I know this took a long time, but i have been REALLY busy at the moment with work. I'm afraind that due to this, I'm going to put writting this on hold till mid December. Untill then, I'm going to leave you withsomething of a revelation about one of the charaters...
Chapter 37: A fall from grace
'Is that…singing?' Jobe tried to lift his head as he slowly became aware of the world around him, senses drowsily coming too. There was someone singing, but he must be still be out of it for the words sounded foreign to his ears, almost…German.
'Casper!'
The man jerked awake, groggy brain kicking violently into focus as his mind reeled back to the details that had lead up to this current point of time. He lunged forward without any real plan but was quickly snapped back to the ground by something nipping his writs, holding them firmly behind his back.
"What the hell?!" He tried again, only managing to move a bare few centimetres before the things binding his hands yanked him back to the wall he'd awoken propped up against only seconds before. Jobe twisted his neck violently and ignored the sharp crack of bones popping out of place, the growing anxiety numbing him to the pain as his eyes frantically searched for the source of his immobility.
It didn't take long for them to find it.
A twin pair of silver rings hugged his wrists and it was with growing dread that Jobe identified them as hand cuffs, the chain holding it together warped around a greasy pipe running along the base of the wall. He jerked up again, realising that the singing that had lulled him awaked had stopped some time ago and nothing but silence rung through the dingy, damp room. Nervously, the man looked up, but what he saw was enough to shove the thought of those constricting handcuffs right to the back of his mind and out the back of his head.
"Vell, ladies, vhat do you know, it looks like he's finally awake." Casper grinned down at him, the sleek, coal black form of a gun slowly twirling around his wasted finger as he let the weapon dance in his grip. "Ve can finally get things around here going, zhe Lord in her infinite glory knows we've all been vaiting long enough." He grinned, face looming like some living jack-o-lantern in the cold light that blasted down from long, overhead light that seemed to kill all the colour of these squalid surroundings. Jobe, however, didn't notice any of this. He was to busy trying to get his over exposed mind to swallow the scene before it.
Two chairs sat further back in the room. The form of Grace was easily recognisable, strapped against the sorry, worm-eaten bit of furniture with an over generous amount of black duck tape. It ran over her arms, chest and legs making even the thought of standing up nothing more than wishful fantasy. Jobe felt a ball of lead begin to materialize in the depths of his stomach when he saw the strap of the thick sellotape slapped on her mouth but that was nothing compared to the look in her eyes when he finally caught them.
Good lord, she looked as though she was going to have the mother of all cardiac arrests and knew it. Her eyes had gone impossibly wide, the whites flashing feverishly in the stark light and in them, Jobe could see the fear that seemed to be able to so effortlessly posses anything unfortunate to wonder into this damned town. He would have given anything to be able to go to her right now, regardless of what had passed between them earlier.
Virgil didn't seem too worried about the situation compared to the woman (who looked as though her heart was about to explode within her chest any second now as she put up a pitiful fight against the tape holding her in place), eyes fixed firmly on the floor. For a moment, Jobe asked himself why the hell she was just standing on her chair and hadn't already beaten Casper to a bloody pulp by now. At least, that had been his train of thought until he'd seen the trail of rope that traced its way down from the ceiling, wrapping itself around her neck in a sickeningly tight noose. That sight was enough to cause all the questions he'd been asking himself to shatter like broken glass as the blood drained from his face.
"What in the name of god's going on?!"
Casper drew himself up, a smug grin drawn on his lips.
"Vhat in zhe name of god… yes, that is vhat this is all truly about after all, God. Not you as you've so selfishly managed to fool yourself in to believing for so very long. I'm so very glad zat you've finally come to see zhat." He turned and began to walk, still talking as he toured the confides of the small room, seemingly turning a blind eye to all the foul details like the damp that caused the wall's tiles to step out of their organized lines or the thick, black, greasy stains that adorned practically every surface.
Ah, how carefully constructed those words were, they were something to rival even the most spell binding sentence spouted by Father Parker…
Casper glanced over his shoulder to see what effect they were having on his newest captive. Needless to say, he was more than sourly disappointed when he saw that the man was more concerned with trying to snap the chain of the cuffs than listen to him.
Casper felt his lips draw tight. He had put so much effort in to this, the glorious revelation of truth, and this was the audience got for it? He felt his teeth grind together, listening to their whining as they slipped over one another. He was going to have to try a far more drastic approach.
Jobe cussed under his breath as he tried to snap the cuffs on the pipe that held them in place. Old they may be, but they still had a hell of a lot of life in them…
Something slid into the man's peripheral vision. He stopped his frantic work, finally looking up only to see Casper grinning ear-to-ear, Virgil's kantana slung leisurely over his shoulder. Oh, after this, he wasn't going to be looking away, no sir-y bob.
"Glad to see ve have your attention, Jobe. For a minuet, I though you didn't want to hear me out, ja?" His overly sweet words barely hid the contempt beneath them as he stepped back towards the two chairs. "Vell, I guess I just need to show you how far I'm villing to go to make sure you hear just vhat it is I have to say." He lifted the sword, aiming the hideously sharp weapon at Grace and let its tip hover dangerously close to her exposed skin and she screamed behind the tape.
"No…" Jobe gasped, whatching as Casper rose the kantana. Grace squirmed, nostrils flaring as he brought it up behind her head, wincing as he let it come to a gentle rest on her neck.
"You do anything and…I swear I'll…I'll…"
"You'll do vhat? Open your eyes, mien friend, there is nothing you can do, save listen and if you do zhat, no one has to get hurt, ja?" He grinned, letting the blade cutting a little deeper, revelling in the woman's sharp intake of breath.
'Especially after all she's done…' Casper silently added. Oh, he was going to enjoy this."Please, stop!"
Casper fought the temptation to let the blade bite any further. He'd been hoping to be able to draw a little more blood than the pathetic trickle that dribbled down the shaking woman's neck.
"So do I have your undivided attention?"
"Yes!" Jobe cried, helpless to do anything else but beg. "Just please don't-"
"And you aren't going to try to escape again?"
"No!"
Jobe felt the adrenaline begin to let go of his nerves as Casper withdrew the sword from its fatal resting place, and let some of the stress that had built up in him to bursting point go in a long, shaky breath. Jobe silently prayed to a god he no longer believed existed, asking for some way out of this…this torture that didn't involve yet another person he knew being lost to the town.
"Vell, zhat is good," Casper smiled warmly, the kind of smile you'd bestow on an old friend, not someone you were pushing closer and closer to the fragile breaking point of sanity. "Because it would be such a shame to have to do something like THIS!" As he spoke the final word, the carpet of false reassurance was ripped from beneath Jobe's feet as Casper's arm shot out in a sharp arc, slamming the blade's edge across Virgil's abdomen. The girl lurched forward as it lanced her skin, gasping dryly as the serpentine rope around her neck gripped that little bit tighter. Grace jumped in her chair as if she'd been the one hit but Jobe sat motionless, staring with blank horror at the bent girl as his brain tried to catch up with the rapid turn of events. That didn't just happen, right?
The low, dragged out moan that escaped between Virgil's clenched teeth was all that was necessary to kill any hopeful doubt.
"Now, now," Casper cooed softly, placing a hand constructed of nothing but overly long bone and skin on the girl's shoulder and gently pushed her off her own sword. "Ve vouldn't vant you to fall of zat chair, now vould ve?" Virgil said nothing, the muscle under her left eye jumping as Casper righted her and left her to try and stand for herself. The anorexic-ly narrow German couldn't help but grin at the pathetic effort.
And that one grin was all it took for Jobe to snap.
"You goddamn bastard" He jumped forward, forgetting the chain binding him. "Why the hell are you doing this to us!? What did anyone of us do to you, huh?" Silence, save for the occasional stifled whimper that Virgil tried to hold in and Grace's fitful breathing.
"Vhy am I doing this?" He echoed, turning to Jobe, meeting the man's poisonous stare and let it be one of those glorious rare times in which he didn't smile. "Because your false ignorance hurts me. It is so necessary for you to acknowledge vhat it is you truly are. Zhen, vhen God is finally returned to this vorld, even those who reek of guilt and corruption can be saved…"
'Not all this again…'
Jobe exhaled sharply, letting his head bump against the hard wall behind him. He was so sick to death of this tune about forgotten sacred truths. There was nothing, not one element of his life that stood out as remarkable or so fantastic that it earned him a place in 'god's' service.
"Vell," Casper dropped his gaze, slowly re-tracing his steps towards Grace. "I vould be lying if I zaid zhat vas zhe whole truth. If it vas, zhen I assure you zhat mien methods vould be novhare as…extreme."
Grace saw him coming and tried to jerk the chair in any direction that put some space between them, only succeeding in getting a few measly mili-meters as the chair legs screeched in high protest. The man clapped one of his long hands down on the back of the flimsy wooden structure, firmly routing it to the spot.
"Tell me Jobe," He leered at the woman as she tried to squirm away from the him, but the tape binding her was going to have none of that. "Has zhis…" He let the word build up behind his gritted teeth, as if just holding the unformed air in his mouth was enough to make him retch. "Voman told you anything about her zelf?" Casper glanced back at Jobe over his sharp shoulder, spitting the venomous words. "Or is zhis little snake's history another truth zhat you're wondrously oblivious to?"
"What are you on about?" Jobe felt familiar frustration well within him, threatening to rip him at the seems like an overstuffed sack as he did all he could to not scream at the leering man. If it weren't for these handcuffs…
But Casper just ignored the man, turning his attention back to Grace with a melodramatic expression of shock plastered all over his bone-y face that looked as though it should only ever be found on some horrific theatrical mask rather than any organic structure.
"You mean you didn't tell him?" He gasped in mock surprised as the woman cringed against his patronising tone. "Vell!" He leapt up, leaving an utterly confused Jobe to trace him with his eyes as the man began to slowly encircle the chair like an over-sized vulture just waiting for its fading quarry to finally croak. "Seeing as zhis vas meant to be your moment of revelation, I guess a little story vouldn't hurt." He slapped a hand down on the back of Grace's head and ruffled her hair, the action treading the near invisible, thin line between violent and playful. "Who knows, maybe it will refresh your own memory and ve can all put this unpleasantness behind us."
Virgil lifted her head, forcing her pained eyes to follow Casper. The man had resumed the role of preacher as he absentmindedly allowed his feet carrying him about the room, anything to take her mind of the burning agony that was her stomach, cruelly reminding her of its searing presence with each laboured breath. If she didn't concentrate on something else, she might not be able to hold herself up for much longer. Her legs had already started shaking under what felt like an ever-growing effort to keep herself up, the muscles just begging her to let go and lose her footing…
"Once upon a time, zhere vas a little girl called Grace. Now, zhis particular little girl didn't make too much of her self, drifting aimlessly through zhe education system vithout even a drop of interest or ambition and vhen it came to being thrust out into zhe big, vide vorld, she realised she had nothing to show for herself." Casper swooped down on the woman, gripping her shoulder hard enough to turn his knuckles white and gave her a shake. "Izn't zhat right, Grace?"
But of course the woman could reply with no more than a moan, her wide eyes desperately latching onto Jobe and the man felt sick to his stomach at the painfully bare fact that he couldn't respond to their noiselessly loud screams for help. There was however, something else in the hapless gaze, and the man found his mind flitting back to the moment when Angela had begged him 'not to hate her' before leaving him alone in the fog like a lost child. The very tiny percentage of his mind that were still capable of rational thinking began to wonder just what was it she'd done to get wrapped up in this whole, infernal mess…
Casper looked down, seeing how the woman shied away from touch.
"Oh," He swung round the chair, kneeling in front of the bound Grace. "Are you ashamed?" He purred in a sickly patronising tone. "Zhe irony of you even being capable of that emotion makes me vant to laugh, for you see, Jobe," He glanced back at the man, grinning like tomorrow was an alien notion. "Vhen our little Grace discovered she had not a single talent to offer society, she decided to give it something else..."
'I don't want to hear this.' Jobe saw the manic glint is his captor's eye and suddenly found that he would gladly give his own if only he could ram his fingers in his ears before Casper had a chance to utter what ever terrible truth hovered on his lips. It was then, Jobe realised he was just as scared as Grace. Perhaps when this revelation was out, it might liberate his trapped memory and he'd finally recall whatever he'd done to earn himself a place here.
'Don't be a fool, you know you haven't done anything…' The voice of his conscious faltered, its once self-assured words finally failing to ring with their former confidence.
"She gave it…" Casper rose, ignoring the tears that the woman had begun to cry, perhaps in a last ditch effort to make him keep the damming information to himself. Tough shit. "Her body and flesh."
Grace mumbled something under the tape but it got lost somewhere in the heavy silence that had instantaneously flooded the room. Jobe sat utterly still as Casper's words slowly sunk in, but before he even had a chance to digest the bitter mouthful, the man was off again, happily breaking it down into small, jagged pieces that stuck in your throat.
"Zhat's right!" He gleefully turned to the lopsided Virgil. "Zhis… thing sunk so low as to sell herself to anyone with more money zhan dust in their wallet. Can you, after everything you've been through at the hands of a man, your very own fazher no less, imagine what kind of person vould revel in zinking so low?" Even through the pain, the look of sheer disgust on Angela's face was loud enough. Casper wheeled away, pleased that he'd been able to illustrate that point so nicely thanks to his silent audience. Well, he'd given Jobe enough time to come to terms with that juicy piece of information, even if he still looked like he didn't quite know what to make of it, and the show must go on if he were to make any progress today. Casper smartly clapped his hands together, snapping the chained up man from the state of disturbed meditation he'd slipped into.
"But, as heinous a sin as it is, that alone vouldn't varrant even zhe cheapest whore a place here. Grace, however, really managed to excel herself und set herself apart from zhe masses. For you see, Jobe, after oh… three years of living this wretched lifestyle, She tested positive for HIV. Not surprising, really," Casper looked back at Grace, grinning triumphantly at the tearful wreak strapped to the chair, trying desperately to find someway to fold in on herself and just crumple into nothing. "Seeing as she lived such a filthy life, it vas only right zhat she be consumed by zhe dirt zhat she would daily bathe in."
Jobe stared blankly at the woman opposite him. He would never, not in a thousand years, have guessed what was lying just under his skin. People like that… they were nobodies you briefly caught glimpses on the street corners at three o'clock in the morning, undishdiguasble flashed of worn, seductive and soulless colour that didn't seem human from the safe distance you saw them from. They weren't people you knew, least not your friend…
Casper sighed, his sad eyes catching Jobe's perplexed.
"You'd think zhat would open her eyes to how very vrong und immoral zhis vay of life vas, vouldn't you?"
Jobe said nothing, looking at a spot on the floor between his legs.
"Vell, it didn't. She'd been living in zhe dark for so long, she'd all but denounced zhe light. So, she vent on." Casper's hand crunched into a fist as his voice slowly heated. "She vent on sleeping vith men and taking zheir money vithout blinking. Zhis," He launched a finger, jabbing it vehemently at the woman. "Zhis monster said nothing! She knew zhe consequences of her actions, but still, she vent on, day after day!" Spittle had begun to fly from his snarling lips as he ranted on. "Zhe lord knows how many wayward souls she vell and truly corrupted, but I can name one." He let the air rush from his lungs, and the transformation that came over him was remarkable. In the space of a few seconds, he'd gone from launching a speech that would rival one of Hitler's insane speeches to looking smaller than ever.
"Me." The word was nothing more than a whisper but it spoke louder than anything he'd said prior. "I vas a wayvard soul who blindly wondered into zhis temptress's rotting embrace like a lost sheep who may naively seek refuge in zhe volf's den, and because of it, I have been forever marked for my sin." He let his head drop for a moment but Jobe whished he'd just carry on talking. At least then his brain wouldn't be left alone to stir the nauseating information that had just been thrust before it, and as if by magic…
"But zhen, I found zhis town und it vas here zhat I discovered a god, a god who vould truly deliver us from evil. No vone vould ever have to suffer from the evil of such sins ever again, for vhen she arrives, she vill re-mould zhe vorld into perfection."
Jobe shook his head.
"But what the hell does that have to do with any of us!?" He quickly found himself eye to eye with the bony man.
"You, mien friend, have zhe unparallel honour of aiding the coming of zhis paradise. You vill bear the veight of man's sins, and all it requires you to do is remember vhat it is you truly are." He smiled softly. "Now, Jobe, vhat is your true name?"
Casper might as well have grown another head for the look Jobe gave him. Was this some kind of trick question?
"Jobe Hornby?"
Casper laughed softly at his response, as if he were nothing but a child stating the very opposite of the obvious and slowly shook his head.
"Nien, not zhat name, zhe name of vhat you are, vhat you vill ultimately become-"
"Don't listen to him." A sharp groan more that a voice cut in and Jobe's eyes skipped past the form of Casper, looking at Virgil as she struggled to right herself. The girl panted as she drew herself up, grimacing at the pain shooting through her midriff. "Please, just don't-"
A snarl from the now rising Casper cut her shaky words short.
"Don't you think you've caused enough disruption already?" But for once, the girl didn't do her usual trick of dropping her gaze as he stormed towards her, letting her eyes meet those of the dominant party. "You've never appreciate vhat has been offered to you! It's bad enough zhat you throw it back in our faces, but now you try to corrupt his mind und turn him against our cause!"
"Oh, come off it," She lent towards him, eyes narrowed into twin slits and hissed; "Corrupt his mind? If anyone's mind has been corrupted, it's yours."
"Blasphemy!"
"Just look around you," Virgil went on, not seeming to notice that with every word she muttered, the more blood rushed to the German's head, making the chords in his neck stand out like thick strands of wire. "Have they really managed to convince you that a god that's created this…" She vaguely jerked her head towards the nearest surface that ran thick with rot and decay. "Is going to be capable of creating anything that even resembles paradise?"
"Damn you, bite your tongue!" The man had begun to shake, those overly long dancing madly at his side as they searched for something to take their frustration out on. Virgil just grinned.
"I think you're just scared…"
The fingers arched into claws, digging into the man's own leg.
"In fact, I know you're scarred. You're just looking for away out of the mess you managed to get yourself into."
"I'm varning you…"
They dug ever deeper. Jobe winced, expecting to see four little patches of red slowly start blooming from the point where Casper's fingertips sunk into the material.
"You can't bear to think of the concicuenses of your actions, can you? You bought into what you thinks going to be the easy way out, didn't you?" The words began to run together in a frantic torrent as they flooded from Virgil's mouth, still twisted into a crooked smile as if Casper's reaction was some kind of wonderful drug she couldn't get enough of. "Well, take it from me, there is no easy way out."
"BE QUIET!"
"It's all a lie, one glorious l-"
"SILENCE!"
The man screamed, unable to listen to this desecration of his religion for a moment longer as it scorched his ears. Utter rage consumed him, and without a single hesitation, he swiped out with his foot and caught the leg of the chair. Still screaming, he ripped the one thing stopping the girl from tumbling to her short oblivion free from beneath her and let her fall.
Even from behind the tape, Grace's scream could still be heard as the rope drew tight.
A/N: The end is in sight, i'm just sorry it's going to take us that little bit longer to get there.
The end of this chapter was supprisingly easy to write... ugh, I feel bad.
