surely do not wish it. Ah, but to act that way would be small of me, would it not?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" She stops moving and so I do the same. She still seems oddly tense about the whole situation, and I do recall that spear, though odd and funnily ancient, having quite a sharp seeming tip.

"What am I talking about?" I grip my head in my hands as I smirk and shake my head at her. "By the blessed City, woman, need I move any more mountains for you till I am worthy? Must I fly to the highest peak and bring you back a lock of Gaia's hair before fetching forth the head of The Wyrm itself? I am doing my dandiest to make this courting go smoothly and effectively, and I have to say you seem to be going out of your way to be quite obtuse about the whole thing."

"Courting!?!" The look on her face is an odd mix of disgust and surprise. Then my beautiful ice lady does something I hadn't expected, she laughs at me. "Are you totally mental? I am Ice-for-Eyes, pure breed of the Get of Fenris, able to trace my lineage perfectly to the royal house and the first Jarl of the Americas. I am of noble blood, and even if my marriage hadn't already been arranged for years before my birth and even if somehow the mating between two Garou wasn't an anathema forbidden by Gaia, I would still never deign to even think of a disgusting worm like you in that way!"

"You're being quite difficult still," I note as the platform slowly grinds to a steady halt. "I asked The City for companionship," I announce. "I asked Her quite nicely the other day as I sat stewing in my own, admittedly weak and disrespectful lusts, and lo and behold what before me should appear?" I lift a hand and point quite meaningfully at her. "The City provides, Ice, and She has provided me you."

There is a flare of light as the gateway opens up, a glimmering swirling vortex in the middle of the room. Ice is bathed in its red glow, and it causes her blue eyes to seem to almost flicker and burn with a cold inner fire.

"There it is," I announce happily. "This is your choice moment. This is why I brought you here. It is time you realized The City is where you belong, Ice. Stay here, with me, and you will be queen of Her streets and I shall preach of Her glory in the daytime and worship your glory at night. All you have to do is step away from the portal and come with me." I hold out my hand and smile invitingly.

"You are one sick, disgusting, little man."

"Is this about the pedophile and the underdeveloped wench again?" I wail in frustration as I throw up my hands in despair. "You've got to move beyond these petty, childish, concerns if our love is ever going to blossom!"

"Okay, you want my decision?" I nod eagerly as she snarls. "First I'm going to rip your godamn pecker off and feed it to you."

"Ah…that seems improper and uncomfortable…"

"Then I'm going to split your head open and splatter your brains all over your god damn city!"

I realized at this late juncture that perhaps I had been misreading some of the delicate signals Ice-for-Eyes had been sending out to me. Ah, foolish lad, The City had but been testing me, and here I was besotted and fool hardy and running around with a sword so desperately looking for a sheath that I failed to notice that I had become lost and wandering from the true path. I made mental note to make proper prostrations to The City in due course.

Firstly, of course, I had to make sure that I didn't find myself swallowing any improper parts of my anatomy. She was quite fast, was this beauteous heart breaker of a siren who had tried to ensnare me in her web of lust and deceit. I scampered and sprang to avoid her lightning fast leaps and attacks. One or two of them even came so close as to cut into my robes of office, which I found most upsetting.

Even as I was contemplating how best to fell the fearsome she-wolf a new conundrum was dropped onto my head, almost quite literally at that.

With a crashing of glass and a howl of victory a new player emerged on the stage. Ed crashed down onto the platform mere feet from me, and I had to spring away to avoid the cascading sheets of shattered glass that plowed down around him. He grunted as he weakly sat up, his body cut and torn, a jagged bone protruding from a twisted leg, and his gray fur bloody and matted to him. Above him I heard angry chittering and looked up to see wave after wave of enraged Pattern Spiders crawling over the remains of the skylight, all heading for the offending hole.

"Guess I'm not too late for the party, huh?" Ed grunted as he rose to his feet slowly, wincing sharply as the bone poking out of his thigh shifted. "Where are the others?"

"Preacher murdered them," Ice announces coldly.

"Ah-ha," I raise a finger warningly, "properly sacrificed them. The City does not approve of murder!"

"You sick sack of sh-" Ed's no doubt crude and unenlightened remarks are cut off by some shadows falling over him. He glances up with a curse at the sight of the spiders swarming into the building. "Aw hell, we've got problems."

"Indeed you do," I say with a small flourishing bow as I turn and leap onto one of the huge chains. "You have both failed to appreciate The City, and for that I am saddened." I shake my head in pity for them as I begin to slide down the chain in a painful, if quite efficient, escape.

"Ice, if that's a portal out, we have to take it now!"

I hear the spiders chittering overhead, their sharp claws clicking and clacking across the metal of the factory. These Pattern Spiders are much smaller then the door guards, but they are faster and are here in much greater numbers then the two Garou could ever hope to overcome.

"No." Ice's voice is as cold as the ice of her eyes. "Not yet."

"You can't, the spear!"

"It's worth it! Preacher!!!"

I look up at the sound of my name to see her perched on the platform so far overhead. The wind gusting in through the window sets her brilliant mane of white hair blowing about her face. Her eyes are so cold, it is almost as if they burn me to look upon. The spear is pulled back, cocked and ready to throw. Her eyes meet mine.

"For my pack."

She whispers the words, but I hear them quite clearly. It seems an awful lot of trouble for such an unruly bunch of misanthropic simpletons. But, ah, I suppose she is just as flawed and as foolish as all of them.

I almost laugh as I watch the spear arc gloriously up into the air, a final fragment of righteous and indignant anger. It looks so serene and strange flitting up there amongst the murky sky and glittering lights of the great city. Then it twists and plummets downward and I recall how even beautiful strangeness can be deadly. The spear strikes deep, and I howl in pain as I am tossed away from the chain.

Thus it is we are back at the beginning, which as I intimated was also the ending. I do so apologize once more for my crass ruining of this aspect of the story for you, oh dear and most patient listener. I suppose I have also ruined another part, have I not? Here I sit telling of how the spear struck me so grievously, and yet here I sit telling the tale. So it is, painfully obvious I feel, that I clearly survived.

I shall certainly admit the fall was quite unpleasant, and the spear wound was as painful a blow as I had been struck in many a year. Still, I deserved it, I feel, for I had allowed myself to grow too lax and coarse in my worship.

No longer.

I and The City are strong and proper once again, as it should be, as it shall ever be. Plus, there is the spear, did I not say this tale was about the spear, wise and insightful listener? It is, for you see, I have the spear now. I brought it with me. I keep it safe and quite well guarded here within my new lair. It is ready, you see.

For this was an important quest for dear little Ice, and she threw it away for a moment of vengeance. She'll be back though, sooner or later, oh yes, she'll be back. She'll come to get this spear back from that 'horrible place' she so crassly left it in.

She'll come.

I'll be waiting.

The City provides, you see, The City always provides.