In retrospect, a warning is in order. This chapter contains lime yaoi content. Unfortunately, there is plot development during this lime, so it's not something to be skipped over. Actually, you can skip it over and catch on later. There are just clues as to what the hell is going on.
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Particle 05: The Grail and the Salamander
It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With purple glass resting over his eyes, with this slim, prism-shaped handle of the industrial lighter resting in his palm and the handle in the opposite hand, the blood pounded in his head and his eyes were the eyes of some omniscient illusion manipulating all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic rose signet on his long finger, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the laboratory jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like in the past, to revel in this rebellion and change, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the hall. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.
Mikage Souji grinned the calm grin of all men who, if one did not know them well enough, seemed to all the world like the archetype of the raving psychotic, the being walking the fine line between utter brilliance and stark raving dementia.
One of these 'ones' was standing right next to him.
"Are you fucking insane?"
Mikage did not move his gaze from Nemuro Memorial Hall, now burning for the second time in the span of approximately a hundred years. He loosely grasped the lighter behind his back and watched the fireflies over the top of his sunglasses, the lavender-tinted lenses reflecting the glowing particles dancing in the wind.
"Yes."
"You—you've got to be kidding me." Akagi Ritsuko continued to gape at the spectacle. "That's years upon years of research. The entire library, the computers, the data… the…"
"Necessary to hide from the prying eyes of those who persecute the literate."
"You bastard. The literate are safe so long as they remain cognizant only of what the regime wishes them to think. This is insanity."
"Well… it's too late now."
Ritsuko turned back to the flames and sighed. The only scrap of data she had on her when the order to evacuate was given was a password to a rather obscure and, for that matter, infected program that she was going to fix later that afternoon. It was of little use anyway. It was a screen saver that everybody liked and petitioned to have placed back on the file share server. She had not thought to gather any of her other folders of data for the number of times that evacuation drills had been given in the past week.
That was part of his plan. Hardly any of us bothered to escape with data or anything. The bastard…
"We could have buried the data. Hidden it. Feigned illiteracy. There were other options, Mikage. You know it."
"What, buried everything in one huge communal heap somewhere in a field? Wait until it was over and sort it all out?"
"Yes!"
"Oh dear. If only I had seen that earlier."
Ritsuko opened and closed her mouth in shock. She was trying to think of a response.
"Besides," said Mikage, "our names are plastered all over everything we would bury. What if the regime would find it?"
"We would erase the evidence linking it to us."
"Fingerprint testing."
"For God's sake, Mikage, do you honestly think that they would dust every single solitary little piece of paper and search for fingerprints?"
"They have shown themselves to be very bored people."
"…" Ritsuko crossed her arms. "…years."
"Years."
"Upon years."
"Millions of dollars."
"And why the hell did you, of all people, have the right to do this?" Ritsuko glared at Mikage. "You're not even supposed to be here, illusionary body. You were supposed to disappear. Ping. Like that. This hall was finally discovered to be the wreck you made it last time and rebuilt on a huge budget and grants from—"
"No less than twenty of our partners."
"—no less then twenty of our partners—and then you come right back along, waltz into our projects, and torch it again. How can you even conceive doing that?"
"I think it's touchingly ironic."
"You would." Ritsuko sighed heavily and stared at the building. The years of her research, nights staying up after hours in the NERV branch, hours and hours of headaches, the bad coffee, the constant lack of sane assistants and partners... all wasted, all gone up in flame, now ashes blowing into her face and singing her eyebrows.
Whoever said 'fire erases everything' had his head screwed on considerably straighter than this child standing next to her with a lighter.
"But we did get something out of this," said Mikage.
"Oh? What?"
Mikage pulled a rectangle of paper out of his back pocket, unfolded it, and offered it to Ritsuko, who snatched it and scanned it over in seconds.
Her flat expression did not change.
"…the insurance claim."
"If I am going to torch my own laboratory, I had damn well better get something out of it."
"This was not your laboratory any longer."
Mikage looked at Ritsuko over the top of his sunglasses and smiled. "And I was going to invest some of the money in a group vacation."
"It's not cute."
"I did not intend it to be so."
"All right, let's look at the glaring logical fallacy here." Ritsuko handed Mikage the insurance form. "You file an insurance claim under your own name for the burning of a scientific laboratory funded by companies the regime wants eradicated. The regime probably controls the insurance companies now."
"Oh, I have that taken care of."
"Do you."
"You see, I file my insurance claims out-of-Road."
"And getting mail out of the Road? The gateway is under guard. Mail is checked."
"Trust me. We'll just have to take the back way out."
"…Christ…"
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"Christ."
The group of assorted intellectual-types, agnostics, pagans, atheists, and artists watched Paladin Alexander Anderson with expressions varying in degrees from impassiveness to amusement to rage. To say that they were 'watching' is a very loose term, for many of them had by this point averted their eyes into their own left or right brains or to the walls in boredom or contemplation. Only half of them were wearing the assigned white robe attire, and this only out of a want for clean laundry.
Anderson's lip twitched.
"…JESUS Christ is the answer, Professor Hojo."
Hojo was sitting in a rather uncomfortable wooden chair against the far wall, slumped down with his characteristic poor posture and wearing his idea of his 'white robe', which was his lab coat. He glanced over the top of his glasses with crossed arms and one ankle on the other knee. Anderson was visibly stewing, and he was enjoying it all too much.
"I'm sorry. What was the question again?"
"Why—" Anderson said through his ground teeth, "—is there life on Earth?"
By this point the rest of the comfortable study group was watching its dry peer in amusement, waiting for some sort of a response.
Hojo smirked and leaned back in his chair. "The entire universe is one huge mistake. A chance occurrence. I could go into great detail but the mackerel from supper has given me quite a sore throat."
"MACKEREL DON'T GIVE YEH SORE THOATS!"
"I had an allergic reaction. And I have been meaning to ask, is that a Scottish accent? I thought Catholics were from Ireland. I may be incorrect. My Earth lore is not entirely accurate."
"Not all, yeh kin?"
"Savvy."
"Shut up." Anderson looked around the study group. "Look. Yeh all know why you're here, right?"
"We are the more intelligent and genuinely non-conformist and rebellious percentile of the collective of prisoners and are therefore a greater threat in need of an advanced brainwashing argued from a logical point of view, though this point of view will be pseudo-logical and based upon fictitious fact fabricated to reinforce theory on your doctrine?"
"Meybe. Yer're here, Miss Yahtouji, because yer're all infidels and hell-bound pagans. We are doing you a sorely needed favor. Oh, aye, you think it's all torture now, but when you're saved from roasting in hell…"
"Excuse me." Hojo raised his hand at chest level and nodded. "I have no religion."
"…s' what I said. Pagan."
"You are a moron."
"All right, look." Anderson crossed his arms, still loosely grasping a copy of the Bible, and glared down at his congregation. "I don't want to be here; you don't want to be here. I don't like you; you don't like me. Let's just get this over with quick and easy."
"Sounds like a novel idea," said a man with a mass of curly hair tied back in a high tail and tendrils drifting messily around his poorly-shaven face. He was cleaning the lenses of his rounded glasses on his robe hem. "We'll just give you a few 'Hail Mary's and call it a night. There is a book I wanted to finish."
"NO, Mr. Fassa."
Dryden shrugged and continued to clean his glasses with a tranquil, cocky smirk. "Or I could continue to be amused by this exchange."
"Yeh do that. All right, I'm going to call roll. Just say 'here'. No smartass comments. No, it's not in alphabetical order, before yeh point that out, so pay attention."
No less than five people said 'here'. Anderson growled, pulled a folded paper out of his coat pocket, jerked the paper flat with an angry snap of his wrist, and began to call off surnames.
"…Knives."
"Yo."
"Kudo."
Shuichiro nodded.
"Mizuno."
"Here."
"Kaoru."
"Hai."
"Kiryuu."
Touga nodded, wearing his characteristic quasi-elitist smirk.
"Fanel."
Silence.
Anderson looked over the edge of the paper irately. "Fa-nel."
Silence.
"A'right. Where the hell is Folken Fanel?"
"Oh, I think he was taken to the Protestant wing," said Touga.
Anderson growled to himself. Protestants. Same building. The system was going to hell in a handbasket. Why anybody had agreed to this arrangement still remained an enigma of the highest order.
"Why?" he hissed.
"Um, pissed the wrong people off, astronomically bad luck, bob's your uncle, there's your aunt, that sort of thing," said Icchan.
"The poor thing really does have terrible luck." Fuu curled her fingers over her mouth in thought. "More and more I see what drove him to do what he did."
"I wonder." Miki gave Fuu a flat look. "Protestants or Catholics; which ones were more fanatical in torture?"
"A'right, so he's gone. Whatever. He can burn in hell and the rest of ye can laugh at him. Hououji."
"Oh, that would be me," said Fuu.
Anderson completed the roll and refolded the paper. "A'right," he said, putting the paper back into his coat pocket with a gloved hand, "did you all bring your assigned reading? I know you didn't."
"I actually brought it." Dryden set his glasses on his knee and held up his copy of the Bible. "I like to pride myself on being a scholar of all things, and the best way to learn about a religion is to read its primary doctrine. Fascinating read."
"Well, good for yeh." Anderson sat down in his chair and looked around the group. "For starters… well, I know most of yeh didn't read it in the first place, so you're just going to sit there and listen to what I have to say. First off… yer communicating with each other. That's breaking the intention God laid down at the Tower of Babel. You speak different languages and yet you understand each other."
"All right, lads and ladies, stop understanding this man right now. None of us speak English. Stop it."
"Mr. Fassa, I am ten seconds from stringing yeh up by yer intestines and letting the carrion crows have a go at yeh while yer're still alive. Sit down and shut up. Put that damn book away."
"Ah, yes, but if we can't understand each other and yet you want us to understand you, aren't you being a hypocrite? I believe that was mandated as forbidden somewhere in this Bible of yours."
"That is different. I speak the Word of God. And I, as a holy man, may possess the gift of tongues."
"No, that was, I believe, a few people of God's own choosing. Are you committing the blasphemy of claiming to be on their level? To be one of them?"
"Oh, he thinks he was reincarnated!" Utena pointed at Anderson. "You see, he believes he was reincarnated as one of those holy people. He is a hypocrite!"
"Miss Tenjou, shut up; Mr. Fassa… shut up."
"And thus you see the pattern the Catholic Church has followed through centuries of its reign," said Satsuki. She was watching the debate with sardonic amusement. "They fabricate lies that in themselves mandate blind faith and, in return, lash out when any questioning harkens even remotely toward the truth."
"They're attempting to be humorous, Miss Yahtouji, though yeh probably do not know the meaning of that word."
Satsuki smirked. "Maybe."
"Maybe 'they're attempting to be humorous' or maybe 'I know the meaning of the word'?" said Ami.
"I think it's a double-sided comment," said Miki.
"Anyway," yelled Anderson with clenched-shut eyes, already massaging his temples with circular motions of his fingertips, "the reason you are here…"
"We're infidels and pagans," said Dryden.
"Yes."
"Bad lot, sort of thing."
"Yes. Good. We've established something."
"Intelligence is bad, yes."
"Yes. Wait, no. Yes. It is when you question."
"Why?"
"A'right, that's it!" Anderson stood up. His already thin temper was being stretched as cellophane on a rack. "Sit down, shut up, and repent, or I'll blow yeh all to hell and be done with it!"
"Hm. I knew there was that sort of business occurring in the clergy."
Dryden could have ripped through the cellophane and fallen onto the rack himself. He was lucky enough to bounce.
"Meybe that sort of thing turns yeh on, yeh sick-minded heathen. I don't know. I'm celibate. I am above that uncleanliness."
"AH, a perfect opportunity for a conversation!" Dryden snapped his copy of Dan Brown's Angels and Demons shut and stood, gesturing to his peers. "The search for the Holy Grail!"
"Oh! I love Monty Python!"
"No, Mr. Vash, a new search for the Holy Grail. Well, when I say 'new' I just mean it recently became popular through some bestsellers, sort of a revival for the 'quest'. No, my friends, this the metaphysical search for the Grail, its true significance and what light it sheds on the lies told to you by the church!"
"So we're going to talk about sex?" said Touga.
"Oh yes, and so much more."
"NO WE ARE NOT!"
"Ah, just have a seat and chill for a moment, Paladin. This will be of great interest to you. Don't you want to inform your church of what the masses are learning so that you can adapt your doctrine to counter it?"
"Fuck yeh. Fuck yeh right up the arse."
"Ah, yes, homosexuality and what has caused its rejection from the church." Dryden made a grand gesture with his arm. "All part of the fabricated lie."
"Fassa, I am so—close—to killin yeh right here. Ah can deal with Maxwell later."
"But you won't, will you?"
"Don't try my patience!"
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The universe is stationary. Yes, don't forget that. You know things. About physics and stuff. Yeah. You're so much smarter than all of this. Uh… help… dregs of the mind, reduced to dregs dregs dregs… I'm really losing it now…My mind is starving… cannot take much more of this…
Um… synchronicity… Jung… Pauli… exclusion principle… synchronicity, causality, why things have turned out the way they have… I'm just fated to suffer all of this shit, aren't I? That must be it. It makes so much sense. Causality my ass… Um… right triangles and… relativity… my eyes hurt…
Folken made another vain tug at the sheet-dome restraints shackling him to a chair with his head still locked into a position facing a television, eyelids stretched open by tiny clips. The television cast alternating patches of the only light in the room onto his chest and face. It was a very typical imprisonment room with no obvious use or design other than to hold prisoners and remind them, in very plain terms, that they were prisoners and that escape was only a structural-fault-finding moment away if one was capable of free movement.
If they wanted to be good Christians they would leave me in a room with a couch and white walls. Hm, oddly paradoxical, this somehow Satanic dungeon setting associated with their hypocritical cruelty. No, you idiot, don't blame this on Christians in general. They're good people. Most of them. People are people. Argh. Pain. Circulation. I can't feel my hand. Ow.
"Enjoying yourself?"
Folken strained his eyes to the painful limits of peripheral vision. The voice was behind him.
"Immensely. Is this your idea of a joke?"
Mana hovered in a half-sitting arc around the chair and Folken's waist in a position millimeters from being in his lap. He snorted. "My, you do look funny. Eyes are redder than usual. Having fun?"
"Of course."
"Just orgasm-inducing fun, I see. Well, to answer your question, what do you think?"
"I think it is."
"Oh, it would be, but this is not my doing, per say. Just another merger. Getting beaten with the short end of the stick getting old?"
"It makes life interesting."
Folken gasped. A soothing presence slipped past his skull into the matrix of his mind and stroked it, nuzzling every thought--brilliant, random, or subconscious--that it touched, making him feel as if he wasn't utterly alone for once, worshiping him, reprimanding him, cradling his ideas. This was rapture—this—was amazing—this—was Mana doing what he had tried several times before—
Folken shoved the foreign presence out of his mind. Mana jerked backwards with the force of his own mind slamming back into its skull. He steadied himself and smirked.
The only sounds were the drone of the television and Folken's breathing. Mana cradled his forehead in his palms in reaction to the mental slap and smirked.
"Oh, you enjoyed that."
"Leave, Mana."
"No, you did. Look at you." Mana dropped from his hover and landed sidesaddle in Folken's lap. He stroked the tendrils of hair pulled back behind Folken's ear, allowing the side of the earring to fall onto the back of his hand. "Hmmm…"
Mana licked Folken's sweat off of his own fingers. Folken swallowed silently and tried to stare past Mana to anything—the television, concentrate on the television, the wall—
"I'm not interested."
"Oh, really?" Mana maneuvered one leg to the opposite side of Folken's waist and thrust roughly, moving further up so that he could tower over Folken and tilt his chin up as much as the head vice would allow.
Folken caught a groan in his chest as soon as Mana thrust and started cursing himself. As much as Mana was capable of providing dual pleasures to body and mind about which he inwardly fantasized he was not going to give the man the satisfaction of getting him off. Mana had tried this many times. Folken had no earthly idea what the hell Mana saw in him when he could harass any esoteric intellectual in the macroverse, but the man had fixated upon getting him tied to his own bed and screaming.
Folken took a deep breath in attempt to steady himself and clenched the ends of the chair arms. The edge under his claw creaked. There were times when the idea did not sound too bad.
I wish I was completely straight. Dammit…
"I think you really are enjoying this."
Mana was grinding his hips down—hard. Folken cursed at his body for having no control over itself. Mana was succeeding in getting him off.
I wish I was a woman. He would have no way of knowing…
"Aw, that would be fun too. But I'd always get to be on top. That's the only problem with heterosex, as far as I see it; you can't take turns being the one inside or getting dick. Goes for lesbians as well, to some degree. Artificial penetration just doesn't cut it as well. Not as close."
"Why can't you leave?"
"You're right. You can be 'on top' even if you are being the receiver."
"I can't even move. How do you expect to even attempt anything?"
"Oh, chair's good enough. It's actually good for the angle and penetration; good for bringing females to orgasm. Oh, well, I guess there is the prostate gland. Besides, I think bondage gets you off pretty damn well. There are crucial parts of your body that are free to move."
"We are being watched, you know."
"Your captors? Oh, they can't see me. It looks like you're getting off on invisible demons or something. Should confirm their theories that you are an unsaved, heathen pagan."
"Mana, despite the primordial responses of my body I do not want to engage in intercourse with you. Get the hell off me."
"Oh, I am getting off on you. Don't tell me you can't feel it."
"Just leave."
"Nah. I'm enjoying this too much." Mana edged up so that he and Folken were nose-to-nose and smiled. Both of their chests were heaving, though unlike Folken's deep breathing patterns Mana's breath stopped high in his chest before being exhaled.
"Open your mind to me. I can understand the full of you the way humans never can. There will be no mixed signals or misunderstandings. No misconceptions and idealizations later to be revealed contrary to your core beliefs. You won't be so…" he licked Folken's tearmark "…damn alone. I can show you wondrous things."
Folken forced his breathing to level out, though he maintained his grip on the arms of the chair. The heat in his cheeks told him that he was flushing, something he could not hide well for its contrast to his pale complexion. Any sort of blood in his face made him appear as if he was ill, enraged, or seriously aroused, if not two or more at once. It was one of the rare forms of expression he could not force into silence.
"You cannot show me anything you did not leech from somebody else."
Mana stopped licking at his check and hardened his expression, staring at nothing in particular. He slowly drew back and regarded Folken with the same expression.
"…you bastard."
"You know it is true."
Mana punched Folken under the jaw. His head snapped back dangerously as far as the vice would allow, shoving itself into the top rung. Mana snarled.
"Fine."
Mana disappeared. Folken opened his eyes and blinked vigorously to clear the painful flashes of light out of the cores of his optic nerves. He took a deep breath.
… you pervert…
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"What the hell is this?"
The pastors and witnessing-folk monitoring the viewing rooms ignored their one collogue who was staring at the video feed from room number 13, in which the occupant was writhing and talking to himself. The pastor in question tapped his pencil against his clipboard and watched with mouth partly open and eyes narrowed in half-thought, half concentration.
The subject was finally going insane.
"Hey, what's going on up there?" asked a voice.
The pastor lowered his gaze to the junction of the wall and the floor at the prone form of Nicholas D. Wolfwood, bound ankle and wrist with white chord and lying on his side.
The pastor regarded Wolfwood with distain.
"Oh, nothing, Brother." The scorn in the noun was almost tangible. "Just somebody going howling, barking mad."
"Howling and barking? Wow, what a show. What did you do to this person?"
"Well, he's been in our viewing room watching Jack Chick's The Light of the World on repeat for the past seven hours, but other than that nothing else."
"Hm, you Protestants just don't know how to win them like the Catholics."
"We do not torture and maim, unlike your kind."
"Oh, I'm rather unconventional. Don't believe in that stuff myself. Nor do I believe in making people believe that who they love or what they believe makes them hell-bound. Unless they believe in killing people for sport or something. But you… you closed-minded people and the tortures and whatnot, you are what make Christianity a laughingstock. You're maiming the true nature of the religion. Doing a pretty good job for such a minority of the congregation."
"Shut up. You've been blinded by pop culture. A 'hip' Bible, eh? Well, I can see why your own fellow clergy rejected you."
"Good thing I ran into you and not their torturers, eh? Hey, do you have a cigarette up there by any chance? Help a Brother out, Brother?"
"No, I don't."
"Have anything to drink, then?" Wolfwood squirmed in his bonds. "My arms are pretty damn sore."
"I do not partake in alcoholism. Perhaps I should nip across the complex and get you some Blood of Christ."
"Oh, already been there. It's not for getting knocked off of, you know. Offends the big guy up there."
The pastor rolled his eyes and returned to screen 13. The patron in question had calmed down and was now slipping back into his stupor—common defense mechanism. They all broke down in the end.
"And I was wondering…" Wolfwood edged himself at a better angle to watch the screens. "…you said seven hours, something like that? How long do you leave the people in there?"
"As long as it takes."
"Do you let them walk around? Use the restroom? Eat, drink, sleep? Call upon the powers of aesthetic and angst-ridden torture scenes to prevent those needs?"
"We're not idolizers, Catholic."
"Now, you see, that sort of hostility is just what makes good, honest Christians look like jackasses to the rest of the world. It's true. The vast majority of them are good, intelligent people, and because of people like you the new agers look down their noses at you when you say 'I am proud to be a Christian'. Christianity is almost synonymous with closed-mindedness and ignorance, you see? It's your fault it is that way."
"Mine?"
"No, you and the people like this."
The pastor turned around in his swivel chair and crossed his arms. This was just getting dumb.
"Did you honestly come all the way out here and sneak into our sanctuary to preach at us, priest?"
"Actually, I was here to search for a friend of mine who tends to need bailing out quite a bit, you see. Sort of, ah, ran into the wrong people, I guess." Wolfwood laughed. "Funny old world sometimes, isn't it? The irony. But since I have you here, I thought I might as well unload—"
A hardcover book hit Wolfwood square between the eyes by the edge of its spine. Wolfwood yelped and fell back onto his tailbone. The pastor spun back around and winced—he could almost feel the shatters of pain up his lower spine that would correspond to the Catholic's pain.
There was a crazy man standing behind him in a lab coat. Crazy, he assumed, because his eyes were flat, clouded gray, without any distinct pupil. He also looked mad as hell—hair mussed, flushed, clothes yanked askew.
The pastor had a brief mental image of the newcomer tearing himself apart on his side on the floor of a padded cell.
"Throwing in the book for dumbing down and countering biting satire for the sake of fear of offending anybody! I demand to see the writer!"
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Oh, great… Mana. I still owe the asshole for the Fiddler mess, don't I? Not like I'm in a position to do anything about it right now. There's no point in even trying to yell at him about it…
"Mana…" Wolfwood sat up with the book in his lap and glared at Mana. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"None of your business."
Mana stepped over to Wolfwood and snatched the copy of The Amber Spyglass off of his victim's lap. Wolfwood sat back gingerly.
"All right," he said slowly. He squinted at the screen 13 and identified its patron. "Mana, what the hell were you doing?"
Mana ran his fingers through his hair. "What does it look like?"
"Oh, so that's why you're in such a pissy mood."
"Shove off."
"Listen, I know that this is a rather difficult idea to grasp for you and lemon fanfiction writers, but have you ever stopped to think that maybe there are some completely straight people in the world? Say, most of the population?"
"He's not straight! He's bi!"
"Oh. Then again, you can never tell, can you? Well, there was the whole makeup thing; that should have been a tip-off…"
"Cosmetics do not indicate sexuality. Most of the time. And in response to your deduction, theoretically, according to the fiction universe theory all characters would have tendencies toward the sex of every partner with which they had been partnered in fan works—"
Wolfwood stared at Mana, confused.
"…everybody is bisexual," said Mana flatly.
A thin rectangle of stapled papers slipped into Mana's slightly pinched fingers, still outstretched as the result of a gesture frozen with impatience and amazement at the simplicity of his audience. Mana stopped, stared at his outstretched arm for a moment out of the corner of his eyes, and pulled the paper into clearer focus.
"… 'Doom Town'…" He slid the top tract behind the next one. "... 'This Was Your Life!' ...heh…" He smirked. "All right, sub-pseudo-pop culture reference. Chick tracts! I haven't gotten one of these in a long time." He looked up. "Last time it was 'Dark Dungeons' because I was harassing some role players at a convention. That was a great one."
The pastor raised his voice over Mana's rambling. "All right, take this one into room forty-five."
"…eh? What, no personal witnessing? You guys are losing your touch."
"Mana, stop being an asshole and beat it. They're just doing the best they know how to help you." Wolfwood edged closer to a paper shredder under a desk and blindly attempted to push the edge of his bonds into the teeth. "That or get me out of here."
A man grabbed Mana by the wrist as the latter disappeared, replacing the corporeal manifestation with cold air. The man's fingers closed in on his own palm. He blinked.
"…huh…"
"Another mage with a familiar?"
"I didn't see a familiar, sir."
Wolfwood watched the men argue while edging further underneath the dark recesses of the desk and manipulated his binds up and further into the shredder's teeth, twisting his wrists at painful angles. The white nylon rope only caught on the blades in thread increments and snarled uselessly. Wolfwood cursed.
Well, I could sit here for the next three days and pull these things apart thread by thread, assuming nobody notices. If I get them thin enough I should be able to snap them myself.
The door burst open.
Wolfwood looked up to check his visibility relative to the door and, after confirming that he was well out of the line of sight due to a well-placed trash bin, continued sawing.
A disgruntled woman strode to the pastor and motioned his head down to her height. She whispered rapidly while the pastor nodded and gave small affirmative grunts, then backed away slightly as he straightened.
He was not amused.
What's all this about?
Wolfwood slashed the thumb-side pad of his right thumb and hissed. The blood seeped under the tips of his clenched fingers. It was going to bleed quite a bit but the wound itself was not serious, merely messy.
Hope the pastors don't notice this blood. Know I was up to something. Shit… what is this woman so excited about that's gotten him all worked up?
Something licked his palm.
Wolfwood froze.
"…"
"Sorry to bother you."
The deep voice was familiar. Wolfwood relaxed. The hairs on the back of his neck did not follow suit; there was a deep-setting rivalry between himself and the newcomer as the product of their respective occupations, and though Wolfwood knew that he would not hurt him at the moment there remained the inherent anxiety that came from having a full-blown vampire inches from the nape of his neck.
"You. How the hell did you get in here?"
"Protestants don't use holy talismans to protect their ground as do Catholics, foolish bunch. The holy influence is so weak that I can walk in unhindered."
"Mind getting me out of here?"
"I'll work on it."
"Good. Er, out of curiosity…"
"Yes?"
"Is it true that vampires can taste essence and emotion in blood? Like, they don't only taste the iron and stuff, they taste a person's nature?"
"It is true."
"What do I taste like?"
"I would not know."
"But you're licking my blood."
"No, I'm not."
Wolfwood froze again. He swallowed. Mouth membranes possessed the amazing ability to dry instantaneously.
"Then who's licking my palms?"
"Oh, that is just the Police Girl. She's dying of thirst."
"…oh."
"You're quite lucky that you cut your palm and we detected the blood. She was about to go into the bloodlust. Then it would have been your neck."
"Oh."
"Probably severed from your body."
"Ah. Sounds delightful. So, uh… were you planning on getting me out of here?"
"I did say that I was working on it, didn't I?"
"But don't you have a knife or something? My guns are on that desk over there. My cross is in the corner. Just let me have those and I'll take care of myself."
Wolfwood looked over his shoulder. The dark recess beneath the desk was populated with Mephistophelian presences and a pair of red eyes.
It was getting very crowded.
"Sound good? I'll let you have all the blood you want."
The eyes did not react. A second pair of eyes opened from the area around Wolfwood's wrist and lifted to his own. The light slanting in over the desktop illuminated a fraction of a bloody chin and the reddened tips of fangs next to the seemingly membrane-thin skin around his veins.
"Do you really mean that?" asked the second voice.
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El legalo jazzo (in itself obligatory): on top of everything else I have ripped off (such as the Chick tract references), the first three paragraphs of this chapter were copied word-for-word from the first chapter of Ray Bradbury's amazing Fahrenheit 451. My copy of this book has disappeared for some reason. I searched my entire room for it, but it is not showing itself. Irritates me, that it does. I don't know where it went. I have a theory that I left it in an airport somewhere, because I have a memory of trying to read it on an airplane and getting airsick as a result. I get carsick from reading, but seldom airsick. Must have been a rare occurance.
