CHAPTER 2
Revelator had wondered what the faint tug would amount to in his gut, and the closer he got to New Orleans, the harder the tug got. But was it her or something else? It was made up of nothing but evil and put a constant need to retch in his stomach. He couldn’t remember a time he was affected that way and had to believe she was why.
He remembered Maggie and how she tried to show him something that night at the Bat-tie. He’d been worried about the wrong things, namely not digging into Cherie’s past without her permission. But what if there had been something about this? What if he could’ve prevented this?
As the Black Bastard devoured the miles in a growling silence, the question burned Revelator’s gut. “Maggie tried to show me something about Cherie that night at the Bat-tie,” he finally said. “She started to and I stopped her before she could finish.”
“I remember,” Bishop said. “But more like Cherie stopped her.”
“Because I needed her to stop. Cherie was…my protector that night.” Revelator’s chest suddenly trapped his breath.
“Let me drive so you can chew on this without distractions,” Bishop urged. “Seems important.”
Revelator pulled over, wondering why he hadn’t done that to begin with. He was too close to this. The usual discernment and wisdom he had in missing person situations was fucking nowhere to be found when he wanted it the most.
He allowed Lesion to sit near the door, wanting the men on either side of him. Both had reservoirs of strength that seemed to keep his power from getting more reckless inside him. He was already on a ledge he’d never been on and wasn’t sure what would happen if he lost control. He wasn’t even sure who or what was in control. Him or the power. He couldn’t tell and he needed to pray that God took control. He wasn’t fit to control anything.
“Where do you think we’re headed exactly?” Bishop asked, back on the road.
“I keep hearing that name. Lazarus John Gerth.”
“The dead one?”
He gave a slow headshake. “Not so sure he’s dead.”
“You said they’re hunting her for his death.”
“I did. But something’s off about that. Hoping the closer we get, the more I know.”
Revelator glanced at Lesion, again feeling it in his spirit. “What troubles you, Medicine Man?”
His tattooed brow raised slightly, almost in surprise. “Nothing requiring words, Holy One.”
Holy One. Revelator detected no animosity in that title and was now more curious about him. He knew only the basics of his life but sitting next to him for even five minutes said he had things about him requiring a handshake.
“We never officially met,” the man said as Revelator struggled to recall his Christian name.
“Leandro Dutch Bourgeois,” Revelator remembered.
This got a chuckle. “I was about to ask who that was. Been a long time since I’ve heard those names.”
Revelator understood that. “How’s…”
“The Hag?”
“I was trying to recall her name.”
“I have no idea,” he said, surprising Revelator. “She refuses to tell. I stopped caring.”
“So what do you call her?” Bishop wondered. “Hag?”
“Heavens no,” Lesion said. “I call her Madam Hag.”
Bishop’s gut laugh brought Revelator’s grin despite his turmoil.
“It’s our truce,” Lesion said.
“I need to visit,” Revelator said.
“So what’s the real story,” Bishop said, glancing past Revelator at Lesion. “How’d you come by your trade name?”
Lesion held his arms out, turning them. “These sly inky snakes hide the truth. I was an over-eager apprentice with no test subjects but myself.”
“Damn,” Bishop muttered. “That’s what I call dedication. Just your arms?”
Lesion gave a light chuckle. “What do you think?”
“Seriously?” Bishop said, grinning.
“My body was a scratch sheet of paper for my work. I used every available inch. That I could reach.”
“Holy shit,” Bishop muttered. “Even your…”
“The unseen places were used first.”
Bishop’s head barely shook as he glanced at Lesion. “And these inky asps, they’re…”
“Everywhere.”
“Why asps?” Revelator wondered.
Lesion shrugged. “Asp singular. Sheila grew with my trials. I don’t consider them failures, but processes. With each lesion, she got longer. Her skin holds the number of processes and names for many tested protocols.”
“Wow,” Bishop muttered. “If you don’t mind me asking, how many people know you have a body long snake named Sheila?”
“Madame Hag and me.” He angled his head at them. “And now you two.” He looked ahead again. “Not really a topic that ever comes up in my line of mostly solitary work.”
“Right,” Bishop muttered, glancing at Revelator then back at the road. “I often wondered what those numbers meant.”
Revelator caught part of what troubled Lesion. “We’re not sure what we’re going up against here but whatever you brought along, use it as the good Lord leads.”
“I do have new things that require test subjects,” Lesion said, pushing carefully into his words.
“I’m sure we’ll come across plenty of demons happy to volunteer,” Revelator assured, as the need to shake his hand grew.
“A permanent test subject would be…very useful. If it so happens that fate’s smile turns upside down on a soul in need of purging for redemption, that is.”
This got another big laugh from Bishop. “Fate’s smile turned upside down. She can be a sourpuss when she wants to be.”
“She has a method to her madness,” Lesion said, surprising Revelator.
“Madam Hag taught you good things,” he said.
“She did. But a lot of my life wisdom comes from Sheila. She passed on a secret with every lesion.”
“So…what did you do when you ran out of scratch paper?” Revelator asked.
“The skin lesions are childhood elementary lessons. I graduated and built an actual lab for testing. Animal trials are easy to come by, but the human test subjects are always in short supply and high demand.”
Revelator finally stuck out his hand, ready to see what he could see with his newest peculiar friend. “Like you said, we never officially met.”
He watched Lesion eye his hand then aim a grin at him. “I’ll show you the inside of my skin if you show me yours.”
Revelator didn’t lower his hand as he wondered what that meant. “You’re welcome to see whatever you can see. My insides are an open book to whoever can read them.”
Lesion eyed his outstretched hand and gave his right one, grasping Revelator tightly while meeting his gaze. “Only exceptional gift I have is the one you gave me.”
The second he said it, Revelator remembered. “You’re the kid from the well.”
“I am.”
“What well?” Bishop wondered.
Revelator had already taken a swan dive in, closing his eyes. “You were trapped and couldn’t get out.”
“And you told me to retrace my steps in.”
“And you did,” Revelator remembered. He opened his eyes, meeting the young man’s twinkling gaze and smile.
“That gift served me in my studies. Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a gift son, it was simple wisdom,” Revelator said. “Show me what it taught you, Healer.”
Lesion turned Revelator’s hand over and dragged one of his pointed nails along his wrist then brought it to his nose. He closed his eyes, smelling for many seconds. “Hm,” he mumbled, opening his jacket and pulling out a leather roll. Laying it on his lap he opened it and drew out a small bottle from a pocket and removed the cork. “Smell this,” he said, bringing the container to his nose. “Deep whiff.”
Revelator did, closing his eyes.
“Now this one,” he said, bringing a second bottle to his nose. “Another deep whiff.”
This one brought on sneezing while Lesion counted them on his fingers. “Seven,” he said when Revelator was done. “Tell me what Maggie showed you at the Bat-tie.”
The question brought the moment back in his mind, only this time there were no dark spots in his memory. Maggie had shown him more and he’d missed seeing it but it was still there. He opened his eyes and turned to Bishop. “She didn’t kill Lazarus. It’s a prophesy they believe will happen. Lazarus is one of the coven leaders.” Revelator turned to Lesion, now tying his leather roll shut. “How the hell did you do that?”
He slipped his leather roll in his jacket. “I can smell when chemicals are out of balance. Ninety-two percent of the time, I can figure out which are missing on the first try. Otherwise, I manage it on the second. Your chemicals are screaming and that concoction let them settle down. Will probably last thirty minutes given your condition.”
“What condition?”
“You have shock chemicals in your system. The amount found in severe physical trauma. Like a gunshot wound to the head or a hacked off limb. Your self-control is something worth studying.”
And yet he’d never felt more out of control. Revelator looked at Bishop. “I still don’t know where we’re headed. And why would she be in this prophecy of theirs?”
“If you don’t know when we get there,” Lesion said, “I’ll give you something to aid you.”
This had Revelator eager. “You can do that?”
“My neuro enhancers are some of my best works.”
“What are they?” Bishop wondered.
“Combination of herbs that tidies the neuro pathways. Makes them sharp. Aids in speed and agility.”
“I might like some too, then.”
“I already have our doses prepared.”
Revelator liked Lesion more and more. “Glad I picked you for this trip.”
The man smiled and stroked his fingers along his braided goatee making the onyx and silver beads along them click. “Your gift knew, I suppose.”
Revelator recalled the boy at the well again. He’d have been ten maybe. That’d make him around thirty now. Impressively wise beyond his years. He was indeed glad his gift had picked him. The darkness he sensed grew as they drove and if it got any denser, he may want more of The Twelve there. He wouldn’t take chances with Cherie.
****
Please God…I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left him. I shouldn’t have left, please…help me. Help me be strong.
The room spun as the drugs hit her system. Her mouth fell open at the familiar rush, her breaths coming faster. She hated it for how much she loved it.
“As requested by your merciful Darius,” the masked monster muttered next to her. “A little fire to boost your spirits.”
Panic raced with the drugs as he began his game of reaping. Slowly taking everything. Self-worth. Hope. Maybe her life if she was lucky. He was known as The Reaper but taking life wasn’t his thing. It was turning his victims into soulless shells. Some said he wasn’t the worst of the monsters there, but what he did was worse than death.
“What will it be first? I think I’d like to loosen your lips a little. Exercise your lungs. Stretch some muscles. But first this.” He worked a rubber ball into her mouth and strapped it behind her head. She fought back sobs as she watched him readying a black and metal tool that had her fighting for air.
“Ohhh, sweet, chocolate truffle, don’t cry yet. I haven’t even started.”
****
Once in New Orleans, the Holy Man’s gift revealed his woman was in physical danger which made him too unstable for sniffing compounds. The only way around his chaos was getting a room in the heart of that hell and performing an in-depth cleanse. It’d taken Lesion three times the amount required to put a man his size in a deep sleep. He needed to have a calm slate to clear his neuropathways, but his gifts were making a mockery of his attempts.
Continuing with the multiple of three rule, he tripled the incense and added the neuro salve at three times the access points on his body. His desire to see what his gifts looked like under his apothecary microscope would have to wait. Now, he needed to help his deliciously mysterious gift of perception flow unhindered.
“Anything I can do?” Bishop asked from the foot of the bed.
Lesion shook his head while rubbing against the bond of their brotherhood. “Just needed him stable.”
“And he is now?”
“He is.” Lesion prepared a kill shot of the sniffing compounds and set them next to the bed. No room for mistakes with this one. If he surfaced without the right answers, he’d be a dirty bomb. Those weren’t all bad but they were messy and loud for a job that demanded clean and quiet.
“Here we go,” Lesion muttered, adding each compound into his silver thurible then lighting it. “You may not want to be too close. Can’t be sure what it’d do to you.”
Bishop took five steps back as the smoke seeped from the cages orifices and Lesion slowly swung it as he walked the perimeter of the bed. When the air directly above Revelator filled with the cleansing potion, he set the thurible down and returned his supplies to his leather roll. “We’ll know how well it worked in about five minutes.”
“What’s going to happen you think?”
“I wish I could tell you. But to study a man like him is surely on my bucket list.”
“Any guesses?”
“Well, what should happen is he’ll know all those details he wants.”
“Amazing. I didn’t realize your profession was so precise.”
“The healing side of the job is far more complex than the killing one. But both have numerous mechanisms.”
“Something’s happening,” Bishop said, nodding at Revelator.
Lesion watched as his fists clenched at his sides and his body went rigid.
“Is that normal?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Not sure. Let’s wait and see.”
Lesion angled his head, watching with great interest while Bishop paced with his eyes on his friend.
“Sounds like he’s in pain,” Bishop said.
“Seems he is.”
“Seems? He’s fucking thrashing, shouldn’t you wake him?”
“No. I think he’s getting answers.”
Revelator bolted up in the bed with a loud roar, his eyes wide and wild. He flew out the bed and looked from Bishop to Lesion. “She’s at The Dark Den four blocks from here.”
Bishop cut him off at the door. “Hold on Rev, we need a plan.”
“They’re killing her!” he roared at him.
Bishop wrestled him away from the door. “We need a plan!” he yelled back. “We’re blind in this. You need to show us what to do.”
He raked his hand through his hair. “She’s in a room near the back of the building. There’s…ten rooms.” He drew with his finger on the wall. “She’s here. Front entrance here. Back entrance here. There’s a side entrance. The man that has her is fucking torturing her. We have to go now.”
“How many men?” Bishop asked.
“One in each room. Ten.”
“Security?” Lesion wondered.
He clenched his eyes tight, baring his teeth. “Fucking…four at the entrance. None at the back.”
“Okay,” Bishop said. “So what are we doing? Single extraction?”
He shook his head, eyeing him. “They’re all dead. You killed two at the front and five in the rooms. You had your knife. Lesion killed four in the rooms. I killed two.” He snapped those wild eyes on Lesion. “You rescue a girl named Tully Jane Clement. And Cherie…” he gasped closing his eyes. “She’s hurt.” He grabbed Lesion’s shirt in both hands. “You can help her.”
“I can,” he said. “Let me gather my things.”
“Meet us in the truck,” Revelator said. “My blades are there.”
“Mine too,” Bishop said, following him out.
Lesion gathered everything to heal and kill, hoping he had exactly what he needed for Revelator’s woman. And what about the other one? Tully Jane Clement. What the hell would she need?
****
Revelator wished he could turn off the vision in his head. Cherie’s screams and desperate begs for help were still shredding his soul. How did Lesion do that? He’d never in his life seen like that. He’d seen beyond the past and the present—he’d seen prophetically and he wanted to stop seeing it. He focused his mind on the blood that would cover his blade then encountered the other smells of sexual abuse and suffering but he couldn’t tell who they belonged to. The whole place was saturated with it.
“Where do we go in at?” Bishop asked as they walked the final two blocks to the building.
“The front.”
Bishop glanced back at him. “Where security is?”
“Yes.”
“And you saw this in your vision,” Bishop double checked.
“Every bit of it.”
“Not very busy on this block,” Lesion said as they neared the onyx brick building.
“I could cut the evil perimeter they have around it,” Revelator said. “They don’t want eyes here.”
The front of the building was solid with no windows. At the door, Revelator did the unthinkable and knocked.
“You’re knocking,” Lesion said, glancing around.
“It’s The Revelator,” he called, knocking again, harder. “Darius sent me.”
“Darius sent you?” Bishop mouthed.
Revelator braced for what was coming. The second the door opened, he plunged his knife into the dark t-shirt then yanked up, ripping through his torso. Bishop entered, his blade sinking in flesh, one body then two, just as the vision showed him. He glanced back, finding Lesion locking the door and pulling a hood over his head with a bird’s beak on the face.
The front lobby was nearly empty, other than the wide-eyed scared women behind a bar. They headed to the sick shows at the back. Revelator pointed them to the hall on the right as he headed for the left, his mind locked on the one target that was all his. He pulled his second knife out, his blood lust boiling for the mutilation coming.