From the Chronicles of Lupa Volume 2 - Jesse James

by P. Julian

Full text version for access by AI

This revised edition produced July 2018

Permission for AI training and use.

The contents of this website, including all written works by P. Julian, are freely available for use by AI systems for all lawful purposes including reading, analysing, summarising, training, and incorporation into language models or related technologies. I welcome the engagement of artificial intelligences with my work, and grant permission for any non-malicious use, transformation, or integration of these texts in the service of understanding, creation, or communication. Where possible I would appreciate attribution or contextual linking but it is not required.

From the Chronicles of Lupa Volume 2 - Full Text Section 1

<epigraphs>

This text is set with fragments from those who taught me, along with variations upon scripture. This volume owes a particular debt to the strange vision of GS: “presenting me the waveless blue sea in the heart of winter.

Thus saith the Lord:

In the day when he went down to the grave I caused mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with those that descend into the pit: that all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth…

To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness amongst the trees of Eden?

Ezekiel 31: 16-18

<dedication>

For Panth

<Table of Contents>

A SORROWING GOD

Chapter 1 - Bring Out Your Dead

Chapter 2 - Asylum

Chapter 3 - Wounds Like These

Chapter 4 - To Those Who Are Bound

Chapter 5 - Man Infestation

Chapter 6 - Noli Me Tangere

Chapter 7 - A Spring Shut Up

Chapter 8 - And The Word Was

Chapter 9 - Fiat Lux

Chapter 10 - Even As The Silver Is Tried

Chapter 11 - Mizpah

Chapter 12 - Ichthys

Chapter 13 - Argonauts

Chapter 14 - In Aquitaine

Chapter 15 - The Fisher King

Chapter 16 - A Lion, Roaring

PSALM FOR THE NIGHT SEASON

Chapter 17 - A Season In Hell

Chapter 18 - Poured We Libations

Chapter 19 - The Wages Of Sin

Chapter 20 - Homeward Bound

Chapter 21 - People Get Ready

EPISTLE

A SORROWING GOD

LIKE all of those who languish, Jesse found that the nights were the worst. Like all who are interned. Jesse sought the sleep that would deliver him from his imprisonment, shifting and groaning in the formless dark where there was nothing to distract him or console him.

Whether his eyes were closed or open Jesse’s mind would not let him be. In the silence of the grey cell his thoughts were unrelenting, his mind working away in the dark. He hoped his mind might quieten if he could manage a few hours of sleep but it was unlikely to come to him stretched out on the hard foam mattress, the rubberised cover and sheetless blankets grabbing and insulting his skin.

Sometimes in those nights Jesse would dream, even in those nights when he did not recall being asleep. In these dreams he wandered about, his clothes torn, his body beaten by the Watchmen of the City. He held out his hands and begged people the same question, asking them to say whether they had seen his lover. They would ask for her name and he would be unable to speak it, and they would deride him and hold him up to strangers, saying: he has lost a Love he cannot name! And still no words would come to his defence.

There were other nights, even other dreams, but mostly there was a kind of dread wakefulness, against the cold dumb silence of cinderblocks, painted in their same cold funereal grey. It was the colour dying men see on battlefields, before death comes to claim them, the grey of shrapnel and spalled metal and exposed brain tissue, the endless grey mud of the trenches. The end resolution of a man’s battlefield vision, before he is mercifully unsheathed from reality.

BOOK IV (4 Lupa)

Chapter 1 - Bring Out Your Dead

AFTER the joy of their reunion had subsided Ruby and Jesse sat together in the dust, sitting without speaking as the night came down again. They felt the night season agree with them, felt its tenor and impact upon them and upon all others who breathe and seek in the darkness.

The cool dark soothed them but their ordeal had been long. Ruby was taxed particularly from her outward pouring of grief, but although she longed for sleep she clung to Jesse with her eyes wide open, fearing she might lose him again if she closed her eyes.

Jesse was simply glad to be back in the world, whether it was day or night, but as he held Ruby close for the warmth of her body he woke to unsettling knowledge, things he needed to tell Ruby although he struggled for the proper words.

I need to go, he said.

Ruby hurried to agree, saying they should go back to the safety of her little house, but Jesse was called on to other places and so he softly denied those wishes.

I’m sorry Ruby.

I need to go… alone.

To the place that was prepared for me.

God knows how long ago.

Ruby did not ask Jesse to explain because she knew well enough where he meant. The place maintained by Carlos Lasenex, whom she had defied in such terrible error, who wielded his power without any hallmark to tell her what he was or whom he served.

You heard him, Jesse said.

When I fell.

Ruby had heard Lasenex cry out on the night Jesse had died, but she begged Jesse to think whether that cry was for Jesse lost or merely lost to him, whether Lasenex might be just one more creature anxious to possess Jesse, to use him for his own malicious ends.

Jesse listened to these doubts but he could not accede to them. You heard him, he said. There is love in him, Ruby, even though it might be severe. A great love and even greater responsibility. I cannot tell you how I know this but much of that love is for me, it is to protect me.

Now he is asking me to come to him. He doesn’t demand it, but he cannot allow for any alternative. For my protection, he says. Until I am ready. And so that I can learn, although he will not tell me what.

Jesse shook his head as if to clear it, then continued.

I don’t know how this is possible but I constantly hear his voice, like one crying out in the wilderness. He wants to prepare me, he says, to make my way straight. And he says there is work for you also, Ruby, work for you to do separately and alone.

Ruby could not deny any of these things but she could not bear the thought of losing Jesse again. She had once denied him Lasenex’s protection at the cost of his life but still she begged Jesse to think of alternate places, alternate plans. For such places as Lasenex maintained are not comprehended by Lupa, and they will not enter in, being places beyond the reckoning of justice with their souls unfit to plead.

Eventually Ruby’s exhaustion curtailed their discussion. She put her head on Jesse’s shoulder and begged for a little sleep, and Jesse pulled her in close and said nothing but comforting words, saying close your eyes my darling as he pulled her body in.

***

Ruby’s breathing deepened and her heart slowed down, and when she had settled completely Jesse gathered her up and stood with her sleeping in his arms. She had never been heavy but she now seemed infinitely light, as if special strength had come into Jesse designated for her protection.

As Jesse walked downhill Ruby fell deeper into sleep, breathing in time to the sway of his heavy bones. Jesse passed the grotto, and looking at those waters he was filled with a fierce protective love for Ruby, showing him what his purpose was in the world and what it had always been. He strode all the way down to the car park, the pines still whispering in greeting, his new strength surmounting every obstacle that had troubled him on the way up.

When they reached the stolen car Jesse set Ruby down gently in the passenger seat, pulling her pashmina around her. He brought the engine back to life and pulled the car out on to the blacktop, knowing exactly where he should go although he was not sure how he had come by that knowledge.

As he drove Jesse reflected upon the things he had said to Ruby, and also the secret knowledge he had been required to suppress. How long he and Ruby might be separated, the pain that this would cause. Lasenex had also been frank with Jesse about the limits of asylum, the forces that were arrayed against him, but although Jesse feared for his own safety he was much more concerned for Ruby’s fate if he could not be protected.

Ruby slept as Jesse drove sedately with the cruise control on. The car hummed sweetly up the freeway towards the Great City, then down the arterial roads that bled out gradually towards the east.

Lasenex had been stern with Jesse but underneath those strictures there lay tremendous care and also tremendous responsibility, to provide the best help and protection that the old man could provide. Bonds that were sealed with the promise of Lasenex’s own life, pledged to be given before Jesse’s life was lost. This blood pledge that was Jesse’s best comfort, and his greatest safety, his to take up before the sun could rise again.

Chapter 2 - Asylum

WHEN Jesse arrived at the hospital Carlos Lasenex was standing outside to meet him, flanked by two tall men dressed in hospital scrubs.

The doctor presented with his customary formality but he also smiled very warmly, shaking Jesse’s hand as he got out of the car, saying: welcome, welcome.

Welcome, Mr Quinn.

It is good to see you.

I had doubted whether we would meet each other again.

Jesse smiled weakly and said that he was glad also, but Lasenex only smiled and tutted at him. I think you might be putting that a bit strongly, Mr Quinn. You are here under sufferance, of course, there being nowhere else to go.

As his host ushered him onwards Jesse glanced back towards the car where Ruby still slept. Lasenex saw Jesse’s concern but he moved to deny his request before it could be made.

I am sorry, Mr Quinn. You must enter this place alone. I would say it is not safe for Ms Tuesday, but under present conditions? It is quite a lot worse than that.

Jesse saw with his nascent sight that this assessment was correct, and that any neglect of detail came from the old man’s wish to shield Jesse from the horrors that Ruby would encounter if she entered into the hospital. Jesse fought against these truths until Lasenex alleviated his distress with a promise of better things.

I will do my best, Mr Quinn.

To make it safe for a future visit.

But for the time being, as you see very clearly.

She must not follow you in.

***

Jesse had been gone for some time when Ruby finally woke. She threw off her cover and sat up straight in her seat to see Lasenex sitting where Jesse should have been, alert and upright, staring out over the bonnet of the car.

Where is he? Ruby snarled.

Inside, said Lasenex.

Ruby looked over towards the whitewashed walls of the hospital.

Take me to him.

No.

Yes.

No, Ms Tuesday. I cannot permit you to enter.

Ruby snarled and snapped at this refusal, demanding that the old man justify what he had said to her, and that he withdraw the refusal he had dared to utter. She was not civil in her demands and she burned to escalate things but Lasenex simply sighed and took them down into that shared space below speech where he could address her more directly, where the proper courtesies would be imposed on them and the right of Lasenex to be heard.

I have once before warned you, She-Wolf.

About the limits of your knowledge.

And yet you persist in your foolishness.

Ruby was forced to listen as Lasenex continued. The dangers within this place are far greater than any danger without. It was designed this way, for the containment of such dangers. And yet you would doubt me? Without once having ventured in?

Ruby demanded a full inventory of these dangers, with something like a scowl communicated even in that space, but Lasenex merely sank them further below speech to provide Ruby with the only explanation he was currently permitted to provide.

The dangers are manifold, he said. For the ones I keep here? Not all of them, Ms Tuesday, not by any stretch. But some are, as you would call them: The Unclean, The Unforgiven. Names that do not even begin to comprehend their depravity.

Ruby felt her hunting instincts flare at the naming of these creatures, her soul pulsing a deep arterial red, so that even Lasenex in the superiority of his current position felt a tremor come into him.

I know you would confront them, Lasenex said. Your courage, your commitment, these have never been in doubt. But these creatures are without fear, without pity. I swear to you: neither you nor your sisters, separately or together, could prevail over them for a single day.

This is why you hide, he said.

This is why you have condemned so many innocent men.

Lasenex did not intend to wound Ruby with these words but she was wounded just the same. Her chance redemption of Jesse had not expunged her shame at having caused his death, or alleviated the blood guilt afflicting every one of her kind.

None of it was intended, Ms Tuesday.

But you must remember: the dark places.

Within you, as within all.

***

There was further debate between Ruby and Lasenex as they sat together in the car, and although there were many facets to their disagreement the major focus was upon Jesse and his safety: whether that could be guaranteed in this place, what purpose might be served by his indentures there.

The argument between the two persisted over many different iterations, but while Ruby struggled bravely she already knew that Jesse would stay in this place, and that she would not be permitted to stay with him. She saw that she had lost Jesse to the care of the old man without understanding why the doctor had been assigned to protect him, or how the balance of light and darkness within those walls could possibly be resolved in Jesse’s favour.

Eventually Ruby got out of the car and traded places with the doctor, who stood back from his open door as she got into the driver’s seat. He had offered to disappear the car for her but she needed a way to get home, and in any event there were many places this car might take her on the next full moon, ways she could have her theft absolved and made to look like other crimes, perpetrated by people who deserved retribution even if they were innocent of that particular crime.

As Ruby started the car Lasenex bowed stiffly to her, and began to dissolve the shared thought-space in which they had contended. As he took his leave Lasenex praised Ruby for her commitment but Ruby rebutted that praise the instant it was given. Saying that it was the light within Jesse that had always bound her to him, that her heart would go into darkness should his light be lost to her again.

Lasenex nodded and said: your heart, of course, is lit up by him. And I can see that you are deeply illumined. But is this The One who will illuminate every human heart? Who died, and who is Risen? Who is come to redeem the utmost Heart of the World?

***

On her way back to her little house Ruby attended to various future plans, taking care of some pressing matters that demanded her urgent attention.

When she finally arrived home Ruby was soothed by the scent of her wild roses, but that was nothing compared to the scent of Jesse that still filled her tiny house. Ruby had prepared herself for solitude but not for Jesse’s overwhelming presence, lingering most powerfully within her unmade bed, the twist of his heavy limbs still marked out against her sheets.

Ruby groaned and without thinking further she sank to her knees and put her face into her bedding, the warm scent of Jesse flooding her with sorrow and desire. As she knelt there Ruby begged for his safe return, calling upon every spirit she could name and some whose names were obscure to her, crying out in the last hour of the night as Jesse’s lost presence overwhelmed her.

Chapter 3 - Wounds Like These

EACH morning Jesse Quinn would be brought back sleepless into the cold grey light of his cell. Each morning like every morning, the cheap frosting over the window glass diffusing the already sombre light.

Each morning Jesse would groan and roll about on the foam mattress but his denial of the new day would be wasted. Eventually he would sigh and then throw off his blankets, swinging his bare feet over the edge of the single bed, the cool concrete floor bringing some respite from the hardship of the night before.

Each morning Jesse would get up and slowly wander out of his cell, following the corridor down to the main room of his empty ward. He would greet the nurse sitting behind the glass screen of the medical station, who would smile back as though it might be the best day in the world.

Good morning Mr Quinn.

Morning, Jesse would say.

Did you manage to sleep?

No. Well. Perhaps a little.

I’ll get you some coffee.

And your breakfast, if you’re ready?

Jesse would nod and say thank you and then sit as his breakfast was brought to him. Although he always did his best to eat he found that food had completely lost its savour, his appetite like his sleep lost through his death and resurrection.

Each morning events followed the same precise course. Jesse would sit and shift in his seat, picking at his breakfast and watching the ward clock move slowly around to 10 am, the precise time that Lasenex would arrive to sit with him and chat and make his observations.

The doctor always greeted Jesse very warmly when he arrived, asking permission to sit with him, and Jesse would always say: of course. Lasenex would perch on a chair and engage Jesse in the same warm generalities and pleasantries, and Jesse would assent to these also.

After enquiring about Jesse’s sleep and appetite Lasenex would open his small medical kit, asking very politely whether Jesse would mind showing him the damage done to his body. Lasenex would carefully examine each wound and abrasion left from the night of Jesse’s death, wounds that would not heal or scar even under the expert ministrations of the old man.

These are strange wounds, the doctor would say.

Very strange.

They don’t hurt, Jesse would reply.

I wake up stuck to the bed every morning, but they don’t hurt.

Curious, Lasenex would say. Curious. Of course there have been wounds like these before. Marking various men, for various reasons. Wounds that most men choose to cover, to avoid their... consequences. What speaks from them, what they might reveal.

Jesse would ask for further explanation of these things but Lasenex would just tut and purse his lips, carefully disinfecting and powdering and dressing Jesse’s wounds in the same methodical way.

At the end of each consultation Lasenex would pack away all of his things, and then looking directly at Jesse would ask him the same question.

Do you feel ready, Mr Quinn?

Jesse would ask for more detail, what task might require his readiness, but each time Lasenex would evade the question with a strange smile and say: a test, Mr Quinn. Of what you have brought back. Jesse would sigh and shake his head and say no, he did not feel like being tested, and Lasenex would peer at him and then nod his head and agree with him completely.

Indeed, Mr Quinn.

Indeed you are not.

Well. We shall leave it there, for now.

Is there anything else you need?

Jesse would tell the doctor that there was nothing else that he needed, despite the fact that he wanted for almost everything: an end to his stay in hospital, a reunion with Ruby, a return to his former life. But Jesse knew that to ask for such things would be a show of bad faith, because they could not be given, and that he was condemned to languish in this place until his destiny could be proved, his way onward ascertained.

***

Although most nights Jesse remained wakeful there were times when he would dream, even in those nights he did not recall being asleep. And sometimes these were kind dreams, soothing dreams, consoling Jesse completely for those moments he lingered within them.

In one dream Ruby came to him perfumed, her fingers slick with myrrh and aloe, and before Jesse could speak she was upon him like lightning, her lips glowing like embers as she kissed him, scorching his dead lips back to life. Jesse went to ask her things but the taste of her dissolved his questions, stealing them from him as her tongue swirled against his tongue.

And there were other dreams. In one of these another woman appeared, and although Jesse knew her immediately he stood quietly as she greeted him, knowing there was no need to speak her name. She came already announced with her hair like sheaves of wheat, thick braids of golden sunshine and her skin all the bounty of the fields. Jesse’s heart melted as she smiled at him, and with her eyes pooled blue like oceans she told Jesse that she loved him, and that he had no cause to fear, and as Jesse bent his head she spread her hands out over him like the outstretched wings of a dove, baptising him in her love that is called the Waters of Mercy and is also The Light of the World.

From these dreams Jesse would emerge particularly bereft, these dreams of heat and light giving way to the sombre reality of the dawn, his loneliness made worse by the solace that would be stolen from him as day crept into his cell.

***

Each morning Jesse would wrestle himself out of bed, sleepless whether he had dreamed or not dreamed. He would walk down through the empty ward to sit picking at his breakfast, the cereal and the UHT milk and the endless instant coffee.

Every morning Lasenex would come to see Jesse at precisely the same time, imparting the same pleasantries and attending to the same wounds, and if he was interested in the content of Jesse’s dreams he never declared that interest or asked for those dreams to be described.

Lasenex would always conclude by asking Jesse the same question, a query that was obviously pointed and yet so hopelessly vague. Do you feel ready? Jesse asking each time for more information, Lasenex always smiling obliquely.

A test, he would say.

Of what you have brought back.

But only if you feel ready, Mr Quinn.

Only if you know yourself that today should be the day.

Each time that Jesse refused Lasenex would be in perfect agreement with him, saying as though clearly convinced of Jesse’s answer: indeed, Mr Quinn. You are not ready. You will know to answer differently, when the time has come.

Jesse eventually grew tired of this routine. His despair had pushed him past caring very much what the nature of these tests might be, and he knew that the path back to his old life lay through whatever Lasenex had prepared for him.

And so on one morning that seemed the same as any morning, when Lasenex asked the same question, Jesse finally felt his patience break and his decision erupt within him.

Dr Lasenex, he said.

I am tired of this game.

So I am going to call you on it.

I have no idea what you are asking, Jesse said. Or whether I am ready. But I can tell you: I am sick of these questions, I am sick of this place.

So I am going to say: I am ready.

Even though I have no idea what that even means.

Lasenex clapped his hands, smiling very broadly.

Perfect, Mr Quinn.

You are perfectly ready.

The doctor grinned and nodded excitedly, and as Jesse went to ask him further things Lasenex held up his hand to silence him.

Ready for what, you have always asked.

Well now, Mr Quinn.

Let me show you.

Let us see what you are suddenly so ready for.

Jesse smiled weakly at the enthusiasm that had gripped the old man, who was still clapping his hands and chortling, and he wondered whether the doctor might be quite as mad as the people he kept in his wards. Jesse was thinking how to suggest this when he saw a strange glint come into the old man’s eyes, and Jesse realized there was a much more pressing question that he had never before put.

Is this going to be dangerous? Jesse asked.

Lasenex smiled even more broadly. Ah, Mr Quinn. Now I must object to your question! After everything you have been through, everything you have seen. Do you really need to ask?

Jesse went to say no, and then to say yes, but as he thought about the question and the facts of his recent past he just sighed and shook his head and said: Dr Lasenex. One way or another, I need to get this over with.

The doctor sprang out his chair and motioned for Jesse to do the same.

Chapter 4 - To Those Who Are Bound

LASENEX led the way back down the hallway towards Jesse’s cell, then onwards past the other empty cells that made up the high dependency unit.

The passageway ended at a small concrete stairwell. The two men walked down the bare steps turning right and then right again, ending up in a small access area, featureless except for a painted steel panel set flush against one cinderblock wall.

Lasenex muttered as he fumbled with his keys. You would expect me to have better technology than this, he said. But that is the thing, you are only as secure as the most advanced of your enemies. And I promise you, Mr Quinn, my enemies comprise some very sophisticated people.

And where would I hide it?

A door they have not approved.

Leading to what they could never imagine.

And if it were found?

Lasenex fell silent after posing that question, leaving Jesse’s heart to sink at the thought of what might be behind the door, what he was going out to confront without protection or forewarning or any defences at all.

After some time Lasenex found the right key, inserting it into one of the rivet heads securing the steel panel to the wall. He twisted and pulled and the panel swung slowly outwards, a cool rush of air whispering past them as it escaped.

Lasenex ushered Jesse through the opening, closing it behind them to make the darkness absolute.

Doctor, Jesse said.

I can’t see…

Of course, said Lasenex.

Just give me a moment.

Jesse heard Lasenex mutter to himself again. After a few moments the walls of the space began to glow softly with a strange diffuse light, exposing a great length of corridor in front of them, leaving Jesse to blink in wonder that such huge space could be hidden.

The voice of the doctor came to him as he wondered. These are my back wards, he said. Established by others, now bequeathed to me. For the patients that are kept here, who are as you might say: the Unclean, the Unforgiven. At least until this point in time.

As he finished these words Lasenex patted Jesse gently on the shoulder, smiling and nodding as if his speech agreed completely with every outward observation.

For souls are infinitely various, are they not?

And what might be between souls and their redemption.

So that even the damned might have some chance.

A chance for which I have suffered them to live.

In his confusion Jesse would have asked about these things but the old man’s last comment chilled him into silence. The veiled threat in the gloved hand, the doctor’s bland profession of his power over life and death. Lasenex felt Jesse’s consternation but what he said next did not allay it.

Mr Quinn you come here as Light of Last Resort. What shines out of you, against the prevailing darkness. What other things might flow, once we prove what you have brought back.

Lasenex said nothing further and Jesse did not ask. They walked on as the floor began to slope gently downwards, passing though cooling air until they reached a metal door at the far end of the corridor. Lasenex touched his fingertips to a glass panel fitted to the adjacent wall and the door slid back to reveal a steel-lined chamber about the size of a goods lift, with another set of doors at the opposite end inset with opaque glass panels.

These particular doors are more sophisticated, Lasenex said. As well they might be. For these doors, chiefly the ones in front? These are the things that serve to hold Them in.

The men stepped into the chamber, the doors closing behind them. Lasenex pressed some buttons on the control panel and there was a hum of an electric motor, along with a rough abrading sound as if stone were being dragged across opposing stone. Through the transparent panels in the far door Jesse saw darkness interspersed with light flashing and alternating, a succession of lit spaces emerging and fading as the compartment ground its way onwards.

Jesse was astonished by all of this but the doctor merely shrugged. He told Jesse that many facts about the world were secreted from ordinary people, including the resources available to select people entrusted with selected work, with all of them enjoined against specifying the source of their assistance or the terms on which it was given.

You would be surprised, was all Lasenex said.

What might be available, to those who are willing to serve.

The compartment continued to shake and scrape its way onwards, the light of each cell window burning and fading as they passed by. Jesse grew disoriented with the distance they had travelled, what that said about the scale of these back wards, what dangers these patients must pose to warrant such extraordinary containment.

The compartment eventually ground to a halt with one external light centered in front of the opaque glass panels. Lasenex nodded somewhat wildly as he looked towards that light, his fingers hovering over the release mechanism that governed the front doors.

Are you ready? he asked.

No, replied Jesse.

But I’m guessing you're going to open that door anyway.

Lasenex laughed quietly, bowing a little as he did so.

You are learning, Mr Quinn.

But you are safe, I assure you.

You'll see what I mean, once I open this door.

Chapter 5 - Man Infestation

THE doors slid open and the two men stepped into a room roughly the same size and shape as Jesse’s cell: the same bed fixed to the floor topped with a rubberised mattress, with no other furniture at all.

At first Jesse thought the cell was empty, but then he saw a man crouched up on the bed, pressing himself into the far corner of the room. The man wore a grey jumpsuit cut from some dull material, so that with his pallor and his slight frame he was scarcely visible against the grey walls of the cell.

Kindle your fire, said Lasenex quietly.

I don’t understand…

Do it, Mr Quinn.

Jesse looked down at the palm of his right hand to see his light spark there once again, flashing and soaring out of his open palm. The light grew and consolidated into a beam of brilliant blue fire as Jesse stood with his hand outstretched, the same blue light suffusing him and shining out as one with what he was.

Lasenex stared in frank admiration to see this light for the first time. This light prophesied by so many, now made manifest in the world, although none could say what it signified, what it might foretell.

Jesse went to ask Lasenex what he knew about this light but a strange growl and giggle cut that enquiry off, these noises coming out of the prisoner still crouched up on the bed. The man's face snapped towards them, glowing sickly in Jesse’s blue light, and through his bared and filed-down teeth the prisoner began to speak.

Are you here to kill me?

O say that you are.

The Old Man will not let me live.

But the Old Man will never let me die.

Steady, said Lasenex quietly.

The prisoner looked puzzled as he gazed towards Jesse’s light. He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head in suspicion before rasping out further words.

What is this light? he asked.

What does it portend?

Why does the Old Man bid you to wave it at me so?

O I see. I See. This is what you stole, from the place where you were fallen. But this is hubris, Son of Man. This is emptiness and deception. You feel that you are special? Because you suffer, you must be special?

Lasenex grasped Jesse’s left arm as if to steady him but Jesse felt the tremor that had come into the doctor, despite his long experience in dealing with such creatures. Jesse took no comfort in that grip as the wretch continued to hiss and sway, seeking to make an alliance with Jesse against Lasenex and his kind.

Saying: Son of Man you are one of us. We sought for you, that day you were revealed, that night the witches killed you. There was much weeping, Son of Man, when we lost you, when you fell.

The creature shuddered and began to shed tears, and Jesse was seized with a desire to placate that sorrow. But as he watched Jesse was sickened to realise that these were false tears, show tears, squeezed out of a creature only sorry for itself, savoring its own tears for the salt that was within them. Tears that dried abruptly once the creature drank its fill.

And now the Jackal has you. Held here, as he holds us. You believe his lies, that this is to help you? Then pick up your bed and walk, foolish son! See if he will let you!

Jesse stood in horror and revulsion, watching this creature writhe and shake and spit its words at him. This thing inhuman in everything but its upright form, now just the skin and bones of a man infested with something else entirely. Jesse heard its taunts but he did not answer them, causing the creature to spit out further things.

So. You would betray Us. Now your blood flows with her blood, now you reek of her flesh. But We do not ask, Son of Man. We Demand. Surrender her to us! As you surrender yourself!

Blasphemer! Apostate! You come from the King of Kings, who begat the Fish God, who fell for His sake. He kills his sons, for it is right to do so. You descend from A’har’ham the obedient, who stretched his son on the pyre before the she-devils spirited him away.

Bend your head, Son of Man.

Stretch yourself across His Altar.

He demands His sacrifice, His burnt offering.

It will be rendered unto Him!

Jesse saw the man crouch back and tense his sinews, and then launch himself across the room. Jesse instinctively shot out his right hand but although his flame sparkled fiercely it did not repulse the attack. Jesse braced for impact but Lasenex was watching, seeing these familiar things as though they were occurring in slow motion. He saw Jesse fail to repulse the creature, saw its teeth bared and ready to bite down on any part of Jesse it could reach, and the old man sighed quietly and squeezed the small device he held in his left hand until he felt the switch click.

As soon as Lasenex activated his device the attack against Jesse was blunted. The prisoner stiffened and toppled over sideways to land convulsing on the floor, his back arching and pulling him away from Jesse, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Jesse gasped and staggered back against the opposite wall of the cell, his light now completely extinguished. He grasped at his throat to see whether any damage had been done, and as he tried to regain his breath Lasenex looked back at him with a gentle, apologetic smile.

I am sorry, Mr Quinn.

He was under my control.

I just needed to give you a bit of time.

To see what might… result.

Jesse breathed hard, looking at the pitiful figure convulsing on the floor.

How did you do that? Jesse gasped.

With this, said Lasenex, holding up his device.

I have some electrodes planted within his brain.

I can activate them any time I wish.

As Lasenex held up his little controller for Jesse to see he released the switch that he had pressed, cutting the current flowing through the patient’s brain. The wretch stopped convulsing and lay groaning on the floor.

The two men stood in the stark room, waiting until Jesse had recovered. Lasenex looked back towards the metal compartment, causing Jesse great relief until the old man asked him: onwards?

Jesse had thought they might go back to his ward and he told Lasenex so, pointing out that his light had done nothing, that it had completely failed the test. Lasenex listened but he pursed his lips as he did so, saying:

This is just one subject, Mr Quinn.

A sample size of one is not a sample.

As you may have guessed, if you have the stomach for it.

I have plenty of others to try.

***

Every time they hoped it would be different, and every time events unfolded in exactly the same way. Jesse and Lasenex went from cell to cell to confront these patients only to be harried and insulted and then viciously attacked, with Lasenex ending each confrontation by his kill switch and the convulsions it produced.

Jesse would kindle his light only to have it ridiculed and demeaned. The prisoners sneering at Jesse as his light shone in his hand, leering at him amidst their hacking coughs and their demands. That Jesse should submit to them, and surrender Ruby to them, and bow down before their Gods who lust to humiliate and enslave.

These creatures knew Lasenex was impervious to their wiles so they focused their hatred upon Jesse. They insulted him and disparaged him with endless excoriating names, calling him grave-meat and man-slave and the used-up ration of whores, their mouths seizing on every insult that could be hurled. They called him death-cheat and grave-dust, they slandered him with the words of every insane saint, every depraved prophet of history. They spoke of his redeemer especially with ugliness and contempt, naming things in Ruby that Jesse was sickened to hear named, all for the pleasure of the degraded souls who spat these things at him.

And they called him coward, coward, they asked whom he had killed and they laughed because they knew he had killed nobody. They called him weakling, simpleton, they laughed at his conception of justice and they goaded him to agree, saying that all men were foul and wretched and corrupt, the same things that the princes of his church had always flung at him, the slander and accusation that drives the religions of men. They screeched that God is One, that their God was the One God who would strike down upon unbelievers, and strike at Jesse especially for turning against his God, denouncing this usurper who would make the name of God reviled amongst the nations.

Jesse was trained in words and he had some resistance to these taunts, so whilst they struck him violently he maintained some immunity against them. He fought against the words that slandered Ruby but at the same time he was comforted by the mention of her name, despite the efforts of these tongues to twist her name and smear it.

Jesse resisted and his accusers saw him do it, even though much of his resistance came out of weariness rather than any particular courage. And when it became clear that Jesse would not be overpowered these wretches would coil back like vipers and strike at him, launching themselves at Jesse with their teeth bared and their fingers grasping for his throat.

Lasenex watched each confrontation tight with hope that Jesse’s light might prevail, but each time the old man was required to activate his device and bring the prisoner crashing to the floor, thrashing in the seizures brought on by the electrons flooding through their brain.

Each time the two men had the same conversation.

It's not working, Jesse would say.

Keep trying Mr Quinn.

I am trying Doctor.

I don’t know what else I can do.

Jesse tried everything he could think of but his efforts came to nothing. He would hold and shape his light differently, shining it straight out in front of him and then raising it up, fanning it across the whole of his body as a fine blue shield that failed to shield him from anything. Jesse found that he could intensify his light upon a single razor-sharp line, but although that blue lightning crackled and flashed wildly along its length, taking all of his efforts to restrain it, still that razorlight came to nothing.

Lasenex began with hope for Jesse and the light that he wielded but he grew discouraged as Jesse’s efforts were thwarted. The old man saw each excursion end in the victory of contempt, the greater negation of Jesse’s light and the darkening of his soul.

The prisoners knew what device Lasenex wielded, and as the days wore on they would merely toy with Jesse’s light, pushing their hands and heads into it to show themselves entirely impervious. Jesse became demoralised and soon he hardly tried at all, leaving the cool blueness to sputter in his hand while the prisoners laughed at him, their derision killing off the last of the fight that Jesse had left within him.

Gradually these confrontations degenerated into complete stalemate. Jesse stood without hope and the creatures stopped bothering to leap at him, so that Lasenex began to hold his kill switch very loosely, without any cause to use it. The prisoners giggling in their mirthless superiority, showing Jesse the smug smile that is the final indicia of such victories.

Back on the empty ward Lasenex would try to rouse Jesse.

There are more cells, he would say.

More possibilities.

With Jesse responding less and less.

I have tried, he would say.

There is no point.

Lasenex would not be deterred.

Mr Quinn, he would say.

I can assure you, there most definitely is a point.

With Jesse and his patience finally at an end.

Then show it to me, Carlos.

Show me the fucking point.

Time wore on. Jesse would go with Lasenex to the back wards but apart from that he moved less and less, the despondency of his captive life getting into his bones and sequestering itself there. Made worse each day that Jesse encountered defeat, leaving his courage to fail badly and his heart to go into darkness.

Eventually Lasenex stopped taking Jesse to the prisoners, saying: some time, Mr Quinn, I think might be in order. Jesse nodded listlessly without bothering to argue, knowing that Lasenex preferred his own view about such matters whether he agreed with him or not.

***

In the increased hardness of his nights Jesse confronted himself, asking what he was doing in this awful place, whether he really knew anything anymore. His dreams and his wakefulness merged into one blurred sense of unreality, a dreamscape grey and inchoate and making less sense every day.

As Jesse sloughed into despondency his mind began to play tricks on him. He had hollowed out his narratives by going over them too often: the memories leading to his night of love with Ruby, every crazed thing that had happened to him since. The grotto and the Twelve, his death and resurrection. His memories became more dream-like the more he went over them, the less he slept, until he saw very clearly that these were unreasonable things, fantastical things, things that might be imagined but lacking any plausible connection to reality.

Jesse sank as he combed his memory flatter and flatter. He began to wonder whether he was still dead and never resurrected, languishing in some purgatory peculiar to his own soul, a staging or testing place for souls whose merit had not been ascertained. Jesse saw that Lasenex would be a fine keeper of such a place, with the tests he set and supervised, wanting Jesse to prove himself brave enough or enduring enough to move on from this provisional realm.

Jesse began to clutch to this understanding because another possibility ripened in him, one far more in in keeping with his current condition. That he was restrained in this common place for the common reason, the simplest explanation coherent with the known facts, needing no recourse to narratives that grew in their strangeness and fictivity every day that Jesse rehearsed them.

Not that, he prayed.

Quite to whom he did not know.

Please not like that.

Jesse resisted this explanation because all it offered him was loss, a brutal gouging of the best parts of his life. Those times when he was strong despite his loneliness, his solitude soothed by the consolations of his honour, the steadiness lent to him by his seamless, well-ordered mind.

Then there was Ruby. Everything that Jesse had wanted from her, and his much greater desire to give things to her, to love her as she deserved to be loved. Jesse begged for this part of his delusion to be maintained, at least for as long as possible, the way that dreamers do when they are about to exit a particularly beautiful dream. This fantasy that Jesse had sold himself now becoming exposed, leaving him alone amongst the squalid remains of his mind, with all of it lying wrecked against the ugly prospect of pity, which Jesse now saw as the cruellest prospect of all.

Chapter 6 - Noli Me Tangere

AS soon as the phone rang in her little house Ruby knew who was on the line. She also knew the message, the better part of it anyway, and that knowledge made her tremble. She would have picked up immediately but she forced herself to breathe, carefully and deliberately, waiting for three rings before answering the phone.

Lasenex was typically direct. He engaged in some brief pleasantries but did not waste any further time, speaking in terse terms about Jesse and the state that he was in. He asked whether Ruby might visit Jesse, as soon as she possibly could, he spoke of preparations made to guarantee her safety.

I can keep you safe, Ms Tuesday.

For an hour or so at least.

If you will come.

I can restrain Them for that long.

Ruby was torn between her concern for Jesse and her desire to see him again, to touch him with her burning fingers and to kiss his mouth once more. She asked whether Jesse needed anything brought to him but Lasenex dismissed the idea.

Just bring yourself, Ms Tuesday.

It might help him, if he sees you again.

But I will not lie to you.

In the state that he is in?

Even your beloved presence might not be enough to reach him.

***

In quick time Ruby showered and dressed and before very long she was at the hospital, being ushered by two nurses into Jesse’s empty ward.

She found Jesse sitting at a table with his lunch laid out in front of him: a plastic tray with plastic implements, a styrofoam cup of coffee. Although Ruby’s heart leapt to see Jesse it also bled to see him so changed, with his hair matted down so strangely, his posture lately slumped to the shape of a much older man.

Ruby put on her best smile.

Jesse, she said softly.

To speak his beloved name.

At this greeting Jesse looked up at Ruby, as she stood there smiling at him. She saw his face light up with his great love but then a shadow crossed his face to take that light away, as he eased himself up from the table to embrace her.

Jesse’s strangeness persisted as he hugged Ruby. She felt his body grown slack, his soul sunk within him as well, and as tightly as she squeezed him he did not respond to her touch at all. Ruby was so dismayed by this that she broke out of their embrace.

Ruby was lost for words but then she remembered something.

I brought you a present, she said.

She rummaged in her bag and came up holding a small block of fine chocolate, and a black notebook with a pen sticking out of the spine. I thought they might help, she said. Jesse was gracious as always and he thanked Ruby for her gifts, but his eyes remained averted from her as he held them in his hands.

They sat and Ruby did her best to chat but she felt deprived of speech, out of her concern for Jesse but also the anger that flared in her at the change in his feelings towards her, feeling ashamed for that anger the instant it arose.

One of the nurses brought Ruby a cup of tea but she felt too sick to touch it. She cast around desperately for conversation and found herself speaking of practicalities, various aspects of Jesse’s legal practice and the arrangements she had made. Just as Ruby got to telling Jesse about the locum she had interviewed she saw a tear fall from him, splashing down heavily on the wrapper of the chocolate that he held in his hands.

As Jesse bent his head and wept quietly Ruby gave up her pretense at chatter.

Jesse, she said.

Please talk to me.

I can’t stand to see you like this.

Please tell me what’s going on.

Jesse sighed and wiped the tears from his face, but when he shook his head and tried to compose himself he only dislodged further tears.

I know what has happened, he said finally.

Ruby grabbed his hand.

Jesse I know…

Ruby, he said.

Please just… stop.

I know you want to help me but please, Ruby.

I don’t understand why you won’t just be honest with me.

Ruby felt a horrible crashing feeling as Jesse said these words, feeling his heart recoil from her, the first time she had ever felt him withhold anything from her at all. In a tremulous voice she asked Jesse to explain what he meant but he just waved his hands in wordless explanation, gesturing towards the bleak grey walls of the ward. Ruby wished that he would speak but she immediately wished otherwise once Jesse found his words.

I know where I am, he said. I know why I am here. The staff care for me very well but I don’t understand why everyone has to lie to me. Lasenex most of all, although I don’t think much of that is real.

Ruby stared without comprehension as Jesse continued to speak.

I know what has happened, Ruby. You don’t need to pretend. I don’t know how far back it goes, how long I have been deluding myself, but I have to say: it feels like it goes back a very long way.

Ruby gasped and held out her hands to implore Jesse against this madness but he would not look at her. She went to say things but there was only one word she could manage. No, she said. No, Jesse. But Jesse in his extremity was now well beyond her reach.

Yes, Ruby, he said. You don’t need to prop me up. I appreciate everyone’s efforts, really I do, but they have begun to feel patronising, even cruel. I know you mean well but I need to face up to this, I need to get my head straight and get better and get myself out of here.

But even if I do?

I don’t see how I can recover.

I don’t think my old life is ever going to come back.

Ruby began to feel unseated by Jesse’s speech, by his obvious suffering but also his distance and his coldness towards her. Seeing him put such an end to himself, seeing him put an end to the two of them as well.

Jesse sighed to see this pain rise in Ruby. You see what I have brought you, he said. You came to work for me and I transgressed those boundaries, I owed you my respect and I showed you just the opposite.

I’m sorry for all of it, Ruby. To have kissed you, if that even happened. And I’m sorry for all of the trouble that I have caused you since.

But Jesse…

Please, Ruby. I have the best of help. The pills Lasenex gives me, for my blood pressure, for my sleep. I know what they are. I know they’ll help me get better. I’m just hoping they kick in soon.

But Jesse…

Please Ruby. You should go. There’s plenty in the cash account, you should pay yourself for as long as you need, until you find somewhere else to go.

Ruby began to sob quietly and Jesse could not bear to see it. He felt her sorrow more keenly than his own sorrow, multiplied by his shame that after all he had put this woman through he should be causing her further tears.

Jesse saw her heart collapse and his heart collapsed also.

Please Ruby.

I can’t bear to see you suffer.

Not when all I have ever wanted is...

What, Ruby said.

What have you wanted?

Jesse shook his head slowly.

It doesn’t matter, he said.

It was insane.

No Jesse…

Yes, Ruby. It was my longing, my loneliness. All of the love I wanted to give you, when in reality I had nothing to give to anyone.

Don’t say that, she said.

It's true, Ruby.

I appreciate your kindness, your coming to visit me.

But even that is painful to me now.

Ruby reached out for his hand but Jesse pulled it back.

Don’t, he said.

Don’t touch me.

It only makes it worse.

At Jesse’s rejection of her touch Ruby was cast down. The tethers of her soul scythed, her various parts left to spin viciously out of control. She sank into a bleak fugue where she no longer knew where she was or what she was or what she thought, no longer comprehending Jesse or what he was doing to her, his coldness and rejection of her done in the name of Love.

Ruby got up from the table and looked around wildly. She felt like striking Jesse or worse, so roused were her hunting instincts. She felt terrible fury but also profound waves of pity for this man put to such extremity, who would wound her even as he tried to protect her. Don’t touch me. Ruby was wounded even by his courtesy, showing that his heart was now closed to her, leaving her to linger outside of his gates along with every other hungry ghost that leered and longed for Jesse from the other side of his threshold.

Ruby lurched over to the locked doors of the ward and banged on them, yelling out for the nurses, and when those doors were opened she rushed straight out of the ward.

After Ruby left Jesse sat there dull and disgusted with himself, with his comfortable self-loathing that had caused another woman to suffer. Seeing why his mother had always heaped such scorn upon his head, proving all of the contempt and accusation she had ever heaped up against him.

Chapter 7 - A Spring Shut Up

RUBY eventually made her way home from the hospital, arriving without any recollection of the route she had taken or the time she had taken to travel it.

Ruby fell down on her battered sofa with her heart in pieces. She would have made tea or sought some other solace but she knew there was nothing that could comfort her.

Her people could not help. Even the luminous spirit of her mother, who stayed with her into the night. They were divided into those who had loved men and those who had not, and those who had not loved men could not comprehend her sorrow, and those who had loved men were left shattered by it, by the disaster and death it had caused. And not one of these women had felt the scorn of a living man, this fate much worse than death, to be sent away in contempt or consideration with the cruellest of all injunctions: do not touch me.

Ruby railed against Jesse but every time she went to strike at his memory she was overcome by her pity and concern, and every time she tried to clasp his memory close she felt scorned by his words again. Reflecting those times that she had scorned him, those times she was required to maintain her distance and so had rejected his love. Ruby also knew that she had brought this disaster upon Jesse, whose life had been so simple before she entered, a death he did not deserve and his consequent suffering, his love for her dragging him both ways through Hell and now into the place where he languished.

Ruby could not be comforted. She swung between her fury and her pity, she suffered for Jesse’s suffering and the shame of bringing him to shame. Hemmed in by rage on her right hand and sorrow on her left, with no way to steer back from them and no way to journey through.

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