Chapter Summary: In which we move forward fifteen years, six years before Ethan's arrival in the village. Karl pays a visit to a young Donna Beneviento and is made to go on a revelatory trip that exposes his innermost feelings towards Miranda.
X
2015
Karl bounded up the wooden staircase leading into the Beneviento estate. Once at the door, he stopped and nervously snaked his hand through the stiff gel spikes in his hair. He was wearing his favorite cinnamon-brown tweed suit - faded, somewhat, but still a hit with the ladies - and cradling a bouquet of flowers in his left arm: Saponaria Officinalis strung through with splashes of Syringa, Paeonies, and Bellis Perennis. Or at least that's what it had said upon the tag hanging from the crinkling wrapper.
The Duke's price had been extraordinary and Karl had been forced to haggle with a few select curses, a crooked pinky finger, and a hefty satchel of coins. There was no way of knowing if the bouquet was worth the price - not to his untrained eye, though he was naturally inclined to harbor doubts where the Duke was involved. But the flowers, with their soft petal pinks and pale lavender hues, were lively enough. More lively than what he had originally intended to scour from his factory yard.
An electric prickling along the hackles on his neck caused him to turn around and cast a suspicious gaze around the garden. Flowers were in full bloom this time of year. The many tendrils of trees and bushes coiled like slumbering snakes across the ground. The scent of it all was pungent enough to bring about a pounding sort of headache. He covered his nose with his sleeve and gave a deliberate cough, clearing out his throat of any spores that might have found their way in. Though his specialty lay in the mechanical and anatomical, he had been able to recognize some of the poisonous plants growing in manicured patches across the lawn. Most prominent among them was the white, tubular flower of the infamous Datura plant - the seeds of which had caused several grown men in the village to lose their minds. Karl narrowed his eyes at it as if the mere sight of its admittedly unassuming leaves would drive him mad.
Fitting that the world's most dangerous hallucinogenic drug would grow in the garden of a mind-manipulator.
The whole setting was eerie enough to make him want to turn around and hightail it back to the comfort of his factory. Everything about it put him on edge: the mist rolling along the fence, the spires jutting like swords seeking out God's heel, the damn poisonous garden. But maybe it was simply a guilt-ridden conscience making him nervous. Though, his purpose for being there wasn't inherently wrong - no, not all. He had a favor to ask of Beneviento and if she declined then no big deal. He'd just turn around and take his ass right back home.
Just a simple favor. No big deal. He could always go back home.
So why was his heart hammering so hard?
The door slowly creaked open right as he raised his fist to knock. He stood there with his hand balled in the air as he stared into the foyer of the Beneviento estate. It was obvious from what he could see that the areas within the home meant for socializing had fallen into disuse. Shadows coiled and spilled from every corner, strung through with fluttering cobwebs and twinkling dust motes. A shudder seemed to roll across his already electrified spine, and he had to take a deep breath in through his nose to steady himself.
He wasn't doing anything wrong. Not at all. Just a favor. No big deal.
The floorboards creaked tenuously beneath his boot. There was something so intimidatingly vast about the estate as if the walls would close in on him if he took his eyes off of them for one second. Something skittered away from him within the shadows to his left - a rat, he wrongfully assumed. Perhaps if he hadn't been so busy trying to decide whether or not to draw his pistol and shoot the damn thing, he would have heard the disjointed sound of a child's laughter wafting through the room.
He cleared his throat.
"Knock, knock! Is anyone home?" His voice traveled along the curling stairwell and returned to him in a distorted echo. The whispering of several voices in response could have simply been the chatter within his skull. But, then again, maybe not. He braced his hand upon the stair rail and peered up at the darkness flowing from the upper story.
"Hullo! Bună ziua! It's me, Karl!"
This time he jumped and cursed at the sound of something scrabbling across the stone floor. There was no doubt about it: footsteps of something small, and moving rather fast. More giggling, and whispering. The front door slammed suddenly, making him whirl around and drop the bouquet.
Christ, he thought to himself with some annoyance, wringing the sweat from his jaw before stooping down to retrieve the flowers. The damn bouquet really was cheap - half of the petals had detached upon impact and now lay in a multi-color puddle around his boots. He had always assumed that he'd be the hero of some cheesy American horror film. But, standing there all weak-kneed and discombobulated by the darkness of the Beneviento estate made him realize that he'd actually be the cowering fool.
"Donna!" He shouted with a bit more force than intended. "Oh, come on now. Don't be afraid. You know me! Or, rather, you probably know of me through Mother Miranda. Consider me your brother, and gracious ally."
Again: the odd giggling. It was so close now that he did not doubt that it was real, and not a byproduct of his nervous imagination. The pitter-patter was growing closer now - something was running right at him. The giggling circled around to his left - it passed right by him and ended up behind him as if whoever was making the noise was skirting the shadows
"Oooooh!" Came a creaking, girlish voice. "So tall! So ugly! So fat!"
He thrust his hands out right as something came flying towards him from the dark. Once again, the bouquet of floors dropped to the ground as he grit his teeth and held a squiggling body at arm's length. It was a child - but, no. The skin was too cold and slippery for that. Whatever he was holding was made of porcelain, and yet moved with a vigor that was undoubtedly human. A sharp pain plunged into his thumb and he dropped whatever it was with a yelp.
"You squeal too much," came the odd voice again. "Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Like a scared mouse! Ha ha ha! Pick me up again so I can stick my fingers in your eye! I'll make you rea-lly squeal!"
"What the fuck-?" He growled after sticking his thumb in his mouth and spitting the blood out. The doll beneath him gave a frenzied little tap dance as it spun around in a circle.
"Ooooooh. You said a dirty word. I'm gonna tell! Mother Miranda's gonna wash your mouth out with soap! Maybe then you'll stop eating so much, fatty!"
Karl knelt down slowly, suddenly acutely aware of the way that his gut was pushing against his belt. He squinted at the doll, taking in the cracks along its heavily discolored face and beady, uneven eyes. There was no doubt about it - this must have been one of Marius Beneviento's toys. The man had always had an affinity for fiddling dolls before Karl had been forced to-
He cleared his throat suddenly, mentally willing himself to just ignore the images crowding his mind, threatening to breach any second. Fifteen years ago, he had carried out Miranda's order to have the Beneviento parents killed. Bits and pieces came back to him sometimes: his boots gathering frost by the front door, the rail sliding underneath his palm as he crept along the stairs, the sleep-clogged expression of surprise on Mrs. Beneviento's face between his fingers. Blood creeping along the lace of her nightgown, unseeing eyes rolled towards the ceiling, the upper story beams creaking beneath Mr. Beneviento's weight.
Did you hear the news? Them Beneviento's went crazy. Husband shot his wife and then went and hung himself! Bastard blood, they've got.
That night, Karl had stood on the porch for a long time, swiping his gloved hands back and forth across his trousers. The iciness of the porch step had damn near burned the bare soles of his feet, and the infant Donna Beneviento had not even stirred when the gunshot rang out. For some reason, he remembered both of these things specifically.
A stinging pain darted across his cheek. He howled and shoved his palm against the cut, glaring down at the ugly doll that was now dancing around with a small blade in her hand.
"And just what the hell was that for?" He growled
"Prick a pig, see how much fat sits beneath its hide. Heh heh heh! Karl Heisenberg is a fat pig! Oink, oink, oink!"
"You're a doll! How are you even talking right now?!"
"How are you even standing up? You're so fat-"
"ALRIGHT, THAT'S IT! I'M GONNA BREAK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR DAMN PORCELAIN BONES"
"THEN CATCH ME, FATTY!"
Karl lunged, but not fast enough. The doll gave an excited whoop and went running down the hall faster than could have been expected of a creature with artificial limbs. Blinded by murderous rage and the incessant throbbing of his cheek, he went running after it. The doll continued to laugh as it doubled around him and dashed between his feet, causing him to stumble around in a frenzied manner. She was quick to maneuver out of his grasp with dexterous ease and disappeared around the doorway that he went crashing through.
"Son of a hallowed bitch," he moaned as he pushed himself off of the floor. He looked around in a daze, rubbing his head irritably as he glanced around the room. It was different from the others, filled with shelves bearing various dolls staring back at him through the dark with glinting marble eyes betraying an uncanny sense of pity. At the end of the room stood a single chair upon a raised platform, at the center of which radiated a strange and foreboding blackness that made his blood curl. It was only after staring at it for a moment that he realized that the darkness was actually in the form of a veiled woman dressed in all black. The doll ran around the back of the chair and peeked out at him from beneath its legs as he quickly straightened up and adjusted his coat.
"Donna Beneviento," he said with some difficulty, still attempting to catch his breath. "Hello, love….how you hanging in there?"
Wrong choice of words, considering her father's fate. The veiled mass barely stirred beneath his openly curious gaze. The doll was clinging to one of her legs, and chittering nastily behind its cracked hands. No doubt bitching about his perfectly adequate weight
"Er-" he snaked his hands through his hair again, leveraged two finger guns at her, and gave what he hoped was a charismatic grin. "Hey, look, I'm shit when it comes to formalities, but I figured I'd give it a shot-"
Wrong choice of words again, and the finger guns probably weren't helping…considering Mrs. Beneviento's fate.
"Wait," he stuttered. "Now hold on a minute. I didn't mean it that way, doll. I mean - no, I'm not talking to the doll but-"
"Oink, oink, oink," the doll chittered and he felt his cheeks go red. "Hey, fatty. If you wanna lose about ten ugly pounds then you should probably cut off your big head!"
The only movement from the still-veiled Donna was a pale hand that appeared from her lap and settled on her doll's head. This was the only thing stopping him from snapping the damn creature's neck.
"I…brought you flowers-" he said, and then quickly realized that he had dropped the already-destroyed bouquet in the foyer. Money wasted. Was nothing going to go his way that evening?
He stood there seething for a moment before thinking to himself get your shit together, Karl. Something rather important had brought him there - something that had been on his mind ever since he had learned that Donna's experiments with the Cadou would most likely result in her gaining hallucinogenic powers. Standing around biding his time and beating around the bush like an awkward fool wasn't doing either of them any good. He had to get to the point, eventually.
He took a deep breath in, which did nothing to soothe the nervous jitters zapping through his body. If ever there was a time to pick up old, white-dusted habits….
"L-look, Donna. I wouldn't try to insult you by pretending like this is some courtesy call. I'm here for a reason. I've got a favor to ask you, and I'd appreciate you hearing me out."
Donna said nothing. The doll said nothing. All eyes were on him, including the ones of the creepy-ass marionettes on the shelf. All he needed was a spotlight and the awkward feedback from a microphone.
"You can do things. With people's minds. Make them see things that aren't there. Hallucinations, mirages, whatever the fuck you call them. I…"
This was the hard part. The talking Doll disappeared down the hall, leaving him alone with Donna. He was staring hard at her veil, trying to pinpoint the place where her eyes would be. The familiar itch to remove his glasses crept up on him, but he didn't want to frighten her. Coming up on a hundred years on the earth and he was still self-conscious about the devilishness that supposedly lived in his eyes.
The Doll returned with an old, cracked mug. She held it up to him - her tiny hands only came up to his knees - and he accepted it without thinking. A glance into it didn't reveal any spittle - as if the doll could produce spit - and he didn't think that he had been clumsy enough to warrant being poisoned. Or maybe he had. Threatening to break the doll's bones most likely had not put him in Donna's good graces.
"I…." he paused, simply watching the clear liquid as it rocked around the mug. "Y'know, I was just thinking….it would be nice to see her again." Several small buds came to rest beneath the vortex of swirling liquid. He stared at them, entranced, before finally mustering the courage to speak again. "Just for a moment. Just to…put some things in order. You can do that, right? You can make her appear?"
Realizing that he had been talking mostly to himself, he yanked his head up and glared at Donna. The woman hadn't even moved an inch. For all he knew, he could've been talking to a damn mannequin-
Which was stupid. The whole thing was beginning to feel stupid. Her silence was starting to nettle him as if she was belittling his request with her deliberate lack of response. She was probably grinning beneath her veil, he figured. Her and the damn Doll. Poor, stupid Heisenberg with his silly little requests. Well! He hadn't ridden halfway across the village to be ignored. Though he had readied himself against disappointment, her lack of enthusiasm felt like an unexpected low blow. What was he even thinking, anyway, asking favors from someone like her? Everyone in the village knew that Donna was 'off.' Her entire bloodline was 'off.' Killing her parents was beginning to feel like an act of damned charity.
"You know what? Fuck this." He threw his head back, swallowed whatever was in the mug and tossed her a scathing glare. "Fuck you. The least you could have done was told me 'no,' you know that? Instead of just sitting there staring at me like some sort of freak. There are rules to things like this, but maybe you're too young to know that. When a man comes to you in good graces, casting his pride aside so that he can ask for a simple goddamn favor, you don't ignore him! Got that? Shit like that hurts! And I'm tired of being hurt by you god-forsaken women!"
He tossed the mug on the ground and she flinched, finally, as the shards scattered around the floor. "Thanks for the drink, Donna," he said after wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
He turned away in a flush of coat tails and stormed out of the room. His legs had taken on an odd jelly-like feeling but he barely noticed as he stumbled through the hall. At some point, he paused and braced his hand against the wall. Something was wrong. His head felt light as a balloon and an electric tingling was quickly spreading through his fingers. A groan escaped his throat as he lifted his hand into the dim light and stared at it as if it was a strange, detached thing. Beyond the spaces between his fingers, he could see the door at the of the hall. It was moving, farther and farther away from him as the dimensions of the walls began to shift. This wasn't anything like a cocaine high, or even marijuana high.
He had no doubt about it. Something had been in the damn drink that Beneviento's Doll had given him.
Fuck.
His legs began to churn mechanically beneath him, moving him of their own accord towards the door. The walls around him started to melt and crack, the exposed nails and jagged wood sticking out like teeth along a rotted jaw. His breath came in ragged gasps, the mist taking the form of spectral caricatures that danced around his head. Keep going, keep going, he warned himself as he fell to his knees and began to crawl towards the door. All he knew was that he had to get out of the Beneviento estate fast, lest the woman got any funny notions about taking advantage of his altered state.
"Nnnng, fuck." He closed his eyes, thrust his hands out, and barreled through the doorway.
X
The scenery beyond the doorway was different than he remembered. He shivered and stepped out upon the lonely sidewalk. Skyscrapers loomed on either side of him, their windows winking with fluorescent yellow lights of abandoned office spaces and empty homes. Neon lights twinkled all around him: advertisements for shaving razors, Coca-Cola, and Newport Cigarettes. He knew where he was, though he wasn't really there: San Francisco. He had seen the very same street depicted in the newspapers that sometimes made their way into the village. Above him, the dizzying levels of an old performance venue loomed like a sentry with many glassy eyes. Golden Gate Theater - he had heard about this, too.
There was a small booth encased in blurred-over glass jutting out from beneath the awning. A soft tapping was coming from the booth - someone was knocking on the window to get his attention. Seeing no other option but to follow the source of the noise, he wandered over to it with his hands tucked beneath his armpits. There was a crackle from the speaker within the booth and then a staticky, feminine voice.
"Y'ever wonder if Jesus was at some point jealous of Lucifer? Y'know like, in a sibling rivalry way. I heard that ol' Lucy and God-duh were pals before Lucy was cast down. Hm. If I hated someone, I might drive nails through their hands but I sure in the hell wouldn't give them an entire dominion to rule-"
The sound of her voice sent a jolt through his entire body and he began to run towards the booth. In his haste, he collided with the glass and went reeling backward with his hand over his throbbing forehead. Marianne watched all of this from behind the window with a crooked smile on her face. There was nothing - absolutely nothing else in the world that he could have desired more than to see her again. And there she suddenly was.
"Steady there, cowboy," she said as he shook his head and looked up at her again. Whatever glass had been used to enclose the booth must have been made of strong stuff. No matter how much he clawed and pounded at it with his fist, he simply could not break through to her. He huffed in irritation and pressed his face right up against the glass, his hands splayed helplessly above him as she began to laugh. Fog from his breath momentarily obscured her face and he wiped away at it irritably.
"Marianne Wilder," he sighed. "Is it really-?"
She nodded. "It's me," she said in that oh-so-familiar voice before pressing a button on the old-fashioned machine upon her desk. A small, perforated piece of paper shuffled out from the machine and she slid it beneath a hole cut out at the bottom of the window. "Admission for one?" She asked.
"What? No - I'm not here to see some damn movie! I'm here for you! I came all of this way just to see you again. Get out of that damn booth, doll. Please. Have mercy. Grant me one more opportunity to-"
"You will, Karl. You'll get your chance. But there are some things that you need to learn first." She tilted her chin at the ticket sticking out from the window. "Admission for one?"
"NO! WAIT-"
She reached up and unclasped the velvet curtains. The last thing that he saw was her tepid smile before the heavy cloths flushed across the window, obscuring her from sight. He stood there for a moment, simply panting in the cold before swiping up the ticket and thrusting it into his coat pocket. The gilded doors to the performance venue were open, and he wandered through them in a daze.
Once inside the grand foyer, he stopped before the carpeted staircase and glanced back at the booth. A 'closed' sign hung crooked upon its hinges, and he intuitively knew that she was no longer there. The hallucinations conjured up by Beneviento seemed to follow the same logic as his dreams: somehow, he knew where he was supposed to go, and yet he did not know why, or how. He slid his hand along the stair rail as he wandered up the staircase, his eyes sliding back and forth as he took in the faded posters lining the wall. There were images depicted there but, in his altered state of consciousness, they appeared foreign and indecipherable.
There was a soft hiss and a door at the end of the hall opened for him. Above it lay a faded sign enclosed in faded gold: A Greater Showman than God - Act One. He followed the swirling smoke into a small theater room filled with rows upon rows of empty black chairs. For no other reason than to see where this would all go, he settled himself in the middlemost chair of the row closest to the stage. An old-timey bucket full of popcorn appeared in his lap and he instinctively tossed a handful in his mouth.
The lights dimmed. The velvet curtain above the stage rose, revealing a static screen. An upbeat piano accompanied the flashing countdown on the screen.
"Entry of the Gladiators," he said to himself, having finally placed the identity of the tune. It was the one used for circus acts, and a prelude to that which was whimsical and easily made fun of. A deep-seated insecurity within him made him wonder if it was being played at his expense.
But before he could crook his pinky finger in the air and curse Donna's name, the scene on the screen changed. The words Frankenstein's Monster unfurled in spooky gray text before rolling away, revealing a black-and-white image of Miranda's laboratory. In it, a small boy was strapped to a table with a blindfold over his face.
"Papa?" The boy asked in a small voice. Various tubes and gadgets were sticking out of him, and his skin had been patched together with rather clumsy stitches. Laughter rippled throughout the empty theater and he thrust another handful of popcorn into his mouth.
Then, like a miracle, Miranda appeared onscreen. She was dressed in thin black cloths that swirled gracefully around her body as she moved. He didn't know why, but the sight of her brought him a small sense of comfort in the strange space. She glanced up, but if she was looking at him or the camera, he didn't know. She lifted a glass jar above the boy's head and mouthed the word 'Cadou.' But there was no Cadou inside of the jar, only an upside-down cross suspended in the liquid.
A shadow interrupted the projector's beam as a stooped man moved across the stage. He was wearing an old red jumpsuit and pushing a mop across the stage as he made his laborious approach toward Karl.
"You mind getting the fuck out of the way?" Karl called to him irritably and the man snickered. Onscreen, Miranda had wheeled a tray next to the blinded boy and was setting medical equipment on it.
Unfortunately, the man did as he was told and settled himself into the seat beside Karl with a groan. Karl snickered, slightly, and chewed rather aggressively around the popcorn kernel in his mouth.
"God never abandoned you," the old man croaked. "He's been with you this whole time, waiting patiently in the shadows for you to come back to Him."
"Papa! What an unpleasant surprise."
His father stared back at him out of the corner of his eye, his ancient body curled slightly upon itself within the threadbare seat. "And so you wonder why you've been put through hell and back….why He would allow you to be tortured and abused for so long. The Devil latched onto you, boy, and God so loved you that he spent his days attempting to beat the Devil right out of you."
"Via angelic agents such as you and my brother, I suppose," Karl said, rather sardonically.
His father nodded. "God works in many ways. Ninety-four years, son, he's been working in your favor." Onscreen, Miranda was running a scalpel across the fabric of her dress and gazing thoughtfully at the boy beneath her. There was a small patch upon the breast of Jebediah's jumpsuit that simply read The Father. "God loves you more than he loves His own son. He gave you powers, didn't He? You wield judgment upon the villagers of the land: you take them, smite them down, and rebuild them anew as your miracle machines. Just as Jesus did with his followers. But I'll tell you something, son: Jesus died upon the cross and he ain't come back. Yet here you are…ageless, powerful, hailed as 'Lord' amongst your people. Tell me...who does God love more?"
"Well!When you put it that way…"
"Lord Heisenberg," his father said with so much loving pride that it made Karl uncomfortable. "Beware those who will try to usurp your power. God gave you a gift because He loves you. She-" Jebediah crooked his jaw and tossed his chin in disgust towards the screen. "Gave you a gift because she did not think you would be able to bear its weight. Tell me…who do you love more?"
Karl stared at Miranda's on-screen specter. She was glaring at him, her lip slowly curling over her perfect white teeth. Without looking away, she raised the scalpel and began to plunge it violently into the boy's body. The boy wailed and thrashed, splattering both her and the screen with black droplets of blood. But still, she seemed to hold Karl's eye with a hatred unparalleled. It was a horrifying sight that made him twist around in his chair and dig the heels of his palms into his eyes.
"Wake the fuck up, Karl," he heard his father say. He looked up, just in time to see the handle of his father's mop flying towards his face. It collided with his forehead with a hollow thunk and he closed his eyes against the impact-
X
-an explosion sounded off to the left of him, momentarily deafening him. He put his hands over his ears and knelt down, right as a group of teenagers went barreling past him. They were all carrying flags and banners, the bottom halves of their faces hidden beneath dark bandanas. He was no longer in the theater, but smack dab in the middle of a street darkened with smoke and firelight. Another explosion sounded off and the rushing crowd screamed in response. Farther ahead of him was a barricade made up of policemen wielding shields against the jostling crowd. As he watched in confusion, one of the protesters thrust a bouquet of flowers back and then threw it full force at the barricade.
"Wh…what? What?"
Someone slid a cold bottle into his hand. It was filled with liquid and had a small cloth shoved into the opening. A molotov cocktail. He looked up in surprise and found Ken standing beside him, dressed similarly to the protesters and carrying a flag in the crook of his arms bearing the painted words The Son.
"What the fuck is this?" He asked and Ken's smile broadened. This version of him looked healthier: unblemished skin, bright eyes, flashing white teeth. Karl remembered that he was still suffering the hallucinations brought on by Beneviento's cocktail. In this world, Ken had appeared in some strange and beautiful idealized version of himself.
"This is America," Ken said. He held a lit match to his own molotov cocktail and crooked his arm back. "Or, what you imagine it to be: the land of pussy, protest, and pot! Radicalized movement! Revolution! Aggressive progression. Cover your ears, brother!"
Karl did as he was told and turned away, right as Ken lobbed the cocktail at the barricade. The police force stepped back at one as the Molotov flared violently beneath their boots. The crowds gave an ecstatic yell. Karl realized that he was still holding his own weapon. Without thinking, he accepted the lighter handed to him and lit the cloth.
"It's nice, isn't it?" Ken yelled to him over the cacophony. An electric sense of euphoria lit itself within Karl's body as he slung his arm back and then threw the Molotov at the barricade. "Just wait until you get to Act Three!"
Fireworks exploded across the sky: flashes of red, white, and blue. Ken grabbed Karl's arm and dragged him towards the awning of a boarded-up building. They huddled on their haunches with small smiles as they watched the crowd move about in a frenzy. Karl had never seen a group of people so frantic before: it was vivifying, frightening, and feral. Such energy had never before been seen in the village, and he loved every second of it. Miranda was there, beyond the barricade, sitting tall upon a white horse and wielding a baton at her side. Their gazes met from across the way and she narrowed her eyes in hatred. Karl was beginning to see the connection.
"Look at that, brother!" Ken put his arms around Karl's shoulders and spoke right into his ear. "The way that she's looking at you! You were never more than an experiment to her! We both were! She took us and played with us when we were young. Like some kind of fucking kiddy-diddler! That crazy bitch has never been right in the head!"
Ken threw himself over Karl as the street erupted in gunfire. The protesters fell back, stumbling over each other as the bullets cut them down. Still, some fought back. Several people wearing gas masks were quick to drag their companions away as a hazy green smoke erupted along the ground. Ken was still speaking, his words urgent and tinged with desperation.
"We're all a bunch of failed Cadou experiments to her. We're just lucky that we had more affinity to the stuff than the other bastards in the village….so she calls us sons? Ha! Not because she loves us, but because she pities us! She can't see the difference between 'family' and experiments.'"
"What are you saying?" Karl screamed back over the noise."
"Only this: if dignity can't be given, then it can't be taken. So why the fuck does she think she has the right to take yours!?"
A movement along the edge of the crowd caught his eye. A tall man in a pristine white medical coat was strolling along the sidewalk, either completely unaware of the chaos around him or simply uninterested in it. A small crowd of similarly-dressed people was following him, all of them somber and holding clipboards in the crook of their arms. The man moved with such gravitas and self-assurance that Karl couldn't help but fall into the trance at the sight of him. The glinting telescope swung across his chest as the man looked up. Karl's breath caught in his throat and he fell back into Ken's arms. The man in the lab coat wasn't a stranger - it was him, Karl Heisenberg. Just as Ken had appeared as an idealized version of himself, Karl was looking into the eyes of the man who he, deep down, had always wanted to be.
In another life, and another time, he was a well-versed doctor practicing his craft in the freedom of America.
The Other Karl narrowed his eyes and mouthed something that Karl felt was most likely scathing in nature. Then he turned with a deep scowl and continued to walk in slow-measured steps until he was enveloped completely by the crowd. Karl's eyes followed his trajectory as he gave a shaky sigh. Ken was shaking his shoulder, trying to get his attention.
"Wh…what? What?" Karl said disjointedly. He saw Ken give a handsome from the corner of his eye as he wound his fist back. Karl had a sense he knew what was coming.
"I said: wake the fuck up, Karl!"
Karl attempted to brace his hands against his crotch, but Ken was too fast for him. Stars erupted all around his head at the jolting impact and he closed his eyes against the pain-
X
-the first thing to hit him was the smell of perfume. Then, the color red, seemingly viscous and glossy upon the walls. It was everywhere: red glassware, small golden lights encased in stained glass red bubbles, red-tinted mist wafting through the room. There was a soft vibration coursing from the floor beneath his boots, making him feel as if he was in the beating chambers of some monstrous heart.
The perfume was strong enough to make him sneeze. He opened his eyes again and saw, over the crook of his elbow, a roulette table beneath him. A ball was clattering at a dizzying speed along the spinning bowl, and there was a deck of cards standing beneath him. Of course, he was in his infamous cinnamon-brown tweed suit. But the bare patches and fade along the elbow paddings had disappeared, lending the suit a splendid and glowing air. The heavy rings upon his fingers were made of solid gold, and the scratches along his cross pendant seemed to have disappeared completely.
Someone ran their finger along his jaw, gently tracing the coarse hair lining his cheeks before letting their finger come to rest upon his bottom lip. He picked up the deck with a shudder and knocked it upon the table as he looked around. A group of women were staring back at him from their places around the table and, judging by their expressions, there wasn't a buffet in the world that could satiate their hunger. He knew all of them, most by body and not by name. These were all of the women that he had taken time and time again to his office, his bedroom, the kitchen, the staircase, even the damned outhouse at the edge of the factory when he was desperate enough.
Except they, too, seemed to have appeared as idealized versions of themselves. Their smiles were genuine and their faces were flush with lovely golden hues. Their drab village garb had been traded for with cream-colored silks, flowing chiffon, and glistening rayon with beaded tassels. The Americanized 1920s had unfurled before him in a dazzling array.
A woman was sitting to his left, her head thrown back and arm draped across her chair as a heavy cloud of cigar smoke gusted from between her pursed lips. She threw her head forward and crooked her full lips into a red-ruby smile. Sharp nose, milk-tea tan skin, cheeks that could cut a man's lips right off his face he tried to kiss her-
Mihaela.
Of course, he remembered her. Her real-life death had in no way wiped the splendor of her memory from his mind. In this dream, her hair had been bleached to the infamous American yellow-blonde and curled into loose loops around her hoop earrings. If she was a Siren simmering in Hell, he would have gladly bypassed the glittering gates of heaven.
Moved by dream instinct, he lifted a pair of dice to her lips and she blew daintily across them.
"You never liked to blow my dice when you were alive," he growled and she sucked her teeth.
"I'll be the first to admit that I've made a few mistakes in life. Refusing to blow your dice is high on that list. But that doesn't matter. Pay attention, sweetie. Your opponent is waiting."
Karl's eyebrows rose as he followed her finger, which was pointing across the table. There, at the end of the table, sat Miranda. She was dressed in her Prophetess attire and was knocking a deck of cards emphatically against her palm. At this point, the sight of her had begun to unnerve him and set a sour taste upon his tongue. She barely looked up at him as she shuffled her cards, instead keeping her gaze leveled at the table. This, for some reason, infuriated him.
The lights above the stage of the casino flashed to life, spelling out the words The Unholy Ghosts. A lone woman sporting ruby-encrusted peacock feathers and nothing more sauntered onto a stage, cradling a large snake wrapped loosely along her shoulders. Mihaela thrust her hand in the wheel, stopping the ball on a number. She flashed the number three at him and he drew three cards. It was a tarot deck and the cards that he had drawn were The Fool, Death, and The Emperor. Moved by dream instinct once again, he chose the Death card and turned it to face Miranda. The woman scowled in response and turned her attention back to her deck. The dancer on stage opened her mouth, tilted her head back, and began to swallow the snake in slow, deliberate gulps.
"You were always the most handsome man in the village," Mihaela purred, tickling the nail of her pointer finger along the back of his neck. Several women snickered at the queasy expression riding his face. The woman on the stage had completely devoured the snake and was licking her lips in satisfaction. "Must be tough, having to always carry such a big ego around beneath your belt-"
"Don't play coy with me, Mihaela, I know how you all truly feel."
"Coy?" She repeated, affronted. "You've been tricked into thinking that you're worth nothing. 'A woman who hates you won't invite you to shove your manhood into the most vulnerable part of her body for five years straight.' Those eyes….that voice…that demeanor of yours. Karl. You were the serpent that tempted every Eve in this village. You are so-"
"-irresistible," someone whispered.
Karl wasn't stupid. He knew that there was an element of subjectivity at play. All that was taking place then was simply a byproduct of his mind interacting with whatever the Beneviento Doll had put into his drink. This was all but a dream to him, one in which each and every fantasy had come to fruition before him. Still, though, he wasn't one to complain, not when it came to a table full of women staring adoringly back at him.
Except for Miranda. Mihaela stopped the ball spinning around the roulette wheel again, and held up eight fingers towards Miranda.
"Every Eve except for one," Mihaela continued. Miranda was dragging her finger across the eight cards that she had drawn. Mihaela looked pointedly at her and then back to Karl. "You've seen the way that she looks at you when she thinks you're not looking back. Out of the corner of your eye, you have seen her biting her lip…watching you…thinking about you…tasting you already. So she's said that every little boy is in some way, somehow, seeking out their mother. And yet. She's been seeking you out for eighty-five years. Pining for you." Mihaela shook her head, causing the fountain of curls to wriggle around her face. "She keeps you tethered at arm's length with words like 'son' and 'mother' - she is…teasing you, Karl."
Across the table, Miranda wordlessly chose a card and turned it around to face him. He leaned forward and squinted at it. The Knight of Swords. Miranda flicked her wrist and turned the card around, revealing the name Ethan scribbled along the back.
"She'll never let you fuck her," Mihaela continued as she twirled a strand of his hair around her finger. "You both want it, but she'll never let you have it. She thinks that her pussy is too good for you. I honestly don't know how she got herself pregnant with that holier-than-thou chastity belt clamped tight between her legs. You're not good enough for her," Mihaela added. "You never were and you never will be. Karl. Sweetie. Wake the fuck up."
Karl tensed his shoulders, knowing what was coming. The last thing he saw was Miranda's salacious smile before Mihaela grabbed a champagne bottle and smashed it across his face-
X
-he was on a cliff now. A lone figure stood at the cliff's edge, staring down into the roaring sea. He gave a relieved sigh and began to walk forward, feeling every ache and creak in his old bones. Who knew that traveling through multiple drug-addled dreamscapes could be so tiring?
He wrapped his arms around Marianne's waist, simply breathing her in. She was still so tiny that he feared squeezing her any tighter would cause her bones to collapse beneath his hold.
"Lubirea mea," he whispered, his breath fluttering the baby hairs of her neck. "It's been so long. God, I just-" He buried his nose against the crook of her neck, trying to hold back tears. "I'm so tired, doll. I…I think I'm ready to throw in the towel. Call it quits. Join you, wherever you are. Ninety-four years, Marianne. That's too much for one man to handle. It isn't right, it isn't natural. What she did to me-"
"Don't give up," she said in an ethereal echo. "Not now. There is still so much to be done."
"I don't give a damn about anything else that has to be done. A shot of whiskey and a bullet is all I need. I could…sleep it all off for a couple of years. Wake up in heaven or hell or-"
"You will get your chance." Marianne turned around and trapped him beneath a stormy glare. "Haven't I told you before? You will die, Karl, but not by your own hand. There is something that you need to do before your time is up."
He nodded, allowing her to brush the phantom tears away from his cheek. "Alright. I get it. I've met the Father, the Son, and the Unholy Ghosts. This is supposed to be some…Ebenezer Scrooge type shit, am I right? So who are you? Where do you fit into this holy trifecta?"
"Consider me the voice of that who has fallen," she glanced down at the edge again, for once seeming nervous.
"So you've come bearing another god-forsaken message."
"Only this: you must kill Miranda for what she has done to you. You've heard it from your father, your brother, and your lovers. And so now you must hear it from me. Miranda has abused you, Karl, chipped away at your dignity inch by inch until she won over your subservience. You, yourself, said it: it ain't right and it ain't natural."
"I can't kill Miranda, Marianne. Not even if I wanted to."
"Rat bastard," she said between clenched teeth. "She killed me, with no qualms about it."
"You were going to die-"
"From a superficial wound to my leg? No, Karl. That is what she wanted you to think. She knew that I would grant you your freedom…that I would take you away from her. And so she murdered me, and had the audacity to call it charity."
"You never loved me."
"No. I didn't. I wouldn't dare love you, because I know that you are afraid of love and the things that were done to you in the name of love. I cared for you, deeply. Your ascension to power was mine as well. The same cannot be said of her.
Do you see now, Karl? Your entire life has been lived under her shadow. And for what? So that she could use you to resurrect her daughter!? You were her means to an end! She buttered you up like toast, just enough to break you down and build you back up for her own vile intentions. For years, the men in the village took advantage of me…put their hands on me, and reaped every inch of dignity from my body. She did the same to you! You are a victim, Karl. Your sacrifice was not martyrdom, it was violation." Marianne put both of her hands on his face and shook him. Their tears met on the ground below them as she gazed into his eyes. "Vengeance is your blood right. Kill her. For me. For you. Build up an army and tear her from her throne. And then? Join me. It is only after the acquisition of justice did the Lone Ranger ride again."
"Who is Ethan? I saw him, on the back of one of Miranda's cards."
She shook her head. "I don't know. I'm just a mere mirage - an image conjured up by the altercations of your mind. You're high is dying down, Karl. I'll have to leave you now-"
"No-"
"Remember those pills that your father used to take? The ones that made him a better person?" She asked urgently, squeezing his hand. "The ones that he used to crush up and put under his tongue. You know what they are. Go to the Duke. Get yourself some, if you're in need of a little courage."
"Marianne, wait-"
"I have to go now." The hand that she raised before him was quickly fading away. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here. He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior. Go, Lone Ranger. Find your rebirth. Let's see what you're really made of."
With that, she shoved him off of the ledge. The sky above him broke into many crystal fractals as he fell, screaming, through the air. Cold water erupted all around him, suffocating him, as he twisted and churned through a vortex of white froth-
X
-and he woke in Beneviento's garden. Back to the beginning.
Still screaming, he pushed himself off of the ground and stumbled backward until his back met the stony edge of the well. Donna Beneviento had been kneeling before him. Now, she rose and seemed to watch him with some trepidation from behind her veil. He gulped as he wrung his hand over his sweaty face. His clasp had become undone, spilling hair all around his shoulders as he stared back at her in fright.
"B-bring her back," he demanded and the veiled figure shook its head. Donna lifted something into the air - a marionette made into his likeness - and held it towards him. He shook his head wildly and screamed 'bring her back' again. God help him, he was two seconds away from rushing at her and shaking her scrawny shoulders. "I…I just wanted-"
"Karl," a soft voice said. Donna lifted her veil and gazed back at him with eyes betraying the fact that she was only fifteen years old. "I'm sorry." She thrust the marionette at him and he took a step back with a snarl.
"Don't be," he growled, his anger mounting. "Just bring her back. I told you once-"
"The images can't last forever. You have to go back to your real life now."
"Fuck my real life," he said. "My real life has been nothing but pain and deceit and misfortune. I…I…I-" he balled his fists by his head and squeezed them tight as the tears began to wriggle along his lashes. "I…fuck! Ffffuuuuucccckkkk! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
His hands closed automatically around the marionette that she thrust at him. Her skin was so pale, pale enough to outrival the very snow. It took every ounce of sensibility within him to remind himself that none of this was her fault.
"I'm sorry," she said, before turning away and making her way back to the state. "I'm so sorry, Mister Heisenberg."
X
A few nights later, he found himself at the dinner table with Miranda once again. As was their custom. But something was different this time around. A tension spanned between, but it was hard to tell whether or not she felt it too. Instead of aphrodisiacs, a single, gutted pig lay bleeding upon the center of the table. She hadn't questioned the change in cuisine, instead taking small nibbles off of the plate passed to her. Of course, he was privy to her dealings within America. By that time, the formation of the prototype named Eveline and the following catastrophe of the Dulvey incident were well within his radar. Not by her admission. His channel of information had been subtle, and underhand.
"All I am saying is this. Bad blood will out," she said obliviously, gazing at the moist piece of pig flesh impaled upon her fork's prongs. He sniffled, watching her as he dug a knife's tip along the surface of the table.
"There is a reason why you and your brother took so well to the experiment. Your bloodline is pure. Not a speck of deviation in sight. Guglielmo is as present in your veins as he was the day that he was born. Now, the others? Well. Fraternization was to be their downfall. There are some in the village who migrated from other places which, in turn, caused a dilution of the otherwise pure Romanian genetics. That is why they became Lycans and you did not." Miranda stuck the fork in her mouth and sucked appreciatively at the raw meat. "What a shame isn't it, that sensitivity has come to govern over reason. You're a medical man. You understand the superiority of certain genetics. Oh! No! I am not being crass, son, I am simply stating facts. I truly wish that all bloodlines were equal in superiority but…that is not the case."
"So what are you saying?"
"I am saying that you are of a superior race, my son. And you must covet your blood. Protect it. Respect it. Do not be swayed by immigrants with muck in their veins, seeking to leverage themselves up upon the evolutionary ladder at the expense of your purity. And I am well aware that certain foreigners have made their way into the village as of late, lured by the promise of exoticism and whatever else American pamphlets proclaim us to be. My dear boy, I am merely looking out for you!"
"I assure you, mother, that I am well equipped to look out for myself."
"Are you?" Miranda teased. "Because, last I checked, Karl, you almost let yourself be seduced by one of the very same immigrants who would have pinched your pockets and left you destitute at the beckoning of another. Toils beneath the village sun may have unfortunately browned your skin but you are not, at heart, one of them. Marianne-"
"You keep Marianne's name out your fuckin' mouth-"
He hadn't meant to say it, not at all. But there he suddenly was: reared out of his seat and glaring back at Miranda. The woman was good - she barely flinched as she gazed back at Karl, fork held halfway to her mouth. After a moment of tense silence, she set the utensil down on the table and leaned forward upon folded arms. There was no way for him to tell if her smile was malicious or pitying.
"Some wounds still ache, long after they've been healed over, I suppose," she said in a manner a bit too condescending for his taste. "Luckily for you, son, I know what it is like to fall in love with the wrong person. I forgive your outburst."
You forgive my outburst, he wanted to repeat in disbelief, what gives you the right? But he said none of this. Instead, he pushed his chair back and settled himself into it with a confident air. There was an insatiable itch prickling along the edges of his nostrils, but he held back on swiping at it. As she watched, he slowly lit a cigar and wafted the smoke away with his hand. She hated cigar smoke but was too proud to ask him to put it out. Good. He was happy to have scored a point in their subtle little games.
"I've been meaning to ask you," he said slowly, watching the smoke curl towards the sky. He tossed his boots upon the table, crossing them for good measure as her eyes traveled along the worn soles. "And pardon me if this comes across as indelicate. But on the topic of old wounds healing….your daughter. Eva. What would have happened if you had successfully resurrected her within my body?"
"Why, whatever do you mean, son?"
He grit his teeth at the word 'son.' "Well, that's only to say there isn't enough room in this body for the both of us. I'd assume that one would have been sacrificed for the livelihood of the other."
"You mean yourself."
He popped a smoke ring at the ceiling. "That is exactly what I mean, mother."
"Then you have answered your own question. Everything that has been done - and will be done-"
"-is for the greater good," he answered for her.
Your sacrifice was not martyrdom, it was violation. That's what Marianne had told him, only a few days earlier during his hallucinatory trip in Donna's garden. He sighed and knocked his cigar ash onto a plate. "The greater good don't always feel so good…does it?"
"No, it doesn't. I suppose your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ thought the same thing as he was being nailed to the cross," Miranda said, somewhat scathingly. "There's venom in your voice, Karl. It does not suit you."
You mean to say that it doesn't suit you, he wanted to say. But he couldn't. Though he had come to hate every fiber of her being, thanks to his revelatory trip, he was still scared of her. Smoke flushed from his nostrils and he knocked the cigar with renewed vigor across his plate. She was still watching him - her aquamarine irises flashing in the candlelight.
"Look," he said slowly, purposefully avoiding her gaze. "L-let me tell you a little story. Back when I was young, my father owned this mutt. It was an ugly-ass creature, of them Belgian Malinois bred for herding and whatnot. It used to roam around the factory. You could see its ribs shifting beneath its tan fur all the way from the window. I loved that damn dog, and it loved me…used to come up to me and lick pig fat right out of my hands. If anybody got too close to me, it would bare its ol' fucked up yellow teeth and growl from deep in the pit of its stomach.
But papa didn't treat it right…and yet, somehow, he still treated it better than me." Karl grinned as he pinched his fingers along the edge of the cigar, smothering its cherry. "Papa used to kick it and flick a match beneath its paws when it didn't act right. At some point, he got tired of the damn thing, realized that mad hens could do a better job than a guard dog any day, and were much easier to keep. He said that he would take it out back and shoot it, but I begged him not to. And you know what he did? He said to me, 'boy, if you love it so much then you can put it out of its misery.'
So he went and locked me up in the basement with that old dog, with nothing but a shotgun to my name. We stayed down there for days, maybe weeks, just me and that damn dog and that damn shotgun…"
"And so what happened?" Miranda asked.
"At first everything was fine. That dog, he licked my face and ran around between my legs, and kept me warm at night. And then he began to get hungry. And anxious. He paced around the walls, watching me with those cold brown eyes…lapping at its jowls and growling low in its throat whenever I tried to pet it. Days passed. At one point I realized that he wasn't even seeing me anymore, but a fat, juicy slab of steak. So you want to know what I did, Mother Miranda?"
"You shot it?"
"I shot that damn bastard of a hound. And I realized that…all loyalties are tested when desperation comes into play. And when it came to desperation-" he looked up and held her eye steadily. "-it was either me or that damn bitch of a hound."
"Sometimes love requires letting go of that which binds us," she said. "Heisenberg. I will never let you go."
"Bad blood will out," he muttered under his breath, jabbing the tip of the knife against the table. He was a learned man. He hadn't missed her cold and cutting implication.
She dabbed daintily at her cheeks with a napkin before rising and flushing her feathered shawl around her neck. Moved by ritual, he rose and followed her to the factory doorway. Once outside, she glanced left and right before hunching her shoulders and turning to face him.
"I see you've picked up old habits," she said. The moisture on his upper lip made him realize that a line of blood was flowing from his nose and he quickly wiped it away with a sniffle. "A shame," she said. "Cocaine makes you paranoid. And delusional."
"I assure you, I'm fine."
"If that were the case, you would have never sought it out in the first place. I heard you paid our dear friend Beneviento a visit. To hear Angie tell it, you made some rather odd requests."
"I am fine, Mother Miranda. Really, I am."
"I'd suggest wiping the powder from your mustache before attempting to deceive me again. Still, though, you are my boy. And I care for you in ways that you refuse to understand. Karl. Give me a kiss goodnight, won't you?"
He stared down at her. In his mind, he had crooked his fingers beneath her chin and was squeezing the very life out of her. All of the voices of his previous hallucinations were vying for a place in his head.
Beware those who will try to usurp your power. God gave you a gift because He loves you. She gave you a gift because she did not think you would be able to bear its weight.
We're all a bunch of failed Cadou experiments to her….so she calls us sons? Not because she loves us, but because she pities us! She can't see the difference between 'family' and 'experiments.'
If dignity can't be given, then it can't be taken. So why the fuck does she think she has the right to take yours!?
You're not good enough for her. You never were and you never will be.
Vengeance is your blood right. Kill her. For me. For you.
Wake the fuck up, Karl.
Wake the fuck up.
He braced his hand upon the door and yanked himself back right as he was about to lean down and kiss her. "Mother Miranda," he said between clenched, chattering teeth. "A question, if you will. Y-you don't happen to know anyone by the name of Ethan, do you?"
The deer-in-the-headlights look on her face told him all that he needed to know.
"Ethan?" She repeated in mock confusion. "I'm not sure that I have. Is that an American name?"
He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I've been deprived of my opportunities to go to America, remember?" He leaned down, pressed a soft kiss against her cheek. "Goodnight, Mother Miranda."