(from the journals of Ortho "Stone Cold" Glick)
by Rick Catanzaro
Chapter V
"So. Joan in the flesh. You'll forgive me if don't bow or kiss your ring or whatever it is that other Doompriests do when they meet you." If there's one thing I don't do it's beat around the bush. Even if this woman started to throw radiation to the four winds it wouldn't validate her claims. Female Doomsayers are as common as bald Sykers.
"No need to be negative Mr. Glick?or is Ortho more to you liking"?
Well, she was pleasant enough, not that pleasantry meant a whole lot to me. From what little I've heard of the elusive Joan, she was said to have been a child of "New Age" thinking. You know?the "love your inner child, earth farty tree hugging" type. Her fatal solution to our earlier encounter with the so-called Pruifiers certainly seemed to contradict the notion of "Slater" as a new age pacifist.
"Ortho will do. I hope you don't mind if continue to refer to you as Slater for the time being. Chalk it up to being one of the unconverted." The sarcasm wasn't lost on her, and that suited me just fine. After several more moments of pleasant reassurances and cold blank stares, Dr. Creeps continued to read the translated texts he'd been clutching for the past few hours. "Slater" and I stood in silence as the crackpot began to read.
After twenty minutes of listening to what sounded like the verses from one of Nostradamus' quatrains, we gleaned two very important insights into the prize that a growing number of people wanted very badly. First, to the best of Dr. Creeps ability, the stone was a sort of prison of an evil that predated the Reckoners themselves, but nowhere within the text was a name given for this supposed evil. Shit. Shades of the Blue God all over again.
The second tidbit of knowledge was a bit more disturbing. The passage that Creeps read said it all.
He who hath the knowledge shall hath the power over the dead.
As to what said knowledge was exactly wasn't made clear in the texts. Was Mr. Alligeri holding back some vital piece of information to meet his own ends? If what we all heard was indeed the gospel truth, then it would explain why the Heretics and the Purifiers were interested in obtaining said relic. The schismatics would assumedly have an advantage over Silas' Doombringers and the Purifiers would most definitely want any advantage they could have over the Harrowed population they despise so much. With all the new info absorbed I decided to turn the screws on our would-be employer.
"Well Slater, if you are the founder of the feast as it were, then I think my price just went up. After hearing the lovely little yarn that our resident crackpot just spun I think it's only fair".
Like a creeping fog, a slow incredulous look began to roll over the contours of the mystery woman's face, which was quickly replaced with a thin smile.
"Alright, Ortho. I'll play it your way - for now. As for your price, I'm willing to negotiate."
"Double my last asking price which was double what the old corpse was offering in the first place."
"Very well Ortho. Consider it a deal."
Her hand extended in the customary fashion associated with deal making. I ignored the gesture as I always did when accepting or negotiating a contract. I have no use for social pleasantries. I simply nodded my head in acknowledgement and thought to my self that who ever this woman was she must've been well off to afford my new price. Then again if she was blowing smoke up my ass and was some sort of mental case, then she'd find out in a heartbeat exactly why no one cheats me on a contract. With the business end of things concluded, we then proceeded to plot out the next leg of our journey. The bitch of the situation was that without our guide (or at least his head) we would be poking blindly around the Black Mountains for days, possibly weeks before we'd find the right mountain to pillage. The only clue we had to go on was the passage from the first page of the mysterious texts.
To the place which reaches to touch the hand of God,
Yet plunges to the pit to reach Lucifer's lips,
There lies the prison of one.
My guess was that we needed to find the highest mountain peak we could and then descent down into some sort of cave. The group seemed to agree with my speculation or at least no one saw fit to interject an opinion of their own. With the plan conceived, it was decided by our illustrious employer that we bed down for the night, but not before assigning shift duty for the group. Whoever she was she certainly played the role of leader very well. I was given the first shift. She took the second, which left the ever-incontinent Dr. Creeps on the last shift. The fun started at the end of the last shift. In retrospect, the number of times the shit hits the fan during the last shift of the evening always outnumbers the others. One of these days you'd think I'd wake up earlier. The barrel of a gun pointed in our faces was the way we began our day. The all too familiar black garb we'd encountered only recently had encircled our campsite. The Purifiers had returned with a vengeance. A long shadow stretched across my face, obscuring the face of the man holding a 5.56 FN-RAL directly at the center of my forehead. I didn't need to see his face to know who stood over me.
"Rise and shine, boy."
Gravel and sandpaper washed over me as my father's mocking tones assaulted my ears. As I slowly got to my feet the situation became very clear. There were roughly ten other Purifiers with father. Four with him,
keeping the Sage and the Employer pinned to the dirt. The mecha-horse seemed to be deactivated, apparently via some odd looking device that had the look of Junker tech. The prospector's headless body was still secured to the mechanical beast, limbs dangling in the breeze like a diseased rag doll. The other six were paced out in a circle surrounding the campsite at about 100 yards. Finally getting to my feet, my eyes locked with father's. The prospector's head was nowhere in sight.
"Where's your compass old man?"
The morning wind kicked up blowing the material of father's waistcoat in a chaotic manner. Sound seemed to stop as the silence became an almost living thing. No one had moved so much as a millimeter as the two of us stood and stared at each other. Ten feet, I kept thinking to myself. That was all that stood between me and years of anger and hurt. A cruel smile spread itself across father's face as he tilted his head to one side and then he began to laugh.
"Now that's no way to greet your long lost pappy is it, boy?"
By that time it had dawned upon me that I was still armed and I nearly started to draw, but then that's exactly what father wanted me to do. If I attempted it his men would mow down the entire posse. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Slowly, I mentally gauged the distance between myself and other available targets. Satisfied that I could pull the rabbit out the hat, so to speak, I began to concentrate. Lowering my head to feign submissiveness, I slowly let it rise to lock eyes with father.
"You're right father. Our family reunion should come first. It should also be private".
The blast of mental force I unleashed rushed forward like a vengeful god. It lashed out from one mind to the next and the next. No mind was spared friend or foe alike. Only one target was unaffected, which is how I knew it would be. After all Chainbrain doesn't effect the dead. Now, a more intimate stage was set for what was brewing for the past twenty years. Father looked around in mild astonishment at the piles of bodies and kept smiling. I didn't return the favor. Slowly I unslung my sniper rifle and to his surprise I dropped it to the ground. My knife and side arm followed, all the while never taking my gaze off of father.
"Well. Looks like the little girl has gone and grown some balls after all."
Without hesitation or doubt, I moved. No tricks, no Syker abilities, just years or anger and abandonment released in a blur of highly trained violence. It was judgment day for Zachary Xavier Glick and I was holding the gavel. With as much natural strength as I could manage, I left the air planting my left foot into his upper chest. The move caught the old bastard completely off guard, knocking him flat on his back. It also made him lose his grip on his rifle. Only the viscous wrist-scythe he and all of his Purifiers wore remained. Without losing momentum from the kick, I tucked and rolled directly onto father's chest. Still the old bastard smiled and it fueled me. For nearly a full minute I struck him in the face. Wiping the smile from his dead features and getting the payback for years of abuse had consumed me?so much so that I barely notice his scythe curiously planted in my side. I fought to ignore the pain. I wouldn't let my vengeance go undone, not after all this time. If I were die I wasn't going to go alone. With more strength than I've ever needed in my life, I grabbed his scythe arm pulling his weapon from my ribs. The pain was intense, but I've dealt with worse. Blood shot forth like a cannon, bathing the both of us in it's crimson wash. With massive effort, I began to twist his arm back down towards his throat. Slowly, the blade inched closer to my target and still he smiled.
"Well boy?it looks like you got what it takes don't ya? Do your old man proud and finish the job!"
Now most people who might find themselves in this sort of situation might experience that sense of moral superiority that heroes in a great many old vids used to portray. The old "I'll not sink to your level" and "I won't kill you - I'm a better person than you'll ever be." Bullshit. I'm no damned hero. I'm a hired killer and was more than happy to "do the old man proud." With one rapid motion the old man's head popped off like a tick on a rabid dog's ass. By this time I had lost a good deal of blood, but I was in the presence of mind to know that cutting a Harrowed head off wasn't enough to kill one. Making my way to my feet I coldly stared down at the laughing head of my father. With boost from a bit of body control, I kicked the obscene visage right in the mouth sending it a dozen or so yards away from his body. His still laughing head rolled and bounced like a grotesque ball in the unforgiving Arizona dirt. I was still losing blood and I wasn't sure how long I would remain conscious. For reasons lost to me at the time, I made my way over to the horse drawn wagon that father must have arrived in. Falling to my knees, I managed to keep myself from falling over by grabbing the opened end of the wagon's rear. My eyes were greeted with all to familiar sight of the bodiless prospector, carelessly tossed onto a pile of horse blankets.
"Jeshus H. Chrisht! You shure took your Gawd damned shweet time"!
Unconsciousness' sweet bliss never felt so good.
The world returned as it always did-a dark blur slowly replaced by a light blur. Shadows became substance and the unfamiliar became painfully recognizable. Three figures came into focus and one of them hadn't been on his feet in a few days. Torn remnants of a horse blanket adorned the neck and shoulders of the grizzled Prospector, his head and body reunited once more. Once my vision cleared and I was on my feet again, I took inventory of the current situation. Slater had been busy, and had roasted a few of the Purifiers, holding the rest under guard. Father's head and body were left where they'd fallen. Apparently Slater was allowing for me to mete out my own form of justice. Once again Slater had healed me and it dawned on me that, like the last time, I was left without a scar that's usually associated with Doomsayer healing. I decided to let it slide for the moment so that I might attend to a more pressing matter, namely father's head. With a deliberate lack of urgency, I made my way over to father's body, gathering my weapons as I went. A cold calm washed over as I stood over the limp trunk of father's body. I dreamt of the day I'd be standing over his corpse for twenty years and I was going to enjoy it. Savor it. With great care and with absolutely no urgency, I undid my pants and proceeded to relieve my self on the headless form of my father.
The silence that followed was eerie, yet oh so sweet. Even father's head was silenced, blinking up at me in disbelief. Slowly I turned my head as I zipped up, glancing upon the faces all staring with a mix of expressions and I couldn't have care less. My focus returned to the headless form before me and with no haste what so ever I began to concentrate. Arcane energy began to crackle around my head. My power was at full so I planned to make as much of display to all watching as I could. One after another the Brain blasts slammed forth into the decayed form of my sire. By the time I stopped, there was a three-foot crater filled with the liquefied remnants of what used to be my fathers body. The silence lingered on as I turned and approached father's head. I crouched down and just stared at him for a full minute, expressionless and silent. Rage mingled with fear filled his eyes. Satisfaction filled my every cell as I got up and made my way towards my rifle. The feeling intensified as I picked it up and took aim. For the first time in a great many years I allowed myself to feel. The closest word that I could find to describe that emotion would be joy.
"Goodbye father."
My parting words were swallowed in a fifty-caliber thunder that rolled across the unforgiving Arizona terrain. His head exploded like a water balloon, spewing viscera into a chunky spray that danced in the gentile morning breeze. I savored the moment just long enough to put the scare of Ortho into the rest of father's monkeys. My focus then went to the aforementioned monkeys.
"I'll give all of you so-called Purifiers a choice. You can all leave, minus all of your toys or you can join your leader as unmarked stains in the desert. You have ten seconds?starting now."
The show execution I put in must have punctuated my offer. Most of them headed out slowly. Some of them actually ran, dropping gear as they went. Some days it's good to be me. I watched patiently as the Purifiers slowly became nothing more than tiny black dots on the horizon. Satisfied that we'd be free of distraction, at least for the moment, it was back to business. The rest of the posse approached in silence as they gathered their belongings. I guess my little performance left them speechless. Well, almost all of them. As you might have guessed the Sage was practically on the verge of bursting. His pen was a blur of nonstop scribing throughout the entire encounter with father. He approached me with the look of a toddler whose bladder was ready to burst.
"Mr. Glick. that was astonishing! I barely have the words to describe it!"
"I'd describe it as Syker tutorial number three. Pay up."
The Sage blinked in rapid secession for several seconds, then shot his hand into sack and handed me roughly the amount in trade we'd agreed upon for dispensing my faraway Syker knowledge. He then nodded spun on his heels and made his way toward the horses we had just acquired from our adversaries
(when I say "all your toys", I mean all of them). That presented a bit of a problem. With all the extra gear we now had, it was going to make the trek into a mountain range problematic at best. I wasn't about to drag a dozen horses along to find that damned relic and I had a feeling that our mysterious transcriber hadn't given us the full picture as to what we were dealing with. Once again all roads seem to lead to Kingman and a nebulous shopkeeper with the strangely familiar last name. This time I would get the full picture, even if I had to take it out of Mr. Alligeri's hide one piece at a time.