Chapter Twenty-eight – Student Bodies
And finally, for all those Farf lovers who stuck with me this far (and it's been a long journey already) here comes your reward. Farfarello arrives, in his full psychopathic heretical zealot glory. If you've read 'Deos Immortales' you may recognise this scene, if not… well, the fic's not very good. Sorry. I like this entrance though.
It was cold. It was raining. It was smoggy. There were a lot of miserable people milling around. It was getting dark. They'd been waiting for hours. Schuldig's feet were killing him. Brad's suit was ruined. Jei was late.
Schuldig was listening to 'Baker Street' over and over again, and every time the sax solo started he would begin to sway so that they were getting odd looks. Brad sighed and ran a sweaty hand through greasy hair. Their accommodation was being paid for by Rosenkreuz, which meant they were staying at an overbooked B&B stuck between a freight railway and a council estate full of teenage mothers and loutish hooligans. The water didn't run, the lights didn't work and neither had slept. It hadn't helped that they were sharing not only a room but also a bed.
Schuldig had lain with his back to Brad, emphatically curled on his side. He'd even worn clothes to bed. Brad had lain on his back, fingers dug into the mattress, trying desperately to ignore the regular breathing of the man next to him. He couldn't sleep, not with Schuldig so close. He'd never expected this night to come, when he'd be unable to offer himself to Schuldig because he feared rejection. Schuldig, rejecting him? Never happen, right? He'd never expected to want Schuldig so much. Why did he have to come to terms with this now?
Dark circles ringed Brad's eyes as a result of the unresolved sexual tension that had kept him awake and horny all night. He shot a sideways look at Schuldig, who was humming and dancing quite happily alone on the platform.
Brad frowned. They really were alone now. Jei's train had been delayed between stations, and up until a few minutes ago the platform had been crowded with businessmen and women desperate to get home. Schuldig gave him a supercilious smile.
"We don't want company," he said enigmatically as the train pulled into the station. Brad was torn between apprehension and pride in his protégé. To convince over a hundred cynical workers, worn to the bone by the daily grind, tired of life and living, that they needed to be somewhere other than the station they found themselves at twice a day… it was quite a feat.
The train slid to a ponderous stop. Schuldig removed the personal stereo and tucked the headphones into his pocket. Brad straightened up. The doors slid open and a wave of blood sloshed out on the tracks.
"Sorry, got bored," Jei said with shrug, stepping out from among a soft pile of bodies to the only empty space of floor in the carriage, moving stealthily towards the door. An arm fell out on to the track and he kicked a torso out of his way. Every inch of his clothes was drenched a deep scarlet by the blood. There was no way he could walk through London like that.
Schuldig was staring at him unabashedly. A smear of blood decorated Jei's left cheek like war paint. Schuldig walked towards him and dipped his fingers into an empty chest cavity and painted a matching smear on his other cheek. Jei gave him an odd look. Brad's stomach was objecting violently to the piles of lifeless corpses surrounding Jei's feet, hiding his legs up to his knees in places as he picked his way towards the exit.
No one else was getting off of the train. Brad frowned. A one hour delay. Surely… even if Jei wasn't talented Estet were going to be pleased as punch by this killing machine. Brad didn't catch the look Schuldig shot him. Schuldig was fuming inwardly. Jei was not another weapon. That was all Brad saw them as, resources to be tapped. Schuldig for reconnaissance, Nagi for brute strength, and Jei for mindless slaughter.
"It wasn't mindless, was it?" Schuldig asked very quietly, out of Brad's hearing. Jei shook his head with a smile.
"T'ey are t'e lambs o' God," he lilted.
"Lambs to the slaughter," Schuldig smirked. Jei nodded.
Brad beckoned anxiously. "They have CCTV," he hissed. "You can wipe memories willy-nilly, Schuldig, and I suggest you do, but there's nothing we can do about the footage." Schuldig turned to look at him, then stared around the station. In one dusty corner sat an old camera. He gave it the finger.
The three of them exited the station and Brad dragged Jei into the first public toilet he could find. Schuldig was sweating slightly and rubbing his head. Too many enquiring minds to make look the other way. Brad handed him some aspirin Can't work out how to spell paracetamol correctly! Or perhaps the spellchecker just doesn't like it and locked the doors. A quick search of the supply cupboard produced enough toilet rolls to soak up the excess blood and produce a hose fixture to douse Jei.
As the pink water swirled into a long drain stretched the length of one wall originally intended as a urinal, Brad despaired of ever getting Jei in a presentable state. His clothes, which had probably started off white, though it was now hard to tell, were the permanent pink of the apron of a clumsy butcher. Caked blood flaked from beneath his fingernails and clung to his eyelashes. By now someone would have discovered the massacre on the train, and if anyone saw Jei like this…
Schuldig, still suffering from a migraine, dug into the Janitor's cupboard again and produced some overalls. Brad frowned. There was no way Jei could wear those once they left the station, and besides, they were far too large for the fifteen-year-old boy. Schuldig stroked Jei's cheek absent-mindedly, and Jei gave him a speculative look.
"Are ye a sodomite?" Jei asked candidly.
Schuldig gave him a sensual leer. "When the mood takes me," he said huskily, promise lacing his nasal tones. Brad's heart skipped a beat. Schuldig had used that tone on him so many times.
"How are we going to get out of here?" Brad snapped. His temper was frayed and his patience worn thin.
Jei glanced around the tiny rest room then slammed his hands into the mirror. Glass fell in a fractures rain on all of them, and Jei snatched a few extra shards from the hail to force them into his skin. Blood began to ooze and spurt from the multiple injuries the Irishman had inflected on himself. The damp clothes absorbed the blood all over again and he looked worse than before.
Before Brad could say anything Schuldig had flipped the lock on the door and dashed out, calling for help, an ambulance, a doctor… Brad felt a modicum of pride in the two teens. Jei just stood there, arms out, bleeding happily to death. Schuldig was creating a panic to rival that on the station. No one thought to put two and two together and link the two crises; the dead on the train and the bleeding boy.
Paramedics carried Jei into the ambulance. Schuldig jumped in after him and Brad sought out his car so he could follow them closely. Schuldig needed to keep the ambulance crew from wondering why Jei's clothes were soaked and why not all of the blood was fresh. Jei just had to sit and bleed.
They had been forcing their way through the rush hour traffic for about ten minutes when the ambulance suddenly swung into a tiny alley, almost broad siding a parked van. Brad followed a little more cautiously. The ambulance slammed into a wall and the back opened. In a sight more than vaguely reminiscent of the tube train doors opening blood sloshed out of the ambulance and Jei and Schuldig hopped out. Jei was covered in bandages, which in turn were covered with blood. Judging by the freshly crimson interior of the ambulance, the blood wasn't Jei's.
Schuldig and Jei climbed into the back of the black car. Brad wrinkled his nose and sighed as blood began to stain the seats. Rosenkreuz would make him pay to have the vehicle reupholstered. Schuldig shoved a tape into the machine and Bohemian Rhapsody bellowed out of the tinny speakers in the front, almost deafening Brad.
"There're… THERE ARE CLOTHES AND WET WIPES IN THE BACK," Brad yelled over the loud music.
* No need to shout, * Schuldig scolded him telepathically. Brad shook his head and began to weave his way towards Dover. No airline in existence was going to let Jei on, so they'd just have to count on mild weather for the ferry journey.
* * *
They had put Jei in the 'physical' boy's dormitory. When no one came to shower the next morning various members of staff were sent to investigate, Brad among them. He had a vision of what would happen as soon as they opened the door. He groaned.
"What is it?" a young woman asked. She 'taught' girls Phys Ed.
"Don't stand too close to the door," Brad warned.
She gave him a strange look but heeded his advice. The boy who had been 'nominated' to go first gave a cry of disgust as the blood washed over his feet, soaking up the ankles of his trousers. The girl glanced over at Brad.
"Third time," Brad commented. "It's reaching a point where it's getting almost predictable."
"And you're being a seer has nothing to do with you knowing to stand all the way over there?" she asked wryly, shaking her feet as she stepped daintily into the room.
Sitting in the centre of a large pile of bodies was Jei, knife clutched between his teeth. Brad frowned. They'd removed all weapons from his body as soon as he had arrived. Strip search as only Rosenkreuz staff knew how. And yet, Brad made a quick mental count, there were… seventeen knives in various bodies throughout the room. It was plausible that some of the other boys had been armed, but Brad had no doubt that Jei had been carrying most of them himself.
Jei gestured to a boy with his throat slit and hands removed. Studying the staff with yellowed eyes, he commented offhandedly, "He prayed."
