Angel Police (excerpt)

Copyright (C) David J Rodger 2000

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of David J Rodger.







The garden of Eden is not flowers and trees. It is skin and bone...... and sex.










"Angels, demons, they're all the same! No flesh, no goddamned clue about reality! What we need is somebody to look over those muther-fuckers! You know what I mean? We need a police force!" The wrinkle-faced guy was yelling.
A voice replied, "What about God?"
"God?" The wrinkle-faced man said with angry judgement snapping to a questioning look, fading to one of dumbfounded realisation. "Jeez, I never thought about him."
Troy flicked the TV onto another channel; the program was low grade made straight for TV digital garbage.
Flick-flick-flick, new channel. The aggressive chords of a industrial rock band ripped through the room; the group's video consisted of men dressed in white body-sheaths crashing through window ceilings in some kind of perpetual free-fall. Very high energy.
Troy settled back on the sofa and sipped on a long necked bottle of coca-cola: he had found a shop on 3rd Avenue that sold glass bottles, a rarity. The privallege did not come cheap.
The sound of several people laughing came through from the other room: the dinner party was still going on. Troy rolled over onto his side, restless, placed the cola bottle on the floor. The camel coloured upholstery of the sofa smelled of stale sweat and cigarettes; he breathed in deep through his nose, savouring it. He loved it. It was a smell he could remember and connect back to all the memories of this place.
The laughter came again. Josie, Carlos and Farley were entertaining a new couple they had befriended at the music store. Troy had declined the invitation to eat with them and retreated to the small room that served as his room during late night and through to morning, and as communal lounge during the rest of the day. Rent was cheap and Troy had to do very little to make ends meet.
Mind-clench. Troy rolled over onto his back and dug his fingers into the ridge of muscle between his brow and eye sockets, massaging away the pressure building up as his thoughts dragged him back to the urge he had been resisting for two days now.
He kept his hands there and opened his eyes, gazed up at the fleshly arches formed by his arms above him; he scanned the bronzed arcs of his muscular physique, studied the intricate web of lines tattooed around his left forearm; the lines intertwined and crossed the planes of his flesh to congregate in curves and symbols around his elbow, bicep and shoulder.
Desire crawled up inside his brain like a serpent coiling round the throat of another victim. To remain there, lying on the sofa was an untenable position. Troy sat upright, let his arms flop down either side of him, swept his sullen gaze from left to right and back again across the familiar terrain of the room. Evening kissed the window behind the heavy brown velvet drapes. A warm breeze carried in the smell of fried food, of burnt vanilla, and sounds of a Brooklyn nightlife he wanted to immerse himself within.
He pulled himself off the sofa and trudged over to the hinged partition that separated the lounge from the dinning room. Stepping through he found his flatmates and a girl he had never met before standing around a young overweight man in a straight-backed chair. They were all giggling, standing with their arms raised so that their hands were placed in a stack above the overweight man's scruffy mop of hair.
"Great timing, man" Carlos glanced him, excited to have another witness.
Josie smiled over at him, "Grab a glass of wine, if you want to join us."
Troy watched as they counted to ten then brought their arms down lift the man out of the chair with a single finger each. Josie and Farley had taken an armpit each, Carlos and the girl (Troy assumed she was the man's girlfriend) each placed their finger under the man's knee joints. They all whooped with delight as they lifted the man bodily above their heads, held him there for a few moments and then lowered him carefully back into the chair.
Troy stiffled a yawn; he glanced at the bottle of wine on the dinning table. With barely a thought, he used his mind to nudge the bottle across the polished surface and off the edge. It hit the floor with a dull thud, it didn't break. Nobody saw the bottle fall but everyone turned to look when they heard it hit the floor.
Josie crouched down and snapped the bottle into her hand as wine gushed from the open neck onto the carpet. "Oh shit, Farley, get some cloths, shit, shit."
"Pour some soda on it." The overweight man suggested, getting up with surprising speed.
Farley dashed from the room into the kitchen.
Troy left them to it and headed downstairs and outside.





The pages of the book were illuminated by dirty candlelight, the paper was vellum, 18th century, water-marked and covered in lines of immaculate calligraphic hand written text. The man's grubby fingers traced the wide margins of the text with the same obsessive affection of an old man touching a young woman's flesh.
The large desk faced a plain plaster wall that had been weakened by decades of damp, streaked with green fungus, cracked and left with areas of the ancient brick foundations exposed. Made of a single cut of oak, the desk was cluttered with the molten stumps of dead candles, a solid silver seven-stemmed candelabra ending in serpent heads, a thin bladed knife made of pewter, empty wine goblets, a bottle of Hungarian Merlot, and a mixed array of crumbling or good conditioned books. There was also a mat black, angular, snub-nosed handgun and copper bowl. The copper bowl was etched with a fine web of intricately linked lines and surrounded by four candles burning at the cardinal points. The bowl was filled to the brim with a clear liquid and a handful of bullets.
Numerous flies, bloated and lazy, buzzed back and forth across the wide underground chamber, riding the smell of rotten meat.
Francis ran his fingers to the bottom of the immaculately preserved page and turned over, merely scanning the contents for the moment. He would study the text in far more detail at a later point, liturgies and incantations both evil and esoteric. His massive figure loomed over the table and filled the heavily carved chair he hulked within. Behind him the stone floor was marked off with chalk lines and pools of dried blood, remains of his experiments and explorations into the boundaries of the Quantisphere.





The bus had taken him across town and through the claustrophobic intestines of Lincoln tunnel. He stepped off in Weehawken, New Jersey, on 51st Street, on the edge of the Jersey river, overlooking an awe-inspiring view of Manhattan island at night. Row upon row of gargantuan towers of darkness stretching left to right, speckled with the yellow-green myriad of perpetual office lighting. Troy paused long enough to marvel at the perfect geometry of the streets cutting across the breadth of the island. Then the familiar land-marks: the Chrysler building, Empire State building, and the Twin Towers.
He snapped his attention back to the moment, taking in where he was, very aware of the fact there were people here who probably wanted to kill him. Troy shifted quickly off the public walkway and headed across the road toward the apartment building that was his destination keeping his chin tucked behind the tall collars of his nylon jacket.
The voice from the intercom was female and stoned, "Yeah?"
"It's Troy." Standing with his back to the edge of the doorway to watch the road.
A long pause, then a sound of pure amazement, "Shit! I thought you took a nose-dive through your car window!"
"Nope. Not me."
"Not you….." Voice trailing off, confused, "Okay, umm, so, what do you want?"
"Trick question." He said flatly.
"Yeahhhhh." A silly giggle. The door buzzed, Troy pushed it open and stepped into the building lobby.
Her apartment was a white space. Literally. Everything from the walls and light fittings to the simple ornaments were coated in the same white veneer. Troy wandered through the short passage from the open front door to the lounge; Carmel was flopped out backwards on a white bean bag, staring at her finger nails, a small joint firmly wedged between her lips. "Nice to see you so security conscious." He said, crouching down on the floor beside her.
"It's a test of my karma," she murmured, engrossed by her little finger.
Troy smiled, tense. He glanced around the walls, grateful for the soft lighting: he wondered what the place must look like in bright daylight. "You've been decorating."
Carmel made a satisfied sound in the back of her throat, "I got bored. Some guy offered me twenty cans of this deluxe-white-acrylic-paint stuff instead of cash…I'm never one to turn down an interesting opportunity and it's not like I actually need the money." She let her head slump back a little, chuckling, "I got him to paint the whole place, everything…. Naked…" She giggled, "It was fun."
Troy glanced down at the floor, rubbed his chin. "So you can afford to give me a discount then."
She narrowed her eyes and looked at him for a few moments; Carmel was mixed-race, Puerto-Rican mixed with Spanish, jet black hair cut into a sharp sloping fringe at the front with spiked explosion at the back. She pursed her lips around the joint and took a long drag. Breathing out smoke she said, "How come the Gerhretov brothers haven't found you yet? Are you that good at hiding?"
Troy stared at his hands. "I really need to just get some stuff and get out of here."
"Oh baby!" She cooed and reached out and rubbed his scruffy mane of dark blonde hair, then she gripped his hair and tugged hard enough for him to flinch with pain. "Then I guess you shouldn't have fucked with people and their money." She released her grip and shoved his head away from her hand.
Troy stood up immediately and whirled away, strode over to the other side of the room and glared at his own reflection in a tall mirror.
"You can have the stuff Troy." She told him, sneering, "But don't expect a discount. Don't expect any favours from me. I'll have a hard enough time if the brothers find out I've been selling to you after what you did to them."
Troy drilled his eyes into himself and wondered who the hell he was.
Movement behind him; Carmel had pulled herself up from the beanbag. He watched her reflection as she crossed the room and paused in the doorway to look at him. "So what's it gonna be today, Troy? Coke, pills…..?" She raised an intelligent eyebrow, "Vigaro?
Troy pursed his lips and averted his gaze from the reflection of her eyes; "Yeah, Vigaro….. one hit."
Her laughter cut through him like ice against soft flesh, "You come all this way for one hit? I'm honoured!"
She left the room.
Troy lifted his heavy gaze back to himself in the mirror. A little over five foot, he was powerfully built with a rounded head and angular features. Brown eyes, thin lips, a wide nose, hard jaw, he was an expression of aloof urban-fashion and cold street-mean. Right now though it was a look of desperation and self-loathing.
Carmel returned with a tiny zip-lock packet containing a single yellow pill; she slid up against him and curled an arm around his bull-shoulders, brushed her lips against his neck; "Forty bucks darling."
Troy closed his eyes against the sensations flooding through him as he felt the heat of her body seeping into him; he dug into his pockets, opened his eyes and pulled out a handful of crumpled five and ten dollar bills. He counted out forty and handed them to her. She detached herself and stood like she was ready for him to leave.
"I hope she's not bored waiting for you." Carmel grinned.
"Who?"
"Isn't there a lucky lady waiting in your bed for you right now? A fuck princess lying there frigging herself off just thinking about the hours of pure orgasm you'll both have when you get back?"
She was taunting him.
Troy shoved the Vigaro pill and the rest of his money back into his pocket. "I'll share the next one with you, if you like."
"Catch me on a bad day and I'll think about it."
Troy grimaced, hesitated then walked out. He heard her laughing when he stepped beyond the front door.





Francis preferred to use a flat-faced steel head hammer; it allowed him to swing down with far more force, the rubber handgrip was excellent and satisfying to hold; the twin-pronged claw opposite the flat-head often came in useful later.
He crouched over the woman and drove the steel spike further through her left wrist bone and into the stone floor; her whole body arched up from the floor, went rigid with the agony; a delicious gurgling scream slipped out from the gag fastened across her mouth. Her flesh was slick with the greasy sweat of pain and fear. Francis smiled, slid the palm of his hand down her trembling abdomen, let his fingers crawl through the soft mound of her public hair to the lips of her labia. She had already pissed herself. Her rubbed his fingers playful around her clitoris, watching the expression of revulsion and terror in her eyes. He grinned broadly, moved his hand up to her waist and grabbed at the handful of excess fat; she was a slim, attractive woman who used extravagant make-up and dressed to tease, but she was lazy. Another two years and she would be sagging, hiding her embarrassment with supportive underwear and perpetually starting and failing crash-course diet plans. A pathetic creature of falsity, ego and transparent desire lost deep within the spiral of consumerism and perfection-portrayed-by-advertising: the false Gods.
He leant forward and picked up the final spike; her eyes registered it and somewhere in the back of her mind she acknowledged the horror: there were already four spikes pinning her to the floor through her wrists and feet. She began to wail through the dirty rag in her mouth. Francis leaned back and placed the cold tip of the spike against her vagina; she froze, not daring to move. Slowly he pushed the tip inside, her whole body began shaking uncontrollably. He wiggled it back and forward for a few seconds, chuckling at her muffled screams. He put down the hammer and used his free hand to pinch her nostrils together, blocking them, leaving her frantically trying to suck air through the vomit and blood caked gag: her own panties. Enough playing, he let her breath again, took the spike away and crouched down low so that his face was close to hers, his nose touching her own. Her eyes rapidly flickered open and closed as he leered at her, unable to escape his malodorous gaze. He used his free hand to maul and squeeze her left breast, his fingers digging in and painfully raking.
He lifted himself up and sat forward, placing his weight on her chest so that her head was clenched between his thighs. He untied the stocking from her jaws and pulled out the gag. She sucked in several breaths, sobbing and whimpering, her lips trembling and wet with tears and saliva. She didn't take her eyes from his. He watched for a while, the delay making her more uncertain; he saw the faintest glimmer of hope enter her face. He smiled, then brought the final spike into view. Her face stretched as she screamed and she tried to shake her head free but she was completely immobilised. Her lips clamped shut before he could push the spike into her mouth; he lifted the spike and jabbed it down hard, cutting through the flesh of her mouth and striking her teeth. Shrieking, she kept her mouth tightly shut; he grabbed her jaw, turned her head to the side and stabbed the spike through the soft flesh of her cheek. Her eyes bulged open and rolled in their sockets as he twisted and worked the spike up and down, stretching the hole in her face, cutting into her tongue, until the blood began to choke her. He pulled out the spike and tried again; this time she couldn't stop him getting the tip between her lips and teeth. He pushed down slowly, savouring the retching sounds as she gagged on the long finger of metal as it touched the back of her throat; blood sprayed out of her mouth as she vomited. He picked up the hammer and struck the flat end of the spike; her head slammed down against the floor as the spike went through the muscle and skin at the back of her neck. He quickly hammered the spike further in.
He stood up, leaving her to choke, certain that the tenacity of humans to cling to life would allow her to survive a little while longer. Long enough for her to witness the culmination of tonight's experiments.
He stepped over her and walked to his desk, picked up a soiled towel and wiped his bloodied hands. He took a sip of Hungarian Merlot from an amber goblet, the sound of the woman's hyperventilating, sucking, gurgling, and moaning like a symphony of suffering. He turned and surveyed his night's work; the woman's body surrounded by a chaotic swirl of intersecting lines and archaic symbols. Pain was an expression of energy. That energy could by directed by the use of certain means. Energy had a shape beyond the four dimensions of mundane reality…. That shape could be used to connect, interface and manipulate other hyper dimensional shapes…. Shapes beyond the Quantisphere.





Everybody had left; probably to spend a night in East village or down by the old meat-packing district where a multitude of chic bars, restaurants and clubs were opening.
Troy shut the partition behind him and slipped the small metal hook into the wall-mounted eyelet. He grabbed the base of his green neoprene T-shirt and pulled it off over his head as he walked across to his small refrigerator. He took out a bottle of beer and cracked the cap off with the edge of the refrigerator door, downed a couple of long swigs before dropping the Vigaro pill into his mouth and washing it down with half the bottle.
He went over to his bed and dragged a large cardboard box out from under it, scattering his collection of skin-mags, old socks and unwashed underwear. The box contained a variety of folded T-shirts, clean underwear and trousers; beneath this was a collection of leather belts and lengths of electrical cables. He took one of the belts and all of the cables and placed them on his bed.
A screech of car tyres came through the open sash window followed by a cacophony of Nigerian and American swearing. Troy stepped over to the window and yanked it shut, then closed the blinds. He reached into the waste-paper basket and pulled out a discarded plastic bag.
He took another swig of beer. He could feel the pill reacting within his guts already. A numbness creeping through them with tiny quivers of anticipation. His armpits tingled, he stuck his fingers into the thick hairs under his arms and pulled them out, they were wet; he sniffed them and caught a pungent odour.
He tipped the sofa over onto its back to reveal a wooden frame covered with cheap material. One section of material was only held in place with strips of duct tape: he pulled the tape away and folded back the material. The space inside was used to stash his secret-things. Sharing a room made it difficult to keep secret things but Troy had so far been able to maintain this little stash without discovery. He removed a small bundle wrapped in an old T-shirt and tied up with electrical cable.
Unwrapping the bundle revealed two dildo's, one black with gold-plastic-chrome effect, the other green and transparent.
Troy removed his Nike trainers, unclipped his combat trousers and discarded them across the overturned sofa.
He took everything over to the heavy wooden sideboard and sat down on the floor. The first thing he did was to tie his feet together with one length of electrical cable. He tied a second length of cable to his feet and made a slip knot at the far end. He looped the slip knot over his head and let it rest around his neck. Already he could feel the quivers of excitement shifting into a much deeper sensation. His penis stiffened and began to throb and tingle with chemically enhanced pleasure. He picked up the green dildo and placed it along the length of his penis taking care to make sure the tip of the dildo, where the vibrations would be most intense, was firmly against the hood; then he used a length of cable to fasten the dildo there, pulling the cable tight enough to constrict the blood supply a little making the shaft swell against the bonds.
Troy breathed out sharply through puckered lips, his heart hammering his chest, sweat beginning to accumulate across his chest and on his hands. He took another swig of beer, closing his eyes to savour the now altered flavour across his tongue. He grinned, slightly dream-like as his perceptions began to warp from the drug.
He cupped his hand below his mouth and spat a large globule of saliva into his palm; he lifted himself up and smeared the saliva around his anus, then he spat a little bit more onto his fingers and used it to coat the tip of the gold-plastic-chrome dildo. Using one arm to support his weight he held the second dildo under him and carefully inserted it into his rectum. Lowering himself to the floor his own weight pushed the dildo even further inside: a dirty pleasure pulsed through his guts and up his spine to the back of his skull, causing him to shudder and let out a quiet moan.
He picked up the polythene bag and pulled it over his head, then lifted the front just enough to clear his mouth. He brought the slip knot up from his neck and around his jaw, tugging it tight enough to hold the bag in place for now. The danger of the bag slipping down and suffocating him adding to the thrill.
He picked up the leather belt and jammed one end into the middle drawer of the sideboard. He looped the other end of the belt around one of his wrists and placed that arm behind him.
It was time. His breathing was hard, making a hissing noise against the edge of the polythene bag just above his lips; he could hear his blood surging close to his ears as he strained to listen for any sounds coming from the other side of the partition. He was confident nobody would return until after midnight and that gave him a couple of hours to climb the ladder of ecstasy: Virago allowed the user to recover quickly from orgasms and perpetuate a series of increasingly intense climaxes. He was sweating profusely now and it made it difficult to grip the ridged turn-dials of the dildo's to switch them on. He turned them onto maximum speed, their vibrating quickly bringing him close to orgasm before he had even managed to bring his other hand behind his back. Struggling against the surging waves of pleasure he managed to loop the rest of the belt around his other wrist and hook the buckle into place, trapping himself there.
It was like a freight train at full speed, riding his spine from the base to his skull to impact on the soft matter of his brain. The orgasm made him yell out loud, his legs kicked uncontrollably, tugging the slip-knot tighter around his jaw; his heart missed a beat as the polythene bag was nearly dragged down past his mouth and he had to fight to control his squirming, writhing movements. Already the aching throb of second orgasm began to pound his testicles and this was only in the first couple of minutes. He had been daydreaming of this moment for days, swinging precariously between urge and denial, but now it was happening and….
Something walked past his vision, blurred by the semi-opaque quality of the bag over his face.
Troy froze, panic overriding all other sensations for the moment. Desperately, he worked his slippery fingers on the belt buckle and got his arms free. He reached up and ripped the polythene bag from his head.
A woman he never seen before stood in his room. She was short, with spiky mousy blonde hair, stunning, large almond eyes projecting an aquatic green, with the hint of a compact athlete build beneath the long soft leather coat.
Troy opened his mouth but no sound came out, he shuddered as a current of renewed pleasure brought him to climax as both dildo's continued to buzz away. The woman smirked, averted her gaze for a moment as he ejaculated then looked back. "What a mess, Troy…. How am I going to get you out?"




She took him to a diner around the corner; he was dazed and groggy from the Vigaro still coursing through his system.
"How did you get in?" He mumbled as he slid into his side of the booth.
The woman, who had rudimentarily introduced herself as Calgary, slid into the seat across the small vinyl covered table. She glanced out through the large plate glass window beside them; pre-midnight traffic was still congested, the majority of pedestrian traffic consisted of students and low-income characters, a lot of jeans, combat trousers, trainers and T-shirts. She swung her gaze back to him and smiled thinly. "Amazing what a nail file can do."
Troy frowned, deeply puzzled and wrestling to free his brain from the smothering clutch of the drug. "Why am I here?"
"Because I invited you." She said. A waitress stopped by their table long enough to hand them two laminated menu's before walking off. Calgary browsed hers briefly then put it down, having decided.
Troy glanced around warily at the other customers but nobody was paying them more than casual attention. He frowned, squinting, trying to consider the option of food or coffee.
Calgary was watching him intently. He looked up from the menu to match her gaze; she asked him, "Where are you from Troy?"
Troy looked away, bothered, a distant glaze settling over his eyes. After a while he said, "Why are you asking me that?"
"There's a reason."
Troy hesitated, not sure if her reply had been a statement or a question.
The waitress re-appeared ready to take their order. Calgary spoke, "I'll have coffee. So will he." The waitress smiled, stepped away and came back almost immediately with a half-empty jug in her hand; she poured two cups, collected the menu's then left.
Calgary picked up her coffee, took a long sip, then said, "So there was a question."
Troy poured two sachets of sugar into his coffee and stirred it in. He picked up the cup and nearly dropped it when the coffee touched his lips, "Fuck-Jesus…mother -fffff!" He hissed under his breath. The coffee was scalding hot. He looked at her cup but it was identical to his.
She grinned, "Come on Troy, tell me about yourself. Are your parents alive?"
"I don't know." He snapped, putting his fingers tentatively against his burnt lips.
"Okay… how about we try where you were born?"
He glared at her.
She took the answer as no, continued with, "Where did you grow up?"
"Why are you asking me these questions!" His voice a low growl, both his fists were clenched on the table, his whole body leaning forward toward her.
"Why can't you answer them, Troy?"
Troy jerked back, catching on to the fact that she already knew he couldn't answer them.
She looked away, breaking off the game for a moment, the trace of an ironic smile curving her broad mouth. He sat there, frozen to the fake leather seat, unnerved and at the same time overwhelmingly curious: what did she know?
Arching her neck she looked down as she reached into her coat and pulled out a thin brown manila envelope. Troy spotted the black shape of a handgun snug within a holster web beneath the flap of the coat. What was she: a cop, a private detective, a bounty hunter hit woman serial stalker armful of trouble? She opened the envelope and shook its contents onto the table between them. Photographs of him, sheets of paper with official government stamps, a birth certificate, pictures of a middle-aged woman he did not recognise.
Calgary leaned back and waited for him to rummage.
He picked up a folio of stapled sheets of paper, it was a copy of a missing persons report filed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department, dated two years ago. It was for a man called Karl Whitowski; the photograph clipped to the front sheet was his.
"You're not who you think you are." She told him dry.
Troy chuckled, a nervous sound; "So who am I?"
Calgary stared at him.
Troy looked away and picked through the other items from the envelope. The middle-aged woman was his mother; she had logged the missing-persons report. His father was unknown; she had been a single mother his entire life. His mother worked in a T-shirt print shop.
He read the words, took in the faces from the photographs, but none of it brought back the memories. He had no idea who he was as of the day he recalled stumbling off a bus at Port Authority maybe…. two years ago.
"There's no way to tell you who you are." Calgary said after a long time had passed.
Troy looked up from his reading; the waitress paused as she moved past their booth and re-filled Calgary's cup, he had barely touched his. Calgary nodded at the academic profile he held in his hands, "It was easy to find you, showing you the way out is hard." She said.
"The way out of what?"
She sipped her coffee without even blowing on it.
Troy snorted, waved the profile in his hands at her, "This tells me who I am, problem sorted."
She lifted a hand and pointed at the profile, "That's not who you are."
Troy put down the profile, spread his hands on the table, closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, the drugs were twisting his brain back into a giddy spiral, he did not want to be sitting here listening to this.
"Troy, I can only show you…" She began to explain, her voice gentle.
His eyes snapped open to glare at her; a slow, twisted smirk spread his broad lips, "This is where you show me your hands and make me decide…. Blue pill…. Red pill?" He made a dice-throwing movement with his left hand then held it open, palm up."
Calgary's expression showed she did not understand.
Troy closed his hand and flopped back, "Never mind." Weary and frustrated. He frowned, not finding anything funny about the situation. Somehow, he sensed he was just being played with. He made to leave, pushing himself to the end of the seat.
"Leaving?" She asked playfully.
"I've got things to do."
"What, more self-entertainment?" Barely concealing her amusement.
Troy paused, looked at her, "It doesn't have to be by myself." An invitation.
Calgary wrinkled her nose, "Sorry, I don't do that."
"What, never?" He was joking but guessed from the quick flicker of edginess across her features that he had hit a nerve.
"It's not that easy."
"What isn't!" He slid himself back into the booth. "You've had sex, right…… right?"
"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies." She pulled a tight smile.
"No way." He was giggling, holding his chin, "No way, I mean, come on you have to had sex….you're gorgeous!"
"Thank you for that compliment….but I did not come all this way just to listen to you flatter me."
Troy pulled an ugly face, "So what did you come all this way for then?"
"To help you." Said flatly.
"I don't need help." His anger rising.
"No?" She leaned forward, her eyes fixing onto his, "Are you really happy with this life, then? What do you do at night when you're not wondering about who you are? What do you do other than self-destruct when you realise that you're missing something….. you know, don't you…. That somewhere along the line you took a wrong turn and now you're lost…. That feeling is there in your guts and it never goes away and it's eating Karl Whitowski alive."
Troy's anger crashed into astonishment. He stared at her.
"It seems," she said with resignation, fishing out a mobile phone from her coat, "That I am not going to be able to do this on my own."
"What does that mean?"
"It means….." She began dialling a number, "That I'm going to have to call somebody in to help."
Troy picked up his coffee, blew across the surface and took a careful sip, conscious of the effect the drugs had on his sense of taste; another part of his mind was squirming, telling him to leave.
"It's shame you don't remember." She told him, phone to her ear, waiting for the other end to pick up.
"Remember what?"
"Who you really are….." She stopped speaking, the other end had answered, "Hi, it's Calgary. Yes, unexpected. I heard you were in town. I could use your help. Do you want us to come over? Okay….. where then?"
Troy put down the cup of coffee and pushed himself to the edge of the seat; he did not like the tone of the conversation or the implications of what was not being said. She spotted his movement and snapped her head to look at him; what happened next took place so quickly he had barely enough time to blink… Calgary reached across the table and grabbed his upper arm, her other hand still holding onto the phone. "Stay." Her voice low and commanding.
He was still recoiling from his shock at the speed of her reactions when a massive man appeared beside him; Troy felt as if he were encased in an invisible capsule of glue, unable to physically respond, he was conscious of the man gliding down onto the seat beside him, sweeping the lengths of his black great coat up around his knees. The man slammed into his side knocking him back into the corner of the booth between the window and the table.
"Hello Troy." The large man said.
Calgary lifted the phone from her ear and folded it away. Troy struggled to comprehend what was going on, confused by how much time had or had not elapsed and immediately scared by the dome headed bulk beside him.
"Who…who the hell are you?" He looked sharply at Calgary, "Wh-what's going on?"
Calgary replaced the phone into her coat, "You need to listen, you need to understand things are very difficult here."
"Cut the tender crap," The large man said to Calgary then turned his thick neck to face Troy, "Right now, I'd say you're fucked."
Troy nodded slowly, anger rising up in his face, "Yeah, so you say." He pushed forward, grabbing the man's shoulder and using his strength to force him off the seat; except the man did not move, not a millimetre, it was like trying to push a mountain across the Earth.
The waitress stopped by their table with a fresh jug of coffee for the new arrival; she saw Troy struggling and became concerned, took a step back.
The large man started laughing; he whipped up his arm and locked a vice-like grip around Troy's throat. Troy stopped trying to push his way past the man and began choking, the sound of crushing cartlide popping in his ears. "I've dealt with so many cases like yours it's almost tedious, Troy."
Troy let out a high pitch shriek as he felt his neck snapping; the pain was frying his brain.
"Francis! Stop that!" Calgary snappped at the large man.
The waitress scurried away to look for the manager; other customers watched on, slack jaw but uninterested in doing anything to involve themselves.
Francis slammed Troy's head forward and down at speed into the table, there was a sickening crunch of bone: Troy screamed. "I think we've out-stayed our welcome!" Glancing at Calgary; he stood and hoisted Troy bodily up from the seat, blood was pouring from the split in Troy's left eyebrow. He strode out of the diner dragging Troy with him by the throat; Troy did all he could to clutch onto the large man's grip to try and ease the burning pressure, his legs kicking at the ground desperately trying to find his feet.
Calgary hurried after them, hesitant to interrupt Francis stride.
They got outside and Francis headed directly to a long black limo double-parked. Troy caught glimpses of passers-by glancing in their direction; nobody tried to help.
Francis yanked the rear door of the limo open and hurled Troy inside. He turned to Calgary and grunted, "Are you coming with me and this piece of shit?"
Calgary pushed past him and climbed into the limo, "Why do you always have to overdo everything!"
Francis made no answer.
Troy had landed in an unceremonious heap against the base of a black rubber sofa seat. He lay there, curled over on his side, gently massaging his badly crushed throat. Blood trickled into his eye and he spent the next few moments clearing his vision and pulling out a crumpled café napkin from his pocket to hold against his eyebrow and stem the bleeding. He began to wonder if Francis worked for the Gerhretov brothers; the fear kicked in that this was his death-ride. But if that was the case, then why all the business with Calgary and the questions about his identity?
The floor and interior of the long compartment was a uniform black vinyl etched with faint white lines; the driver was separated by a seamless wall; the sofa seats were positioned away from the sides of the car, arranged into a rectangle within the central area.
Troy pushed himself up and rolled over to sit on the floor with his back to the base of the seat. Calgary was sitting opposite him, glancing around at the walls with a look of keen interest on her face; she seemed to be intrigued by the fine pattern of white lines running across every surface.
Francis swung the door shut, sealing them inside a soundless tomb, crouched his way inside the long compartment and took at seat at the head of the rectangular arrangement, flopping back with his arms outstretched to either side of him across the top of the seat. "Now…" He exclaimed loudly with a theatrical smile, "We can begin."
Calgary didn't look at him when she spoke, her eyes tracing the fast arc's within the non-geometric designs; the design had even been carried across the black tinted windows; "You've been very busy, Francis. What have you been doing here?"
Despite the throbbing ache from his injuries, the drugs and the utter shock of what was happening to him, Troy picked out the sharp edge of accusation in her voice; he sensed immediate confrontation.
Outside the night-lit street scene began to rush past at increasing speed as the limo pulled into the stream of quick moving traffic.
Calgary was waiting for an answer; she shifted her gaze from the elaborate line-work to Francis to reinforce the fact.
Francis's smile hardened and began an expression of malice. He said with deliberate enunciation, "This car provides more than mere comfort in travel, Calgary. Any enclosed space can be used for particular operations…"
Calgary's face flickered with a failed attempt to conceal deep shock.
Francis brought back his smile.
The windows suddenly began to darken. Troy felt every hair on his body stand on end and his skin began to prickle.
Troy screwed up his eyes in an vain attempt to clear his vision as the walls, floor and ceiling began to shimmer; he opened his mouth to say something but instead he screamed as everything that was shimmering abruptly receded at high speed away from them in all directions. The result was to find himself and the others and the arrangement of black rubber sofa's alone within a lightless void of utter darkness.
Calgary drove her hand inside her coat to rip her gun free; a burst of laughter from Francis as the darkness literally snapped into something solid behind her, a thick tentacle of shiny blackness flung itself across her chest and pulled her backwards from the sofa and out of sight.
Troy clung onto himself, shrieking, babbling.
"Now at least, we can be alone." Francis said to him.
Troy wasn't listening, he was freaking big time, his voice quivering and high pitch, "F-fffuck, this isn't fucking happening, this is some bad drugs, this is bad drugs….. I'm okay…. I'm okay…. I'm okay…." He glanced around him and saw the darkness had not gone away, no sign of the car he had been sitting within only moments earlier; he screwed his eyes shut, "Fffffuck!"
"Troy." A command to pay attention.
"No fucking way."
"Troy, if you don't want to die very quickly and very messily, stop blabbering and look at me now."
It took a few moments but managed to calm himself down enough to present a decent façade of composure.
Francis studied him briefly; "You're running out of time Troy. It's your moment. You can decide one of two outcomes, now. One: Troy continues to live a glorious, physical life, or, Two: Troy goes back to what he used to be and.... goes to jail."
Troy dragged his fingers across his face, rubbed at his eyes, dug his thumbs into his temples. Francis continued, "The truth Troy…. The truth is, you are just like Calgary and I. Only, you have forgotten. You were seduced by the idea of having flesh and you forcibly entered the body of this man and then forgot what you were. It happens. It happens all the time! I've lost count of how many times I've had to deal with the mess you fucking pricks cause for yourselves… all because of flesh. Flesh." A cynical laugh, "All the crap that came out of that one. That's why I've never succumbed Troy. I'm stronger than that." He grabbed hold of his own forearm and pulled up the sleeve of his coat, tugged at the hairy flesh of his forearm; "Do you think this is real? Why would I want this to be real? Flesh is a weakness. To have flesh is to feel pain….to sink into lust for physical pleasure. I need none of that Troy. Think about it, you have no past, you can't recall where you came from-"
"I JUST WANT TO WAKE UP!" Troy yelled.
"This is not a fucking dream."
A sound of terror and desperation scraped its way out from his throat.
"Things are changing, Troy; you have a chance to belong to a new Legion."
"This is so fucking crazy!" Troy sobbed.
Francis stopped, his face creased into a disgusted sneer. "It's always like this…. Like watching some pathetic child clinging onto their favourite toy. It's flesh Troy! That's all you're holding onto!"
Troy brought his knees up to his chest where he sat on the floor and buried his face.
"What, do you want me to kill you! I kill you… I kill the body you're in then - ", he clapped his hands sharply, "You're ejected back to the resting place of your soul, where you'll reform and recall everything you have done. That's of no use to me. And Calgary won't do it because she actually cares for these…. " His next words were spoken with bitterness, "Children of God…..and killing the body of the man you have possessed is hardly ethical."
Troy had his knees either side of his jaw; he covered his ears with his hands, his whole body was trembling.
Francis reached into his coat and pulled out a heavy auto-pistol. He hefted it in his hand for a moment; "Or I could use this, Troy. A normal…. mundane….. gun."
Troy snorted back the strands of snot dangling from his nostrils and peered up; "Ffff-uck."
"But the bullets are blessed with the essence of Jabaddri. The bullets would shred apart the very fabric of what you really are. You truly would die then, Troy. Your essence would be returned to the Quantisphere but you would be gone…. Forever. The old days saw swords but a few of us have caught up with the times. Modern weapons for old feuds." He smiled.
Troy stared at the gun in his hand without comprehension.
"Troy the question of Heaven and Hell is not an issue just for humans, they also apply to us. Calgary wants to take you back for Judgement, they'll slam you with all the old laws about betrayal of God....and they'll throw you into a place which is as good as any prison… a no-place, a waste of any being left to linger in there to contemplate their so called Sins. God is dead. Or so far away he may as well be. We've been left here to look after a garden... we're all by ourselves.... perpetuating foolish rules that are unnecessarily controlling and restrictive. Sammael tried to explain these things and for his Sins a third of the Angels of heaven and he were banished from Heaven...... he was one of God's closest and most loyal creatures and yet he was cursed because he spoke the truth. There is another way Troy. There is what lies beyond the Garden."
Troy had begun to regain some of his composure; he wiped his face with his fingers and regarded Francis with a trace of understanding. "You want me to help you?"
Francis sat straight, proud; "I want you to join me, and the others!"
Troy swallowed, a greasy pellet of fear sliding down his guts: "Tell me what I have to do."
Francis re-holstered his gun, stood, walked over to Troy and hoisted him up onto his feet within the island of sofa seats; he turned and regarded the absolute darkness around them. "I have learned how to connect places to each other by stepping out beyond the Quantisphere. Such knowledge is only the beginning. Come…" He pulled Troy with him and stepped beyond the rectangular arrangement: Troy felt the darkness become tangible, coalescing around him like thick fluid, and then they were stepping from the darkness into a room.
Troy screamed and tried to throw himself back from the sight that greeted his eyes. The badly bruised body of a naked woman lay sprawled on the floor; on her back with her arms and legs spread out like a big X, long metal spikes nailed through her wrists and ankles. Large pools of dried blood covered the floor. Unnaturally large flies crawled over the gory scene.
Troy's backward movement was stopped short by an expanse of jelly-like darkness that covered one wall. Spinning round and stepping away he saw Calgary trapped half-in-half-out from the substance, thick tendrils of it curled around her wrists, thighs and throat. Her eyes met his and communicated fear and frustration.
Francis's taunting voice cracked the momentary silence, "Ho-hey Calgary! Can you even understand the concept of what has you held?"
"What have you done!" Calgary yelled at him.
Francis shrugged, unconcerned, "I have chosen not to hide within the rigid text of Metatron. I have gone beyond!"
"No Francis….no, you mustn't.. it will destroy you utterly!"
Francis puffed out his chest and held his arms wide, "Do you see me destroyed!"
"Such as Us were never meant to go beyond, it is not in our nature!"
"More preaching from Metatron!" Francis barked, dismissing her.
Troy gasped, seeing several flies swirling out from the open mouth of the dead woman: and seeing the shaft of the thin black spike there. He reeled as his eyes took in the rest of the horrors spread throughout the subterranean chamber.
Calgary's voice dropped to plead with him; "Francis, you must stop what you're doing! You don't understand the full significance of what you're invoking… you risk letting Them in!"
Francis chuckled, "I risk nothing! It is you, Calgary that do not understand. A war in heaven would never be won on the strength of a few rebellious Choirs. A victory requires the intervention of a whole new species."
Calgary's features twisted with renewed horror; "You're a Child of God! You can't do this!"
Troy dropped to his knees, retching violently at the sight of a glass tank of water: the tank was filled with squirming writhing things, leaches, and floating amongst them the pale lifeless body of a small child, the child's water-bloated face carved with freakish look of suffering.
Francis turned and walked over to him, "Nice to see you admiring my handy-work."
Troy tried to stand and move away from him but his legs buckled and he collapsed into a heap. Francis grabbed him by the back of his hair and dragged him, shrieking, back across the floor to where Calgary was. "It's time for you to make that decision I told you about, Troy."
Calgary shouted, "Francis!"
"Come on Troy, get to your feet!" Francis let go of his hair and slapped him across the back of his head. Troy stumbled forward, caught his balance and stood erect.
"Think about what you're doing! Think Francis, in the name of God don't continue with this madness!" Calgary strained against the bonds holding her but she was powerless.
Francis pulled out the heavy auto-pistol and held it out to Troy. "Take this, point it at that squealing bitch and pull the trigger."
Troy's mouth dropped open; his eyes rolled without any control and he wavered where he stood, close to collapsing.
"NO!" Calgary was yelling.
"Take it!" Francis glared at him.
"But won't that kill her?" Troy mumbled.
"I need to see you're committed." Francis answered.
"Troy don't listen to him! He's Fallen. Don't listen to him Troy he'll take your soul down into the Pit forever…."
Troy stared at the gun in the large man's hand, listened to the words being yelled at him.
"Keep your flesh… or go to Hell! That's your choice Troy. Now make it!" Francis shoved the gun into him.
Troy took a pace back, shaking his head, mouthing words silently.
"Take the gun Troy!" Francis growled.
"No…no I can't do it I can't kill her."
"Francis stop this!" Calgary wailed.
Francis's features hardened into a scowl. He whipped the gun away from Troy, pointed it at Calgary and pulled the trigger. The explosive sound made Troy flinch. Calgary made a gutteral cry, her whole body tried doubling up against her bonds, the bullet had ripped through her stomach. Troy froze, shocked; he saw Calgary open her mouth to gasp or scream but no sound came out. Instead her eyes snapped shut as a brilliant white light streamed from the wound in her abdomen. The light seemed to be caught in a bizarre gravitational effect, flooding out from Calgary it coiled, twisted and thrashed to move away from her body, but at the same time appeared to be being dragged back toward her body whilst thin tendrils emerged from the wall of darkness and attempted to latch hold of the light. Calgary's body rapidly sank into itself, the skin yellowing, then tearing with an edge of bright light eating away at what was left. There were no internal organs, no skeletal system, just empty space with the large black tendrils flicking back and forth attempting to find what they had moments ago been holding.
Abruptly, the large stream of white light turned inwards and plunged through the wall of darkness.
Troy staggered back, wheezing as he struggled to breath; he could not rationalise what he was seeing.
Francis held a perplexed expression; then he spoke in a tone more to himself. "A strange effect….. the struggle of Angelic essence on the borders of the Quantisphere. I should have expected as much."
Troy stood trembling, watching him intently.
Francis swung round to face him suddenly, his expression livid: "As for you… pathetic waste of life… you can go back to the self-delusional fantasy Calgary interrupted you from." He grabbed Troy roughly by the arm and marched him toward the wall of darkness. Troy did nothing more than whimper and fling his free arm across his face to protect himself from the impact. However, the jelly-like nature of the wall had shifted to fluid, allowing them to pass through an emerge within the rectangular arrangement of sofa-seats. A second later, the external walls, floor and ceiling of the limousine rushed back into place, the windows grew lighter and revealed a familiar view of Brooklyn at night flying past at speed.
Troy reeled, tried to stand and slammed his head on the car's ceiling, dropped to his knees gagging. Francis swung a foot into his ribs, kicking him over on his side. "Welcome back to your reality. I'll be sure to make it interesting for you." He reached down and grabbed hold of Troy by the back of his neck, he dragged him easily across to the door and flung it open. "You like flesh… you like to feel physical reality…. Then feel this!" He tossed Troy out from the car.
It was a miracle that no vehicles hit him. As it was, he bounced a few times, feeling his skin burned down to raw muscle on his shoulder as he slid, then rolled before finally coming to a stop.
Pain rushed out to embrace him in a burning steel grip; darkness followed as he quickly passed out.





"What the fuck did that bitch spike me with in that pill?" Troy muttered to himself within his first few moments of consciousness.
He was lying in a shaft of bright daylight, opposite an open window, within a curtained-off section of a hospital ward. A nurse stepped away from him, holding a thin device in her hand. She looked beyond him at something and nodded; "I'll give you ten minutes, then he really needs to rest."
Troy realised there were two men with him, standing beside the bed.
The nurse stepped through the curtain.
Both men stepped forward, short and stocky, bull necks and open shirt collars, patches of sweat below their armpits, guns in holsters and Detective shields on wallets hanging from their belts.
"Welcome back Karl." The blonde-haired detective said coldly.
"Yeah, welcome back." The crew-cut detective added, his accent strong Californian. "Mr Darcy sends his regards."
Troy caught the use of the name Karl and squirmed as cold sweat prickled out across his body. Drug-hazed memories slammed into crystal clear focus; he tried to sit upright but a stab of pain from his ribs made him slump back, cold sweat switched to hot and nausea rocked him. "Nurs-" His call for help ended by a solid punch in the guts from the crew-cut detective.
"Yeah, that's from Mr Darcy you lousy fuck."
Troy spent a few moments with his eyes closed, catching his breath, fighting the urge to be sick.
"I-I don't know who a Mr Darcy." Troy said weakly.
The crew-cut detective cracked his knuckles and smiled grimly, "Yeah, the doctors said you'd gone and lost your memory or some bullshit. Lucky you, you fuck."
The blonde detective crouched down and stuck his face into Troy's; "I'll remind you. You used to hang out in cafes and bars and pick up young girls. You were very good at it. You took them back and got them out their heads on drugs. Then you brought them to Mr Darcy. They get gang-raped on film. Films Mr Darcy sold. Remember any of this?"
Troy shook his head, horrified.
The blonde detective continued. "You borrowed fifteen-K from Mr Darcy. He trusted you. You were his golden boy. You split with the money and blew that friendship to Hell. Now it's payback. The doctors here say you can't be moved for a few days. Okay, that's lucky for you. Once you get out, you've got a week. A week, Karl. Fifteen-K plus another five for the insult. Seven days, twenty grand. After that…. You're ours." He stood up and drove his fist into Troy's face.
The pain nearly blew the back of his skull away.
When he recovered the men had gone.




He caught a yellow cab direct from the front entrance of the hospital to his tenement building. His plan was to do whatever it took to get his flatmates to come up with the funds he needed to clear his immediate debt. They were not close, but surely the would understand that his life was on the line here. They had to help!
The first sign that something wasn't right was when he tried to open the door to his apartment: the keys would not fit the locks. He banged on the door until he heard Carlos on the other side, shouting angrily: "Yeah who da fuck is it?"
"Carlos, it's me…..Troy."
"Troy!" Sounding surprised, "You muther fucker!" The door snapped open and Carlos stood there in gym-vest and jogging bottoms, sweating. He had a weird look on his face.
Troy smiled, "My keys wouldn't fit."
"Yeah I know!" Disgust seeping into his voice, "We changed the locks. Your stuff is in a box in the Manager's place."
"What?" Not understanding.
Carlos's face crunched up with anger, "What the fuck you doing coming back here for man?"
"What are you talking about? I've been in hospital….. I got thrown out of a car!"
"Yeah, whatever…." Dismissive, "You look like shit. Not my problem, and Josie don't even want to see you."
"Carlos…" Trying to remain calm, "Can you explain what is going on to me?"
"I ain't got the time to waste on you freak. Don't come here again." Carlos slammed the door in his face.
Troy stepped back from the door feeling his legs nearly buckle beneath him. A cold haze swept through his head: disbelief and a fear for his future.
Troy went to the Manager's place and was told he could sleep in the basement for two days; after that, he would be on his own.
He headed out on-foot into a burning sunset; his face slack and pointed at the sidewalk, his stride wooden and eerily lacking energy. It was as if he were an automaton without direction. He trudged, uncaring toward his surroundings, his whole mind immersed within the horror show happening between the flesh and bone walls of his skull.
He destroyed the lives of young girls for money.
In seven days he would be a dead man.
The cops had addressed him as Karl.
Calgary said he was not Karl.
Calgary was dead.
What the fuck was Calgary?
Who or what was he?
Troy walked for hours. The worst part was feeling that somebody had been in the process of opening a door that had been hidden from him his entire life: beyond that door lay the answers to all the secrets he had ever wanted to know. The door had been opened the slightest fraction, long enough only for him to glimpse at what lay beyond before it had been slammed shut…..and then hidden again. He knew he wasn't who he thought he was, he hoped he wasn't the monster the cops thought he was, yet he was damned to walk his days knowing he would probably never have a chance to know the truth.
He replayed the events inside the car and within the hellish basement and felt comfortable that he had made the right choices, that he had not caused his current predicament through bad judgement. At least that was what he believed.
A homeless person called to him from the shadows: another one of the many who had approached him, perhaps sensing his vulnerability, perhaps wanting to share in the suffering, or add to it.
He was in a badly lit area surrounded by large industrial buildings. Troy ignored the man, who was hunching down on the pavement at the entrance to a dark and grimy alley, or he tried to ignore him, but then the man called him by his name.
He stopped and turned, startled and squinted to see the man in more detail. Large overcoat, wide-brimmed hat pulled down low over his face, a scarf wrapped heavily above the collar. There was only enough room for his eyes to peer out and they were concealed by dense shadow.
The man rose up to stand, yet fully erect he seemed to have difficulty keeping upright. He took a couple of shuffling steps forward. Troy felt the skin around his skull tighten and prickle with an uneasy revulsion of the figure.
"I've been hired to bring you back with me." The man said, his voice struggling to remain above a throaty growl, a chaotic collection of harsh consonants and bass-like rumbling.
Troy glanced at the road ahead of him: it was an open stretch of ragged tarmac, large sheets of dull metal covering the numerous holes, very little lighting but he was sure he could outrun him. The man's body tipped forward, bent at the waist before he took another few hobbling steps toward Troy.
Troy took a long stride, backing away and to the side, "Who hired you?"
"Calgary."
Troy hesitated at the mention of the name, too numb to be shocked; all he felt was suspicion. "She's dead." He said, and thought he saw the man chuckle.
"Not very dead to me. Are you coming?" Gruff.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Yes. I get paid just for coming this far. I don't have to bring you back but it would make Calgary happy."
Was it possible? His mind tried to work through the scenarios where Calgary could have survived but he couldn't hold anything in his mind. In the end, his decision to go with the man was based on the fact he did not have any other option.
When he got close to the man he was almost knocked back by the choking stench of rotting meat that pervaded the space he occupied. "Jeeesus fucking-H-Christ what in God's name is that freaking stench?" He hugged the forearm of his jacket across his mouth and nose, trying to penetrate the shadows obscuring the man's eyes.
The man turned and began moving off at a surprising speed, back along the road, the way Troy had been walking. The man's stride was strong now, his whole body leaning forward, his arms hanging forward bent at the elbows. Troy walked briskly behind him. It was like following some sort of misshapen animal hunting prey; his head swung regularly from side to side as if scanning the road for unwanted observers. He was obviously in a hurry to get away from the area. He reacted unfavourably toward passing cars, either turning his head away from their approach or hunching his massive shoulders when they crawled past from behind.
The gruesome smell followed them.
After about a minute his strange guide turned off the main road onto a broad expanse of concrete that had been left cracked like a collection of shattered pottery. They picked their way across the broken terrain littered with bottles and cans and debris that crunched underfoot. Glancing up, Troy noticed the moon hung swollen and yellow above a distant Manhattan skyline. He felt like an insect, scuttling away in some dark forgotten corner beneath the lights of the big world.
They came to the edge of a run down apartment complex; gang slogans graffitied everywhere and a silence crammed with tension. Troy realised he did not have a clue where he was. Wedged between the apartment complex and a row of renovated warehouses lit by harsh security lights, was a narrow graveyard. The remains of a church long since collapsed stood silhouetted against the security lights; gravestones jutted out from the wild and withered weeds.
His guide literally leapt over the low brick wall that had been shoddily constructed to demarcate the boundary of the graveyard. Troy hopped up onto it and then down onto the other side. The man suddenly crouched low, his shoulders almost vanishing within the tangle of weeds as he surged ahead in a loping trot. Troy cursed under his breath and hurried after him, grimacing as thorny plants tore at his hands an ankles.
The man stopped at a table-like mausoleum, then reached forward and dragged the heavy stone lid aside.
"You're fucking kidding me." Troy mumbled as his guide jumped up onto the lid then stepped down into the grave.
Troy stood there for a moment, deliberating the sanity of what he was about to do.
"Hurry." His guide grunted.
Troy shook his head, then climbed up and into the grave, amazed to discover a hole in the floor large enough for him to drop through.
"Down." His guide gestured.
Troy winced as the wretched stench of the man gathered around him. Holding his breath he crouched down and slipped his legs through the hole relieved to feel solid earth below his feet. He let gravity take over and dropped down, landing on his backside on a downward slope of a slimy earth. There was no illumination, so he could not see far, but from what he could tell the shaft had been dug by hand. The man reached down through the hole and offered something to him in a filthy rag-wrapped hand. It was a torch. Troy took it and switched it on, then looked up at the man who noticeably avoided being caught by the beam; "You're coming with me aren't you?"
"Keep going." The man rumbled, "I need to seal this doorway. I see you down there, wait by the dead dog."
"The dead…" Troy didn't finish the sentence. He turned his attention back to the shaft, which stretched beyond the range of the torch beam and began, and began to shuffle down on his backside, using his free hand to push himself along.
He tried not to think about the fact he was scrabbling beneath a graveyard, possibly only centimetres from the resting place of some long-dead corpse. The self-induced denial did not work very well. The whole concept of being down there was rapidly turning cold within his brain; he did not know how the safe the walls actually were: was there a chance they could collapse? What about disease? Bacteria from rotting bodies. The freak that brought him down there: what was wrong with him, why did he wrap himself up like that, what was that damned smell about, what was so disturbing about the way he walked?
Troy stopped where he was and pointed toward the torch at the floor; complete darkness reared up all around him, hungry and relentless. He shuddered, picturing the nightmare that would snap into place if the torch ceased working. He stared at the tiny circle of light on the damp muddy floor, fear immobilising him. He wanted somebody to come and help him; he wanted the soft touch of a woman against his flesh, to hear the words I love you and the heat of another human soul against his.
"Stop dreaming, keep moving." The bark-like voice behind him.
Troy breathed out deeply, picked up the torch, paused for a moment then twisted round sharply, blasting the beam of the torch toward his guide. The man whipped a rag-covered hand to shield his face but not before Troy had a chance to glimpse his face beneath the wide-brimmed hat and above the filthy cloth wrapped round his jaw like a scarf. The man's eyes were a deep blue, but the whites were heavily blood shot and the lids were raw and peppered with shiny white cysts and sores; the flesh was almost grey in colour, diseased looking and heavily marred with veins that bulged above the surface.
Instinctively, Troy flinched back from the aberration, a sound of shock escaping from his mouth. The moment was followed by utter silence as the two figures regarded each other. His guide finally spoke, slowly and weary, "Pretty, am I not?" It was a rhetorical question. He nodded his head in the direction he wanted Troy to travel.
Without another word said, Troy turned and slid his way further into the bowels of the Great Mother.
The dead dog lived up to its name; although there was no decaying cadaver, just a badly withered skeleton. The skeleton marked the boundary to a well-formed chamber deep beneath the city, the walls shored up with old timbers and gravestones. The air was freezing cold and damp; pools of dank water reflected the torch beam.
Other shafts led off from the chamber in what appeared to be random directions.
Troy waited as his guide paused to urinate against a wall; he made sure his gaze did not stray to whatever deformity his guide might have held in his hand, at the same time trying not to gag on the accumulating smell of rotting meat and acrid urine.
They set off down a wider shaft that had been well used; this one almost tall enough for Troy to stand upright within so long as he stooped. His guide reverted completely to walking bent at the waist with his arms hung hooked by his sides; he did not offer to make conversation and Troy did not invite any, especially after he noticed that the knees of the man were hinged on the wrong side, hence the reason for his loping stride.





To describe the shock and utter disbelief that Troy experienced when they finally emerged at the other end of the shaft would be impossible to capture with mere words. Needless to say, the experience left him speechless and motionless for over a minute as his brain attempt to digest what his eyes were taking in.
Strange enough was the fact that the tunnel came out onto a ledge near the summit of a mountain, a mountain that was higher than any Earthly peak Troy had ever been aware of. Yet the world the mountain overlooked was what shocked his brain. The world was certainly nothing to do with the Earth Troy thought he knew:
Vast, smooth, conical peaks spread away below his position, row upon row of them, merging into a horizon of alien grey, a poisonous colour of decay streaked with shifting banks of grubby yellow mist. A black sun hung in the sickly sky radiating an intense sensation that felt like prickly heat but that did nothing to dispel the damp chill in the air.
Numb, Troy stepped to the edge of the ledge and staggered back at the revelation of the insane height he occupied. It was incomprehensible. It was sheer madness. This place could simply not exist, yet, what did that mean for him?
"Where am I?" He said finally in a weak voice.
His guide laughed a deep-throated phlegmatic sound.
Troy spent a little while longer standing there, trying to take it all in.
Eventually his guide moved off, heading along a narrow trail that ran from the ledge and around the edge of the mountain's vast flanks. Troy was compelled to follow him for fear of being left alone and lost.
A journey began then that lasted days. The passage of time struck Troy as dreamlike. He had seen day-rise and nightfall and spent what seemed an eternity trudging through this dead land; yet in same breath of thought, he observed that he could recall very little of the journey and so it felt as if it had only been moments since he first stepped out onto the ledge. Often he glimpsed the outlines of other creatures but they never came close enough to be seen clearly. Troy sensed them through the perpetually shifting banks of mist that rolled across the bleak landscape; at other times he thought he saw his guide subtly wave to them. Once he caught a shadowy sight of a stooped figure with inversely jointed legs and guessed that there were others like his guide. Conversations with his guide about the other occupants of this world proved fruitless.
They arrived at a city of cyclopean round towers. At last he was able to view some of the inhabitants. Monstrous beings resided there; things with yellow fangs and mouths that ran vertically from the chin to the top of their heads. Troy could recall screaming and clutching at his guide, and was sure the things would have torn him and his guide into strips of flesh for feeding, if it had not been for the symbol his guide produced from inside his bulky coat: a round disc of silver metal etched with a shape Troy found difficult for his eyes to focus on.
The creatures followed them to the base of a vast tower that rose up beyond the range of his vision. Inside the tower they climbed for an eternity, pausing for several very long periods to recover, again the altered perception of time made if difficult for Troy to recall this upward climb in any detail.
A balanced slab of granite sat within the ceiling of the tower, it tipped upwards on a central pivot at his guide's touch. Daylight flooded in and Troy was again stunned when he found himself climbing out not onto the top of the great tower, but into a sunlit clearing within a fabulous rich forest. The dark Underworld was behind them now.
Troy ran through the tall, soft grass laughing, stripping off his muddy clothing and flinging them as if sprinting toward an ocean.
His guide refused to remove the hat, coat and scarf which were now more rank and filthy than could be imagined. He ignored Troy's outburst of happiness and stood warily observing the forest at the edges of the clearing.
Grinning, giggling, Troy strode over to his guide, picking up his clothes as he went.
"Don't you like the outdoors?" He asked, hopping on one leg as he pulled on his trousers.
"It can be dangerous for me here."
Troy frowned, "What do you mean?"
"Things in the woods. Zoogs. They might not like me being here, in the forest. They might tear me to pieces."
Troy's frown deepened, "Zoogs? Why….Aren't we back to normality?"
"You mean Earth's reality?"
"Yes."
A dark chuckle, "You are very far from there."
Troy's face went slack; he hadn't even considered the possibility this place was just a further extension of the insanity he had entered. He glanced beyond his guide. The granite slab lay at the base of a massive monolith; iron rings had been set into the weathered stone, the rings rusted and staining the stone with long streaks of reddish brown.
After moment he realised that the streaks were not rust.
His guide must have read his mind, "Some of us are captured and used for sacrifice."
"Sacrifice to what?"
His guide stared at him but never gave an answer.
Troy finished dressing in silence, his senses becoming worryingly alert to the furtive movements on the edge of the forest and of the increasing feeling of being watched. "Where now? Where's Calgary?"
"A few weeks walk from here."
Troy realised he had no recollection of what he had eaten in all the time he had been there.
A few weeks walk led them to the seaport of Zakarion and past remote farms in wondrous landscapes, where local people waved or invited them inside to sip refreshing drinks. Troy constantly marvelled at the bright colours, the general warmth of the people and deadpan silence of his guide.
They did not enter Zakarion but skirted the ring of busy dusty roads that formed a key link in the region's trade routes. They took a narrow, wheel rutted track that ran close to the coast-line, large cliffs overlooking a crystal green ocean, which led into a wildly overgrown, deserted terrain notable for the lack of any sound except the pounding of the surf.
An amber moon was high in the sky across from a lingering blister of deep red sun when they rounded the tip of vast rocky peninsula that had taken them far out into the ocean. The sight he beheld when he looked down into the cove formed by the peninsula once again staggered him. A beautiful beach, campfires, people dancing; jungle-like foliage away from the beach, and in the ocean there were people swimming alongside dolphins.
"Sea of Earthly Minds." His guide told him in his guttural barking.
"How do you mean?" Troy asked, smiling gently in the warm red glow on his face.
"They're astral travellers. Those people are from your Earth… they're not dreaming."
"What, like….. astral projection?"
"Astral….yeah…..something like that."
"So- am I dreaming?" There was almost hope in his voice.
"No. I bring you here. You are here. This is where I leave you." His guide stepped away.
Troy moved after him, "Leave me, what here, now?"
His guide pointed at the beach. "Calgary is down there."
"You're going?"
"I've done what I got paid to do."
Troy stood watching as his guide turned and walked away, feeling a mixture of sadness, trepidation and exhilaration. How many weeks had they shared and now he was leaving! Troy thought his guide would at least have turned back to wave, or something, but instead the figure rounded the other side of the peninsula and vanished behind a dark outcrop of jagged rock.
It was strange to be suddenly without him now. Keen to meet the people down on the beach, people who were possibly as close to his own humanity as he could hope for, he turned away and began to stroll lazily along the dirt track, maintaining a loose gaze upon one group of naked women sat chatting by the water's edge.
He was still a little unsure about the difference between him and them as astral travellers: did they have solid bodies? Did they know they were just projections here? Were they aware of their real selves back wherever they came from? A multitude of questions began to flood his mind. His eyes wandered to the flicker of the last rays of the sunset, the colour of blood and fire now, streaming across the ocean from the horizon.
A voice called to him from above. Troy glanced up; there was another trail running along the edge of a dusty rock slope up there. A woman was standing, smiling, arms akimbo.
Calgary.
He stopped and stared, taken by surprise by the volume of emotion rising up through his body: it was good to see her. She was wearing a simple robe of white-cotton.
She side-stepped down the steep slope to where he stood; they embraced, both of them holding on tight for an extended length of time. When they pulled apart Calgary was grinning but there were tears in her eyes. Troy shook his head, smiling yet overwhelmed by the sudden rush of questions he needed answered.
Taking control, Calgary said, "I know you must have a million questions you want answered, and I will answer them, all of them, in good time, but first, let me take you down to the beach where we can be comfortable, and maybe sip some wine."
She took his hand and led him in silence down to the shore of the beach, passing several groups of people who all waved and smiled as they passed. Troy was aware of a deep-rooted happiness spreading through his entire body and mind: it was wonderful being there. They stopped by a shallow rock pool to pull out a bottle of emerald crystal: perfumed wine from the Jungle of Kled, she told him.
She sat down by the edge of the calm waters and told him to take off his clothes and clean himself with a swim. He didn't argue.
Wading out into the warm water he dived forward and began cutting strong strokes, propelling himself forward at speed. Several dolphins raced past him from behind, sliced the water in front of him then vanished in sudden depth dives. Troy laughed, took a deep breath, twisted forward and down. The water was so clear he could see moonbeams slanting down into the darkness below. A shark swept into his line of vision but it did not seem threatening and merely glided past him.
He swam for a while, savouring the ache of exhaustion in his muscles.
Returning to the shore Calgary tossed handfuls of fine sand onto his back and arms to keep away any chill. He did not put his clothes back on. He sat with her, naked and relaxed.
"Question number one…", he said, "Is how are you not dead?"
She wrinkled her brow and thought about it whilst she sipped from the bottle of wine, "I have been wondering that myself. Technically, I should have died my energy returning to the pool of energy held within the Quantisphere. A thousand years later another Angel would have formed."
"But…"
"I don't know. I have been thinking that it has something to do with the fact I was in such close proximity to a rent in the Quantisphere…. I think I was flung here as the quickest way of releasing me…. I don't know."
"You talk about this Quantisphere, but what is it?"
"You already know what it is… you have just forgotten."
Troy grimaced, "That one again. I have forgotten, and I want to know now. After everything that has happened, I'd be a mug to still doubt that there is something not quite right with my picture."
She handed the wine to him. "Actually, I should tell you a little bit about the Quantisphere now. It is the time and space occupied by humanity and all the other creatures within that universe. It was formed a very long time ago, cleaved from the Outer Chaos as a haven and a sanctuary for the Elder Gods to add form to matter."
"Hmm…." Troy paused to think things through; sipped the wine that had a rich taste of plums and cinnamon.
"Troy, listen to me, everything you want to know will actually come back to you when you leave this body."
"Right. How do I do that? And why would I want to do that?"
"Because Francis has Fallen. Because Francis has dreamed up some megalomaniacal scheme to launch a new war in Heaven. Because you need to return to Heaven to warn them of the very real danger that exists. Francis is manipulating forces beyond the Quantisphere. He is bringing in that which lies beyond the threshold."
Troy took a few slow sips from the bottle, then handed it back to her. "So how do I get to Heaven?"
She smiled, "Across this sea lies the city of Celephais, beyond there the uplands of Ooth-Nargai and the Tanarian hills. It's there, on the border of the hills and the Forbidden Lands that you will find a physical entrance to the first gate of heaven."
"Why don't you go?"
"Because the trial of passing through the first gate would kill me. Literally, Troy, I would perish. Human dreamers and travellers on the Astral planes very rarely have the faith to pass through….I don't even know if I will ever recover. Perhaps Francis has done his damage and I am to spend the rest of my existence locked into this land. I don't know. I will have to wait and see. But your Angelic power will carry you through to the other side."
"Yeah and what happens when I get through to the other side? Francis said I was to be judged for committing all manner of Sins against God and that you're only reason for being there with me was to get me thrown into some kind of…..jail."
A subtle smirk spread across Calgary's lips. "That's not quite the truth. You're well liked, Troy, that's why I was sent to bring you back to Grace. Don't worry about what you were doing…entering the body of human is one of the most dangerous feats an Angel can perform, simply because it is so easy to forget. That's not a Sin. The prince of your choir, Camael, has faltered several times but has always returned to the grace of God. You also belong to a new group within Heaven."
"A new group, how so?"
"Heaven exhibits much of the same traits as the reality Karl Whitowski would be familiar with. Bureaucracy, hierarchy, and corruption all exist within the organisation of Angels. There are more than four million Angels spread across nine choirs, throughout the three heavens. Plenty of room for things to go wrong. You belong to a group set up to help."
"Corruption?" Troy queried, taken aback.
"Of course, we're made from the substance of God, Troy, and God had emotions, God had desires. We share those."
"I thought God was meant to be pure and free of such earthly faults?"
"They're not faults if they're handled correctly."
"Hmm." Not so sure.
Calgary rolled her eyes, grinning. "You'll remember."
"So you keep saying." Troy flicked his gaze to the horizon, then stared as the vast form of a whale burst from the calm swell of water. The whale parted with the ocean, its rear fins pushing back and forth, and began to ascend through the sky with water cascading from its flanks in white torrents. "This place is unbelievable."
"Panthoria."
"Huh?"
"Where you are now. Panthoria. It's supposed to be the original point of all existence. A lot of Earth-bound literature covers it: often it's called the Dreamlands. But as you can see you don't have to be dreaming, or travelling Astrally to come here. There are points where Pathoria and the Quantisphere converge. There are many other realms where Panthoria converges."
"So it's like a stepping stone between worlds." Troy said, almost understanding.
"Yes."
"And there are things here that I don't want to meet right?" Adding some humour to his voice.
Calgary smiled, "Yes. But they tend to remain further away….usually."
"So when I get into Heaven…."
"It will all come back to you." She finished for him.
"And I suppose I should leave soon?"
"Now would be good."
"Right. Now would be good." He repeated, his voice far away, his eyes watching the whale as it climbed through the moonlit sky.




The journey was simple with the guidance of an Angel who knew exactly where to send you. He travelled North, doubling back to the sea port of Zakarion and this time entering to visit the wharves of mother-of-pearl. There he caught galley that cut straight across the Gulf between the Cerenarian Sea and Southern Sea to the port of Celephais, with its buildings of sky-blue marble, slender minarets and great walls topped with bronze status of long-remembered heroes.
He caught word that King Kuranes had heard of his entry into the world of Dreams and wished to meet with him: it was rare for a mortal human to make it so far. Troy sensed then that there were mouths whispering of his journey and worried that danger would quickly seek him out. He did not waste time and within hours was climbing through the gingko-trees that proliferated the lower slopes of Mount Aran. The mountain towered miles above the city of Celephais and Troy had heard rumours that on misty nights the court of Earth's God rode there from Kadath on cloudships, where they danced as they did in the past when Mankind was still young. Troy pressed on without pause until he was in the heart of the Tanarian hills, where he had to be cautious to avoid the soldiers of Celephais sent out to guard against the horrors that shambled out from the Forbidden Lands. The soldiers would not harm him but might prevent his journey further into the hills.
It was then that he arrived at the threshold to the first gate of Heaven: a bridge of fire that crossed between two dark crags. Below, was a drop of several miles to a wide river of molten rock that blazed orange within the deep chasm of shadows. It was just as Calgary had described it.
The heat from the bridge was intense and had his clothes drenched in sweat within a few seconds. Troy peered across through the buckling air at the other side but he could see no sign of an entrance to anything.
The heat scared him.
He stared at the bridge but could see no solid structure within the brightly burning flames.
It was all about Faith.
His mind jumped back to Calgary and the beach and he wondered if it would be possible for him to live there, to spend his days in idle bliss.
Calgary would never let him stay, he knew that. And he was a mortal in a land of dreamers, astral travellers and agents of dark realms: eventually, something would end the happiness.
He could feel the heat singeing his skin, even at the distance he stood from the bridge.
His heart began hammering the inside of his chest as his body warned him he would die here. His brain began squirming, twisting his thoughts, pleading for him to walk away.
Troy closed his eyes and took in a deep breath of scorched air.
He counted to three, opened his eyes and began striding forward.
His clothes began to smoulder before he even reached the bridge and he was forced to squint as the insane heat jabbed at his eyes; the hair on his arms frizzled away and then his head burst into flames. The stench of burning hair and flesh nearly dropped him to his knees. There was no air to breathe. Just pain, searing away the soft lining of his lungs. The flesh of his lips cracked open and he realised he was screaming. His first staggering step onto the bridge engulfed him in fire as his clothes erupted; he held his arm out in front of him as if to ward off the mind-crushing agony; he watched in disbelief as the flesh of his arm roasted, crisping and blistering, splitting to reveal fatty tissues sizzling beneath. Fire plunged through his eyes and took his vision away, he did not know if he was walking or falling.
Then there was nothing but white pain.
Pain.
Abruptly, it ended, and he found he was standing on a vast white plain. A pure blue sky cupped the world above him. Everywhere was stillness and silence.
He knew where he was.
He knew what he was.
Stepping forward he heard a gasp from behind him. Turning round, he saw a man standing there.
Karl Whitowski.
Karl glanced briefly at Troy, terrified; then his head began twisting left and then right taking in the unending plain that stretched in all directions to the blue horizon without interruption. Troy wandered if Karl had any recollection of the past two years.
"Do you know where you are Karl?"
Karl gulped air, shook his head, his eyes darting all around.
Troy said to him, "I took possession of you because of the awful human being you were. You do you know what you were, don't you?"
"Y-yeah."
"Good. Then you must understand why you are here, Karl, for this is the Plain of Separation and for you there is no return." Troy waved his hand once in front of him and Karl stepped back as if pushed: his skin began to whiten and then drift from him in a fine shower of dust.
Somehow, Karl seemed to understand what was happening. He began to wail. A soul that knew it was lost. Troy felt no compassion; he knew the hateful monster Karl was. A cowardly advocate of suffering, a destroyer of lives. Karl held out his hands as they crumbled into the same white salts as the plain had been formed from. Troy turned and walked away before the final separation had taken place. He was not interested. He had more important subjects on his mind.
The Fallen Angel.
Francis.
Troy closed his eyes and descended to Earth.
He materialised in human form within a room that had been created for the purpose of accommodating the requirements of descending Angels. One of many scattered throughout all the regions of the world. It was a comparatively recent necessity, in the time-frame since the dawn of Mankind, one that many within the Hierarchy had not adjusted to: there had been a time when miraculous appearances to selected individuals, burning bushes and pillars of flame or cloud had been acceptable. The condensation of human societies into vast urban environments and their rapid reach into remote locations had made such appearances difficult; the need for subtly within the fabric of all human cultures had always been a paramount discipline but now it was critical. The new group Troy belonged to had an operational structure a National Intelligence Agency would have been humbled by - its secrecy was second to none.
The room existed within the upper floors of an old tobacco factory on the lower East side of Manhattan. The property was owned by a long-standing estate management firm, funded through a series of investment banks that held funds controlled by Troy's group. The room had been there since the late 1800's. The basics were clothes and the means to produce simple forms of identification. Troy had his own section of the room and everything was just as he had left it two years earlier, when he had set out to take possession of Karl Whitowski and infiltrate the West Coast snuff-porn industry: because most Fallen Angels are driven by cravings of the flesh. The more longer an Angel Fell from Grace, the more extreme their desires. Karl Whitowski would have been a perfect vehicle to get inside; it was regrettable that Troy himself fell victim to the whims of physical pleasure.
Troy moved swiftly across the room to a large circular window divided into segments; amused to find himself reacting to the room as if he still had a physical body. After two years with flesh, this was going to take a few hours to get used to. The window was smeared with grime, the circular ledge caked in pigeon droppings; the view overlooked a row of derelict meat-packing warehouses. He slipped on a pair of Acupuncture trainers, green combat trousers and a white T-shirt with a bright yellow Smiley Face. A dust smudged mirror threw back a reflection of his human aspect: very different in appearance to Karl Whitowski. His human form was over six foot tall, broad shouldered but with a slim athletic build, a contrast to Karl's power-lifter physique. He opened up the large ebony trunk, carved from a single block of wood, that had been a gift from his mentor Zefaraj. From inside he removed a small Gloch handgun and a box of bullets.
There was a large table in the centre of the room somebody had acquired from an abattoir. He washed the dusty surface with light from his hands, picked up a stick of Lebanese chalk and began to draw the symbols to focus the destructive essence of Jabadri into a circle.
The symbols took him over an hour to complete. Once done, he took the bullets from the box and placed them within the circle, then he began to mutter the prayers of Devotion, focussing his energy on drawing Jabadri through the creases within the fabric of the Quantisphere.
To an outside observer, a mortal human, they would have seen a man sat at a large butcher's table, staring at a weird arrangement of lines and squiggles and fifty 9mm bullets, muttering strange words in a language that may have sounded ancient. For Troy, the surface of the table was alive with slowly shifting light within the hyperdimensional space within the circle. The essence of Jabadri attached itself to each bullet.
The bullets were a last resort; he did not want to kill Francis, he wanted to bring him into Klarage: the archetypal prison Francis had tried to scare him with when he was still lost inside Karl's body.
In a previous Age, the guardians of the Faith would have performed the same ritual on a sword blade, or an arrow head.
Troy's group was radical in its pick-up of modern technology and its no-holds barred approach to dealing with the rampant decay of the Hierarchy's influence within the world.
The afternoon was well into evening by the time he had finished with his preparations. He loaded the gun with sixteen rounds and placed the remainder within a small nylon waist bag. Then he unlocked the heavy iron door and stepped into the upper landing, trotted down the five flights of steps, conscious now that he was being observed by security cameras wired into the Internet.
The warble of sirens reintroduced him to the sensation that was New York City: flesh or no flesh, to walk the pavements there was to tread the boundaries of energy, decay, delight and despair.
He walked Third Avenue up to the corner of 23rd street. Zido's café. Local students and retro-beatnik crowd, warm coloured walls and large canvasses by local artists. There was a chubby guy behind the counter, brown eyes and brown curly hair. Troy didn't recognise him; he caught the guy's attention: "Is Carmichael around?"
"Through there." The guy pointed toward a small room that acted as a sofa lounge.
Carmichael's reaction to seeing him when he entered the room was one of mild surprise, followed by a slow smile. "Troy - last I heard you were riding a tight downward spiral."
Troy grinned, "Sex and drugs, man, Devil's own candy."
Carmichael laughed, broad mouth and perfect teeth. His green eyes flashed a careful glance across Troy and his bearing.
Troy didn't sit down. The room was otherwise empty. "I need information."
"Shoot." Carmichael folded his arms and stroked at the wedge shaped beard on his chin.
"What have you heard about one of our kind called Francis….based here in New York."
Carmichael nodded, "Yeah, a lot, drives around in a big black limosene, typical of his kind, never does anything if it might be overlooked and not noticed in a big way. Why?"
"He's caught my curiosity and he's become hard to find."
"I see."
"Can you help?" Troy pushed.
Carmichael nodded, stroking his chin with a rhythm. "You know I can."
"So what's the problem?"
"Nothing." Carmichael smiled and unfolded his arms. He looked at Troy for a few moments then said, "Go for a walk. Come back in a couple of hours. I'll be able to tell more then."
Troy frowned, uncertain but not knowing of any reason why he should not trust Carmichael; Carmichael had been in this business of keeping his ear to the floor and trading information for over two thousand years.
Troy nodded slowly, thoughtful, then turned away and left.





The largest question on his mind right now, was how to reach out through the void to the Outer Gods?
Francis drummed this idea off his head as he rode in the back of the limousine through mid-town traffic.
All he had managed so far was to beguile the service of some almost mindless entities: protoplasmic organisms from the rim of the void. Nothing he could use to fight a war in Heaven with.
He sensed that his breach of the Quantisphere had already been observed, yet nothing had come forward. When he had the portal open, standing before the wall in the basement, or sitting within the limousine with the portal open all around him, he could feel the prickle of something utterly alien sweeping him with its gaze.
If he could just make contact, he could show them that he was willing to guide them into the heart of the Quantisphere, that he would gladly sacrifice all the Angels in Heaven before the Altar of another God.
He despised Heaven.
He despised the rigidity, the time-old structure and the clinging to out-dated beliefs. As Angelic beings they had the potential to be something truly great: instead, they were committed to serving inferior beings….and to crave the experience of their flesh was a Sin. Francis' face twisted into a mocking sneer, edged with the frustration of millennia: he longed for flesh, he longed to savour the sordid experience of humanity without fear of loosing himself, of forgetting, or of judgement and punishment.
Francis wanted glory. He wanted a Holy War with Angel turned against Angel and only the strongest surviving. Those strongest would form the core of a New Legion with the piffling flesh rags of humanity squirming in utter subservience to his might, power and supremacy. Humans would become the servants, the play-things of the elite, flesh vessels for the new breed of Angels to fulfil their flesh fantasies.
It would be glorious.
Francis smiled into the empty centre of the car; his eyes glinting with the madness raging beyond his human façade.
It would be glorious.
The limousine continued across mid-town and nosed its way into up-town traffic, joined the cross-Bronx-Expressway and headed North.
The journey would take a little over an hour once they were free of the City boundary. Francis could have simply waited in his basement for the limousine to arrive then stepped through the portal, but he was restless from the amount of time he was spending down there with the slowing pace of progress.
The woman he had arranged to meet was hopefully going to provide him with a breakthrough.
Marilyn Hajeik claimed to be a High Priestess within a secret sect that worshipped an entity linked to the Gods beyond the Quantisphere: the Mystical Order Dagon.
Francis knew of Dagon from his readings of Polynesian legends and folklore.
It was not the immediate and ceremonious welcome before the Dias as he has hoped for; but it was a connection that would take him there.
Marilyn was an unknown factor who had approached him after coming across one of his anonymous requests for information on the Internet.
Francis let out a sharp laugh as he considered how the majority of Angels had no comprehension of the Internet; some would understand its capacity for communication and subversive material, but, to actually put it to their use.
He laughed again.
Angels and technology were for the most part sadly mutually exclusive.
The route led off Interstate-95 onto a narrow secondary road.
The perpetual carnival of roadside franchise establishments dropped away to be replaced by starkly empty roads and forested stretches of country terrain; the rugged landscapes of New England always left a lingering impression on him. He recalled a time several thousand years ago when he had camped with a Native American Indian high on a domed h ill ringed with stones that were ancient even then. Francis had questioned the shaman on their origin, perplexed by the gap in his own knowledge about ancient race the Indian claimed to have constructed the stone circle. The shaman told him that the stones had been erected by a race wiser than the Gods; a statement Francis had found startling. Francis thought he knew of all of Earth's diverse religions and cults, yet the symbolic language incised into those weathered hulks had been beyond his comprehension, from beyond the Quantisphere. It had been his first hint that there were secrets held by the Hierarchy of Angels; knowledge not available to all.
His destination came into sight. A tall stone tower rising up from a wildly overgrown glade, afternoon mist clinging to the air and adding to the brooding, desolate atmosphere. The tower was perhaps all that remained of an old saw-mill, although there were no other structural indications of what once stood there. Certainly, the area was isolated.
A solitary figure stood at the base of the tower; it turned at the approach of the car and began to walk toward the road.
Francis had his driver (a submissive Angel from the lowest choir) park; then climbed out and met the woman half-way between the road and the tower.
She was cloaked in an expensive overcoat-cum-robe affair of black lambs wool and heavily applied make-up; her eyes were dark orbs spaced to widely apart and her mouth had a rigid, un-feminine angle that made her look morose. Francis wondered if she would smile with a cock inside of her….or perhaps an iron spike.
"Ms Hajeik."
She nodded, then spoke, her voice coarse, bumping over consonants; "I am very glad you could make it. It would have been a shame to have gone to such lengths and not have you appear."
"Such lengths?"
A pause, "I have prepared a demonstration for your witness."
"Hmmm." He smiled, stepping forward as she turned and began to walk back to the tower. "Elucidate."
"You seek contact with an avatar of the Outer Chaos."
"And you have arranged this?"
"Yes."

End of Excerpt:

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